Synopsis

A chaotic backstage comedy follows Randy Quaid as a harried Dire Straits roadie struggling to keep order during a concert. When a woman slips past security and reaches the stage, he chases her through the band's equipment, knocking over gear and disrupting the performance. Quaid also imagines himself taking Mark Knopfler's place as frontman. The slapstick action plays against the song's swaggering portrait of a pleasure-seeking, hard-living rock star.

Factoids & Trivia

• Randy Quaid plays the band's roadie, turning the video's exaggerated rock-and-roll lifestyle into a comic performance rather than presenting Mark Knopfler as the song's literal narrator.

• Quaid also appears on the cover of the "Heavy Fuel" single, giving the character a role in both the promotional video and the record's visual identity.

• Keyboardist Guy Fletcher recalled that the video was filmed in Sheffield in 1991. His keyboard rig was recreated with balsa-wood replicas so that the stage action could include equipment being knocked over without damaging the real setup.

• The stage sequence was built around a woman invading the concert area and Quaid chasing her through the band setup. This provided the video's main physical-comedy set piece.

• Mark Knopfler has described the song's central character as a composite rather than a direct self-portrait. The lyric was partly inspired by John Self, the hedonistic protagonist of Martin Amis' novel "Money."

• "Heavy Fuel" was released in 1991 as the second single from "On Every Street," Dire Straits' sixth and final studio album.

• The single reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart, although it did not become a major UK pop-chart hit.