Reviews

As I announced on the Zurich review, I did change my mind and went into
another Dylan Show this year. First I had in plan to spend a weekend in
Milano Italy with my girlfriend, but changed my plans as I read about the
complete seated venue. By the way the hotels arent the cheapest and so I
decided to drive to Regensburg Germany, a 3 hr ride by car.

I arrived about 4 pm. At the same time as I parked my car in front of the
Donau Arena the tourbus with Tony Garnier in the front seat rolled in.
What a timing! I couldnt believe it and thought "wow, now you can see Bob
before the show". But after Tony, David, Larry and Charlie get out, no Bob
followed. Probably he has his own bus, what a pity!

At about 6.30 they opened the door and I ran like crazy just to be in the
first row. Without the "ladies and gentleman..." they started with "Duncan
and Brady". The sound was very bad and Dylans guitar was much louder than
his voice. Probably the sound was better in the backrows I dont know.
After a standard "Times" they did a very beautiful "Desolation row" with a
clapping audience during the intro. I liked it, a very nice one with
intense singing an very good guitar work. Then followed "Delia" which was
also very well done but far away from the Zurich performance. Then we had
"Tangled" sounding like "Tangled". A very country like "To Ramona" closed
the accoustic set.

As I expected "Country pie" was the first rocker in a solid but known
version. Then highlight Nr 1 came: A very very slow and beautiful
"Positively 4 th street" with excellent guitar work by Bob on his fender.
Charlie did a good job on "All along the watchtower" which rocked good.
Next was "Make you feel my love", a standard one. Highlight Nr 2 was
"Drifters escape" in a new full power rock n roll version again with nice
guitar by Charlie. It also was the first of two songs of the evening with
Bob blowing the harp. And I mean blowing the harp like a hurricane. "Pill
box hat" closed the first half and with a bow they left the stage.

Like in Zurich the first two encores were "Love sick" and "Rolling stone",
not much to say about these two. But then Highlight Nr. 3 followed and it
was "Girl of the north country" which really is an alltime favourite of
mine. And this one sounds very very emotional an very sad to. Like he
still is sad about the separation and must tell us his feelings.

Unfortunatly the next 5 songs ( "Highway 61, "Dont think twice"(Bob on
harp 2nd time), "Not fade away", "Rainy day woman", "Blowing in the wind"
) were sung without expression and emotion and also far away from the
Zurich performance. All in all I must say that my desire of a good Dylan
show was not satisfied at all. Although the guitar work of Bob and of
course Larry and Charlie was much better than Zurich, I really missed the
phrasing and expression in his singing on most of the songs ( except the
mentioned Highlights ).

Well maybe they had a birthday party the day before and he was a little
bit tired, who knows? OK now, thanks for reading and good night.

Harald
h.meusburger@utanet.at

what a blast ! after the a-little-bit-unfocussed-birthday-show in
Dresden, Bob delivered a superb 2-hour set in my "hometown". 
No matter whether it was one of the live-standard songs like "Times",
"Watchtower" or even "Tangled up in blue", or one of the always welcomed
alterations ("Delia", though unknown to most in the sell-out crowd, was a
real show-stopper), Dylan put on a show that was among the best i have
seen him play in the last twenty years. Alright, he took a little rest on
"Positively 4th street", but just to knock it down with fantastic versions
of "All along the watchtower" and "To make you feel my love". Same in the
encores, "Like a rolling stone" wasn`t that good but from "Girl of the
North Country" onwards we were treated very kindly. Bob seemed to enjoy it
just the same, so we got one more song than usual. Having felt that some
nights on this tour were a little "too much Sixties stuff", I couldn`t
have cared less last night. Get a tape !

Regensburg, Germany, not far from the Czech and Austrian borders, an old
town, undamaged during World war II due to its lack of industrial sites,
thus a very pretty old town. Dylan played in an indoor venue known as the
Donauarena, right next to the famous river, one of those multifunctional
venues that you find everywhere.

Anyway, I managed to survice the rush that happened after they opened the
doors at 6:30 and got myself a pretty good place in the crowd, about five
rows of people away from the stage. Around me: lots of chatter about the
Dresden show the day before, lots of discussion about what we'll be about
to be treated with this time around. Finally the lights went down and
Dylan and the band launched into Duncan & Brady, surprisingly without Al
Santos doing his little announcement speeach first. Ah, Duncan & Brady!
Thanks for not doing Roving Gambler again. I like that number, but it was
time for a change. From the very beginning, Bob was extremely
concentrated, treating every line with a lot of care, still seeming very
at ease with himself. The usual The Times They Are A-Changing was second,
lots of people have learned to grow bored with the repeated renditions of
this one, but to our surprise Dylan managed to sing the whole song without
forgetting a single line. We had already developped a running gag during
the tour, saying that Dylan will sing this song until he either remembers
every line again or until he has forgotten them all. This day, it was
perfect. The highlights of the acoustic set were Delia, sung oh so
beautifully, and, I hardly dare to say it, Tangled Up In Blue. The
ten-thousandth rendition of this standard, and yet Dylan put a sort of
energy into it that I haven't heard before. Just like with Stuck Inside Of
Mobile the night before, he managed to give an old and often-played,
too-well-known number a whole new dimension, bringing it to an energetic
level that the songs never had before. To Ramona was very nice as well,
now thankfully missing the stupid waltz beat that has ruined a couple of
performances before. Instead, David Kemper did some very sophisticated,
low drumming that gave the song a new sort of beauty and kindness. The
electric set: The good ole rockin' Country Pie kicked it off before an
incredibly soft and sad rendition of Positively 4th Street marked another
highlight. The version he did reminded me a lot of the one he did in
Magdeburg four years ago (go and listen to your copy of Eyes Of The Idol
again, folks, it's worth it), the harshness that dominates the studio take
being completely gone and replaced by a sad sad kind of disappointment.
Watchtower rocked as usual, To Make You Feel My Love was as good as a
mediocre song (sorry) can get, and then Dylan blew us all away again with
Drifter's Escape in its new coat. The power that this song develops is
plain incredible, and the wild and raucious drums-and-harmonica breaks are
too good to be described. Lots of people looked pretty puzzled around me,
obviously trying to figure out what song this is. Highlight #3 in a show
that was terrific from beginning to end. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat closed
the electric set as usual, solid rocking version as usual. The encores:
Love Sick was back after a short break in Dresden, superb as always. The
reliably crowd-pleasing Like A Rolling Stone was followed by a Girl From
The North Country that brought back to mind the line from the movie Down
By Law: "It's a sad and wonderful world". Same thing goes for Don´t Think
Twice, It´s Alright, the second acoustic number during the encores. Again,
this one was played so often that many somehow don't expect anything new
from yet another rendition, and again Dylan showed us that we couldn't be
more wrong. He did it in a very low-key, more spoken than sung style which
was intense enough for many jaws to drop. Not Fade Away rocked as usual,
getting Dylan in a mood good enough to add Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 as
another electric number before closing with the usual Blowing In The Wind
and its lovely choirs. 20 songs! Dylan getting better and better as the
tour goes on. Dear folks in Italy, I am convinced that you will be treated
with some real bmoments in bliss. It's hard enough for me to accept the
fact that the tour is over for me. But then, maybe there will be some more
chances to see him again in September.

It sure has been a hard and long trip to Dylan´s last show in Germany. So
we had time to discuss what would (or could) happen at this farewell show
(we left the tour that night). Dirk expected ´Girl From the Noth County´,
Peter was hoping for ´Mozambique´(as always, altought knowing it´ll remain
a fantasy) and I guessed Dylan might open with ´Duncan & Brady´ and that
he would also do ´Positively 4th Street´ (´cause I tought it would fit
well after ´Tom Thumb´s Blues´ the night before). (All in all: that´s 2
points for me, one for Dirk and (once again !): Mozambique: zero points).
As usually the show started at 8.15 p.m. and it was time to welcome
Columbia recording artistŠ for the last time this year (at least for me) -
but there was no welcome ! So Dylan started immedeately with ´Duncan &
Brady´ (seems that he has been on the job (doing ´Roving Gamler´) for too
long., which I enjoyed very much - so much, that I was able to stand ´The
Times They Are A-Chingin´ another time. But this time Dylan got it right
and managed to remember every line, so that now maybe the spell is broken
and he might leave it behind for the rest of the tour. ´Desolation Row´
followed, but I think the versions he offered before were better. The 4th
song was a real surprise - it turned out to be ´Delia´ and Dylan offered a
passionate performance (exept for a little mistake). I was really glad to
hear this song because it was the only reason why I was a little sad
having not been to Zürich. And I also think it was the only chance for me
to hear a song from ´World Gone Wrong´ live. As always ´Tangled Up In
Blue´ followed and this time even I enjoyed it. Like the night before (at
Dresden) the last acoustic was ´To Ramona´. It was okay, but the night
before it was better. The electric set offered ´Country Pie´, ´Watchtower´
and ´Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat´ - all performed in the way like so many
times before. ´Drifter´s Escape´ (for the third show in a row !) was done
the raw way and once again it was really great ! As a surprise Dylan
played ´Make You Feel my Love´ (for the first time on this lag of the
tour). It sounded different (compared to the 98-version) but I can´t
really tell what the difference was. Altough I suppose it was in the way
he pronounced the words. Anyway, it sure was another highlight. Another
one was ´Postively 4th Street´. At the beginning I (and all other people
standing next to me) tought it was ´I Shall Be Released´ but soon we found
out that we were wrong - but I think nobody was crying because he oder she
had to listen to 4th Street. Dylan did it the slow way and it sounded
great. The encores were more or less the usuals, but performed in a rather
unsual order, so that quite a lot of people weren´t really sure which song
followed which. In fact the encores stared with ´Love Sick´ and ´Rolling
Stone´. Especially ´Love Sick´ was another very good performance, maybe
the best one this year in Germany (but I´m not really sure on that). At
the first acoustic encore we found out that Dirk was right (one point for
him !): Dylan did ´Girl From The North Country´. Then once again ´Not Fade
Away´ was left out and they did ´Highway 61´ again. This time it wasn´t as
good as at Dresden and I´d prefered ´Not Fade Away´. After a rather slow,
but quite normal performance of ´Don´t Think Twice´, the band surprisingly
started to do ´Not Fade Away´ - instead of ´Rainy Day Women´ as it seemed
- but I was wrong again ! ´Rainy Day Women´ follow immedeately without any
acoustic song in between. The show was finally finished with ´Blowin´ In
The Wind´ and then Dylan left both - the stage and GermanyŠ As I realized
later the show featured 20 songs instead of 19 like the shows before and
it was the longest show Dylan did in Germany - 2 hours and 5 minutes.
Especially the acoustic set turned out to be very long) about 40 minutes
and featured three songs with a lot of text (D´Row, Delia, Tangled). After
the show we drove back to Hannover - that´s about 600 kilometers; so all
in all we had to go 1000 km to hear ´Duncan And Brady´ and ´Delia´ - but I
think that it was that worth ! And as a personal note: It was my 22nd
Dylan-concert and ´Delia´ was the 100th (different) song that Dylan
performed for me. To come to the end let me add a note on Charlie Sexton:
For I´m not a musician I can´t really tell if he is a good guitar player
or not. But to me it seemed that he is only allowed to do chords and
hardly any solo. At the first shows I rather tought that he is a kind of
H&M-model and his function is rather to attract new - especially female -
fans than to play the guitar. At the last two or three shows he did some
more solo (not only on ´Country Pie´) but I still think that he is not
really integrated in the band. It was quite obivious that he is rather
excluded. When there´s communication on stage, Dylan usually talks to Tony
Garnier, Larry Campell and David Camper but never to Charlie Sexton, who
usually get´s the information via Tony. So all in all I don´t think that
Charlie Sexton will stay in the band for too long - if he is a good guitar
player, it must be frustrating to him that he is not allowed to show his
abilities and if he is only a good looking guy and not a good guitar
player - why does he work for Dylan (who, by the way, seems to turn out
and/or to become an inspired guitar player himself !) ?

Sven

We're back from Germany again and I must say that we saw some
extraordinary shows. Here's a small review of the last three German gigs.
In my opinion the Berlin venues are always the worst you can imagine. This
time the show took place in some abandoned former East Berlin bus depot.
The only thing I can think of is that Bob gets inspired by these horrible
looking places because again, like the years before, the Berlin show was
one of the highlights during these seven Germany gigs. He started off with
Touched By The Hand Of The Lord (Somebody Touched Me) which was a great
opener after all the Roving Gamblers....first time I heard Bob doing this
live so it couldn't be better. On this 3 shows tour it struck me that he's
forgetting the words to his own songs more and more. He even made a mess
of Times and Forever Young. On the other hand he added a new phrase when
he asks in Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat "Is It Really The Expensive Kind" he
gives the answer "I'm Sure It Is"... and another nice thing is that he
sung "You think he loves you for MY money..." either he messed up or it
was his intention but I liked it. The Dresden Birthday Gig was one of the
best shows I've been to (out of the 56 I've seen so far). Not because of
the setlist but only because of the fact that it was Bob's birthday and we
all were in a good mood, the weather was great and it was the first (and
only) open air venue. There was an atmosphere you find on those special
birthday parties. I liked Song To Woody and Tom Thumb's Blues for a change
and during Country Pie I waltzed with I guess his name was Allessandro, an
Italian guy, just to show Bob that this was a party. Some people told me
that he looked a bit surprised by seeing this but while watching us
waltzing he opened up in a big smile. If there's anyone who can get me the
video of this event I'd gladly like to buy it. During the changing of the
instruments the audience started to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY and there were a
lot of women throwing flowers and there was this guy jumping on stage with
a gift box with bottles of wine in it. He didn't get the chance to
approach Bob because one of Bob's security guys catched him almost
immediately. After the last encore Bob returned, more or less encouraged
by Tony, saying "I won't forget this birthday for a while". As usual in
the former Eastern part of Germany there was this hughe crowd outside the
venue that listened to the show in the surrounding park, picknicking the
night away while listening to the show. Since we managed to get to the
front row all six preceding shows we decided to NOT be in the front row in
Regensburg. We wanted to do a little sight-seeing in the beautiful city of
Regensburg and above that we were somewhat exhausted from all this
traveling. The show was great indeed but looking at Bob from a distance
sure feels different than seeing him perform right in front of you.
Somehow I don't feel connected, too much distraction by the crowd and by
everything that's normally happening behind my back. On the other hand
it's quite interesting to see that Tommy (Dylan's guitar care taker) is
picking up very young, blond girls out of the audience and bring them to
seats at the side of the stage and that Jeff Rosen and the guy who's
always announcing Dylan "good evening ladies and gentlemen....." are bored
to death during the performance and throw things at eachother like they
were playing baseball. Anyway, the highlight in Regensburg was Delia and
because most people didn't know what he was singing the audience became
quiet and there was a silence I never heard before during one of Bob's
shows. And now back to the rhythm of every day life and wait for the boots
to be released. Thanks for reading all this stuff. Hope you enjoyed it and
for you who are seeing Bob within a few months. ENJOY!!!!!

I liked Regensburg, even though it was to be the last show I’d get to see
this time round. I didn’t have high expectations after the birthday bash
the night before was so much fun, so we took time out to see the city, an
very old town, saw the gigantic Cathedral and the Danube river, the two
things Regensburg is most famous for I guess.  I’d much rather been in
Prague (which actually is a lot closer to Dresden anyways), but I guess
one more German show meant a little more cash for good ole Bob. The
Donauarena is a newly built, ugy hockey arena, it fits about 7 000 people
and at 7.45 it looked as if only 2 000 would turn up. Rather surprisingly
when the lights went down at 8.15 the venue was almost full. Even more
surpsringly, Al Santos familiar “Ladies and gentlemen...” intro was
missing (tonight was my 99th show and for the first time I didn’t get the
intro... damn J)

Much to my friend Gunter’s joy they opened with one of his favorites, too:


   1.Duncan And Brady (acoustic) 

was very well done, much better than any of the other openers in fact. I’d
only heard a tape of the very first rendition last November and wasn’t
exactly overwhelmed, but this was a mighty fine version with Larry and
Chalie joing Bob during the chorus to sing backup on the “been on the job
too long” line.

   2.The Times They Are A-Changin' (acoustic) 

As Christian Z. has pointed out already, we all expected him to do this
again and he did. Much to everybody’s surprise he manged to sing it
without forgetting any lines at all tonight. As a result this was by far
the best of the six version I had the, um, pleasure to enjoy on this leg
of the tour. In fact, it was almost enjoyable.

   3.Desolation Row (acoustic) 

featured a couple of the rare verses sung in Hannover again, but not the
“Nero’s Neptune” verse. It was nice, but didn’t came close to the killer
Hannover version. They seemed to have returned – at least partly - to the
old arrangement again as well, which was a pity.

   4.Delia (acoustic) 

I really don’t care for this song, but around me it made grown men weep,
which I guess indicates that it was a rather good performance.   

   5.Tangled Up In Blue (acoustic)

It is a pain to say, but tonight “Tangled” was one of THE highlights, Bob
sang it with a passion absent for most of the last, um 25 versions I’ve
heard of this song. Seemed to faster than usual as well with a couple of
nice guitar solos thrown in for good measure. Christian Z. is right by
saying that the song gained a whole new feeling. A very welcome surprise.

   6.To Ramona (acoustic)

The intro made me cringe already. Why on earth he’d drop the song from the
set for the best part of the year and then do it two night’s in a row is
beyond me. The harp solo that made the song bareable in Dresden was
missing tonight and as a consequence it was just plain awful. It seemed
that Kemper tried to avoid the waltz-rhythm tonight, but he didn’t try
hard enough for me to save the song.

   7.Country Pie 

sure a live debut?

   8.Positively 4th Street

this song made me realise that I’ve really seen too many shows in recent
times. It was almost perfect. Slow, with a gorgeous pedal steel solo by
Larry. Yet it didn’t even came close to the Layfayette version last
September and so while most people around me were completely stunned,
mouths wide open, I was like: “oh yeah, it has seen better times as well.”
J 

   9.All Along The Watchtower

Nice choice, as this was my last show for the time being. Rocked more than
the other versions this week, almost on a par with the amazing Oberhausen
rendition at the beginning of the tour. Very cool indeed.

  10.Make You Feel My Love 

We knew it was coming as we’d had a lengthy discussion about it (and the
fact that Bob thankfully hadn’t played it yet on this tour). It just
would’ve been too good to be true – a whole tour without this rotten song.
It wasn’t to be. Then again it was a change...which wasn’t too bad...

  11.Drifter's Escape (Bob on harp) 

Wow! Still the same heavily Hendrix-influenced version, which sounded even
better than in Berlin and Dresden tonight, rocked harder, the changes
sounded smotther and Bob#s bluesy harp solo at the end was way better,
longer, LOUDER (!) as well. Very impressive. 

  12.Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat 

followed the band intros and was a solid, rocking rendition. 

     (encore) 
  13.Love Sick 

returned to the set, but was in no way the killer it used to be night
after night for almost two years. It really needs a rest and I guess Bob‘s
beginning to realize it, as well. 

  14.Like A Rolling Stone 

Still a huge crowdpleaser, but still a mess, too. I guess they’ve just
played it so many times now that they don’t even realize their mistakes
anymore.

  15.Girl Of The North Country (acoustic)

a bit of a surprise again and a very welcome one, too. Beautifully done,
sung with passion and yet another crowdpleaser as well.

  16.Highway 61 Revisited 

not only the roving gambler was very bored, if you know what I mean.
Loooong, jam-packed version. Larry Campbell had the wrong isntrument in
his hands again at the start of the song. I really don’t know what is on
his mind these days, but it surely isn’t playing the encores... Three
nights in a row he managed to miss the start of a song, beacuse he thought
something else would be played... Hmmm?!

  17.Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (acoustic)

Complete with a harp solo this one sounded pretty nice tonight as well.
Very slow again (which itself isn’t too good), this time Bob decided to do
a talking- rather than a singing-version, which gave the song a nice new
twist.

  18.Not Fade Away 

like so many times before... Everybody expected Bob to do “Blowin‘” 
now and leave as this show was the longest in Europe already, but he just
kept going with the electric stuff, surprising not only the audienc, but
Tony too, who visibly puzzled asked: “Rainy Day”? And ‚Blowin‘‘ AFTER
THAT?” 

  19.Rainy Day Women #12 & #35 

It really wasn’t a veyr wise choice to do “Not Fade Away” and “Rainy Day”
back to back and Bob probably knew that, but he didn’t care. So we got
stoned once more.

  20.Blowin' In The Wind (acoustic) 

And he really did a nice rendition of this song as well, making this – if
my memory serves me well - only the second show on the whole Never Ending
Tour to hit the 20 song mark (not counting Toad’s Place). It was also the
longest show in Europe so far, it lasted well over two hours and the
encores tonight were almost as long as the main set, which of course, is
ridiculous.

Anyways, I didn’t mind as this was a very enjoyable show to close my own
little tour. Bob was really on a roll since Horsens and rarely I have seen
so many excellent shows in a row. All that was left now is to keep our
fingers crossed that he’ll come back to Europe in September. Thanks for
reading all this stuff and for not minding all the typos. Thanks to  all
the people who commented on my reviews as well. And a last thank you to
everybody who made this trip so much much, let us sleep on their floor
etc. See y’all next time! Cheers!

Carsten Wohlfeld 
--
http://carstenwohlfeld.de
"i can't be everything to everybody, can i at least be 
something to you?" (the posies)