April 5, 2007
Review by Joop Bekkema
The small venue in Münster (great acoustics but strange seating
arrangements where the crowd faces each other with Bob 90 degrees to their
left or right) opened the doors early so everybody could enter without a
problem and have a drink or something to eat first. Great hospitality
which I hope we will see in Amsterdam as well but I have my doubts. Dylan
was in excellent shape tonight with a voice I had not heard in years. Very
clear and very strong. The band (it must be the same that played in the
previous shows) was very very average. They produced a very good sound,
but without any brilliance. Tony and George are solid, Donny Herron is an
average steel player but Denny and Stu fail to convince. If Dylan calls
this the best band he ever played with, this may be true for the band
itself (good followers and very good for their wives) but certainly NOT in
the capability to play their instrument. That typical Dylan-remark goes in
the "lightbulb" category. (Dylan told a reporter that he is always
carrying a lightbulb)
The setlist was a little surprising with a truely wonderfull High Water,
a brilliant Till I Fell In Love With You and an also unexpected Hattie
Carroll and Simple Twist Of Fate. The rest was standard.
Dylan opened very strong with Cat's In The Well ( one of the best openers
after Down Along The Cove) and a Don't Think Twice, where not only the
audience failed to see where the band was going, but also the band itself
seemed to have no idea what was expected from them. A very weak
performance. Watching the river Flow was much better and really rocking,
followed by a very solid It's All Right Ma. During these four songs Dylan
played the guitar and it was like coming home. Please burn the organ!
The next was When The Deal Goes Down. For me one of the weakest songs
Dylan ever wrote and certainly not a pleasure to watch although Freeman
manages to produce a solo that matches the original. He fails to do the
same when playing Thunder On The Mountain by the way, while this solo is
nothing more than elementary. High Water was something special, Hattie
Caroll was unexpected but nice and Till I fell In love with You was
nothing more than brilliantly played. Simple twist Of fate was another
unexpected song beautifully performed . After this everything was routine
with the exception of a wonderfull Nettie Moore. Thunder On The Mountain
and especially Summer Days were songs where the absence of a truely great
guitarplayer was paramount. We used to have duels between Campbell and
Koella. Now these songs just end in a wall of sound without a brilliant
solo by ......... (fill in the names of all great guitarplayers in Dylan's
bands)
Despite the lack of brilliance in the band, I saw a very good show. The
sound is great and the people are happy and they are dancing. This means:
they liked it! To be complete I like to quote somebody who said: Even if
Dylan comes on stage and bakes an egg, the crowd will love it.
Review by Tobias Freimüller
Since this show sounded almost exactly like the scandinavian ones we’ve
heard from this tour, and since there were no surprises at all I won’t
write a song by song review this time – just a few remarks:
The information that they sold only half of the tickets was surely
wrong, in fact the place was packed.
Bob had his new white hat on and entered the stage right at 19:30h, he
played the first four songs on guitar again. Although the guitar was
very high in the mix, we did not hear much of it – he played just a
few notes here and there.
The bearded guy who played steelguitar in Sweden and Norway is gone.
Donny is back. cool Thank god his steelguitar was not as high in the mix
as it used to be.
One of the funniest Bob moments happened after the rather solid CATS IN
THE WELL: The Band started playing, problem was that they were playing
different songs! Bob was playing the chords of DON’T THINK TWICE
(well, sort of...), but all (or some?) of the others were obviously
prepared for another song. After a few bars of pure chaos they nearly
stopped playing – everybody was looking around very puzzled – Tony
gave his electric bass away and took the acoustic stand up bass instead.
Bob was simply playing on and on – and finally everyone joined him to
do DON’T THINK TWICE. I have never (!) seen Tony so surprised, very
funny!
When he slipped behind his keys after IT’S ALRIGHT MA, Bob indeed
looked much more comfortable than with the guitar strapped on, bounced
around, nodded and wiggled as always.
HIGH WATER was the best song of the night. While Bob was loosing a line
here and there on other songs, he was extremely focused here, the
arrangement works very well, his voice fits the song – perfect!
HATTIE CAROLL had a nice ending with harp, it was distracted by some
rough edges of the vocals though.
'TIL I FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU was a nice semi-surprise, they played the
bang, bang, bang“ chords after the verses again as they did in late
2005, another good performance.
SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE was another great choice, sadly Bob has still not
found a way to sing it. His voice sounded shot into pieces on this one,
so he flew into the staccatto-style: „So he - - woke up - - the room -
- was bare - - he did not - - see her - - anywhere“ etc.
During this song – surprise, surprise! – Denny played the only solo
that was halfway decent. It actually fits to the song and was more than
the „doiiing, doiiing, doiiing“ he usually plays.
I still miss Larry & Charly. Remember when the instrumental parts of the
show were interesting? Those were the days...
To make up for his solo in SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE, Denny played something
during SPIRIT ON THE WATER what was so bad that people around us looked
to eachother scratching their heads.
ROLLIN‘ & TUMBLIN‘ and THUNDER ON THE MOUNTAIN are sounding the same
every night. Actually I’m bored with these songs (well: riffs) already
now.
NETTIE MOORE was the usual showstopper, although Bobs voice was too shot
tonight to sing it as moving as he can on better days. Still a
highlight.
ROLLING STONE and WATCHTOWER need a rest.
All in all a solid and entertaining show. I’m looking forward to
Frankfurt later this tour!
Review by Ap Sreblaa
Many years after and after I've seen a lot and the most different performances by
our Bobness. The band on this tour - I mean the quitarplayers - are good followers
but nothing more then that. George and Tony are solid and bearing the band.
I'm missing the highlights in sound with solo's and subtilety that was played in the
shows with Larry and Charly. They also doing this with their voices in mixed-chorus.
George are a very well played drummer, fast and strong, but the shows with Jim
Kelner were full with feeling-touch and subtility with the quitarplayers Larry and
Charlie.
Now the show become routine and hears flatly with sometimes a highlight by
inspiration of Bob himself. Bob makes to much European tours in short times. I
hope he don't going back to the flatly and sometimes miserable tours from the
late eighties / begin nineties, that were shows in darkness without any inspiration.
Now I see - the last years - more and more young people mixed with mid-aged
and older fans, that's great! The venues are full and have now a magnificent
audience. Bob, keep and hold it! Make good choises/decisions in your travelin
bandmusicians on tour.
The setlist was surprised with a beautifull "Nettie Moore" For the rest see review
by Joop Bekkema, he wrote with his review the right things and gives the only
right opinion about this European Bob-tour.
Ap Sreblaa
Review by Joost Horsthuis
A solid show indeed, but - except for Tony and George - oh what a
crappy band this is. Nice to see Tony given a role somewhat more in the
spotlights though. In particular those two gentlemen holding the guitar
are so awfully boring and hopelessly average, that it must have been some
kind of joke to call thia the best band in the world. Most of the time
they seem to have absolutely not a clue what to play, and why they are
even there. Anyway, Bob, George and Tony had to do the hard working here,
which turned out, glad to say, pretty well. Staring at the ground from
under the new hat the first songs, but as usual getting more enthousiastic
later on, Bob seemed to have a good time, banging back and forth, left to
right, skeleton breakdancing and at one point seeming to almost be trying
to hammer the piano into the stage. Kind of average setlist, with a
beautiful Simple twist of fate, a breathtaking Til I fell in love with you
and an absolutely fine version of Nettie Moore. Highway 61 was nailed down
with force, as was High Water. But no outstanding guitar work AT ALL,
which is definetely sad, spoiled as we have become with Charlie, Larry and
the great great Freddy Koella. His bands always more than great, worth the
effort of watching them even if they would have performed without Bob.
Well, enough about this.
To be in a German crowd was for once actually a nice experience, people
dancing and screaming like hyenas, not as static as we see frequently at
Bob shows here in Holland. On the other hand, the security men climbing
from front row into the audience to grab peoples telephones or whatever
weapons of mass destruction they might have held, were ridiculously
overreacting. They seemed to have set their goals at spoiling the
second half of the show for the people in the first rows. Bob must
have seen this, as it was quite a small venue and all this shit
happened right under his nose.
Anyway, all in all nothing really special but a decent show, nice
venue, beautiful weather, we'll see what Eastern will bring in
Amsterdam.
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