Reviews

The Olympic Ice Stadium in Innsbruck is an accoustic monster venue and
about ten years ago Mr. Dylan played here one of his worst shows ever.
Last night maybe for this and some other strange reason Mr. Dylan was up
to something. With Jim Keltner on drums (who also seemed to have something
to proof) Mr. Dylan and his band took the audience through an almost
impeccable 11 song ride from a retrospective "My Back Pages" to a
delirious "Drifter's Escape". Mr. Dylan and his awesome band were in such
fine form that he could take any hidden nugget from his limitless song
book and let it shine: be it "Solid Rock" from SAVED, "Fourth Time Around"
from BLONDE ON BLONDE,  "I Believe in You" from SLOW TRAIN COMING or
"Drifter's Escape" from  JOHN WESLEY HARDING. 

And apart from all that there were some of Mr. Dylan's fine song lines to
catch. 

"When she said/ "Don't waste your words, they're just lies,"/ I cried she
was deaf."

"They ask me how I feel/ And if my love is real/ And how I know I'll make
it through."

"I'm walking through streets that are dead/ Walking, walking with you in
my head/ My feet are so tired, my brain is so wired/  And the clouds are
weeping."

were the lines that stuck with me.

And no one in Innsbruck last night seemed to mind that the great song and
dance man with the world's most expensive drummer on drums and one of the
best touring bands at hand completely messed up some (and especially the
last) of the encore songs. 

But maybe there is a next time around. 

Josef Wolf

The show took place in the Olympiahalle, a venue of the 1964 Winter 
Olympics in Innsbruck, and started at about 8.15 pm (approximately 15
minutes late) with yet another version of Humming Bird. It was nothing
special yet, just the usual warming up. The next song offered the
evening's first surprise. For the first time on the current European tour
The Times They're A-Changin' was not second on the playlist. Indeed Bob
didn't play this song at all (maybe he saw the Olympiahalle and thought
that times still aren't changing in Austria ;-). Instead he played Senor
(Tales Of Yankee Power) which was - I'm afraid - an average and quite
uninspired acoustic version of this seldom-played-song. But somewhere in
the middle of Desolation Row things began to change, Bob seemed to have
found his rhythm and things just got better and better from that on. After
Absolutely Sweet Marie, Solid Rock marked the first great part of the
electric set, followed by a nice Sugar Baby- version and a great Highway
61 Revisited with a very long rock-guitar- outro, the audience loved a
lot. Followed by this was another highlight, a great acoustic version of
Mr. Tambourine Man. Although it was very different to the original version
- particularly at the beginning, it was one of the best songs that night.
After Fourth Time Around Bob played Don't Think Twice It's Alright, a
great acoustic version and in my opinion the best song of the show. The
next songs were Summer Days, I Believe In You, Drifter's Escape and a
great final Cat's In The Well. The encore started with Love Sick and a
good version of Like A Rolling Stone (featuring nice lightning shining on
the audience every time during the refrain and also the first standing
ovations). After a great acoustic version of If Dogs Run Free Bob played
Honest With Me and finally the one and only song, the one without the
audience won't have let him go: Blowin' In The Wind, nothing special but
good and solid as ever since and a perfect end for a great show. Bob
seemed to be in good mood that night not regarding the concert as daily
routine. He actually seemed to have fun and was even kind of dancing
during some songs. Although the tickets prices were quite high (as usual)
there were a lot of people of all different age but the Olympiahalle was
just slightly too big to be filled completely. However it was a great
evening and a wonderful performance. 

--- an admiring austrian fan