Reviews

Mannheim, Germany

SAP Arena

April 30, 2007


[Willi Frantzen], [Joachim Richter]

Review by Willi Frantzen



On a gorgeous summer day at the end of april we travelled south about 
250 km to Mannheim to see our last show of this year’s european leg of 
the never ending tour. We had been in Brussels and Düsseldorf.

It was my birthday, and nothing could really go wrong…and it didn’t.

We were in 7th row and we could see Dylan up close through our
binoculars, he was obviously in good spirits. His voice was strong
throughout the whole set. Again he had changed the set for the night,
giving All Along the Watchtower a rest and closing the set with Like a
Rolling Stone.

I never heard him do My Back Pages & Blowin’ in the Wind, a nice 
birthday surprise.

My favourite song of the night was Tangled up in Blue, it’s on the first
Dylan LP I bought way back when.

The band was excellent throughout the set, with no major flaws. At one
point Dylan had to stop singing, because he was laughing so hard, he was
having a good time, so did we and the rest of the audience.  

It was a great set with a few surprises, and we cannot wait for next
years shows to roll into europe.

[TOP]

Review by Joachim Richter



After Düsseldorf, Stuttgart and Frankfurt this was my last concert for
this tour. I came to Mannheim with very low expectations. I had attented
two shows which were not too good (Düsseldorf and Frankfurt) and I knew
that the complete Mannheim venue would be seated. As is known, the past
reviews of the shows in seated concert halls were usually not encouraging.
But what happens if you go to a BD concert with mixed feelings: you get a
great experience.

One of the great things about Mannheim was that smoking was not allowed
which made the concert experience much better. And: people stayed seated
until the end of the 15th song when the band left the stage. And: this
fact did not push down the mood in the audience, it made it better. The
audience was very concentrated and calm during the performance, but at the
end of each song the applause was outstanding. Only during the encore -
songs #16 and #17 - the audience stood up to cheer for the heroes.

Also the musicians seemed to enjoy this special kind of concert. 
While Bob introduced the band with identical phrases in the shows before,
he mad some jokes in Mannheim when doing the introduction. Unfortunately I
could not understand most of it, but I believe he called Donnie Herron a
"Rocket Man". (Whatever this means.)

As a special gift, Bob omitted "Summer Days" ald "All along the 
Watchtower" from the setlist. A real deliverance!
The surprises of the setlist were "My Back Pages" which I never had heard
in concert before, "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" in the middle of the set,
and "Blowin' in the Wind" in a novel arrangement. From the classic songs,
even "Stuck inside of Mobile" and "Highway 61" sounded great. The new
songs were great anyway and, as usual, acclaimed by the crowd. Denny
Freeman's guitar solos were played economically but really beautiful.

The only small disappointment was that a 3rd encore was not delivered
although the audience clapped like crazy.

Joachim Richter

[TOP]

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