Reviews

Stockholm, Sweden

Ericsson Globe

November 4, 2011


[Lena G.], [Steinar Daler], [Anders Tidström], [Jakob Brønnum]

Review by Lena G.



So, after 30 seconds with MARK KNOPFLER I thought it was worth every
“swedish krona” to go to Stockholm. Just knowing that it should only
get better and better. Mark Knopfler was well received by the audience and
I know that some people just came to see him. The tunes he played had 
Scottish undertones, at least to my ears. He introduced a new song and
said it was the premiere of this song here in Stockolm. The name of the
song?? Sorry gals and pals but I think it was “Victory”. Maybe someone
else could tell!! That song was really good! Mark Knopfler got standing
ovations after his show. My reflection afterwards was the concern of the
fiddler who stomped his right leg into the floor through all songs, I hope
that he's not making minced meat out of his foot


BOB DYLAN then? “Well, first he’s in the background, then he’s in
the front”. Ha ha! He started out with Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat, good
but the volume was too low. Then came To Ramona but I couldn’t figure
that out before I heard about those “cracked country lips”. I brought
my binocular and that was the best thing I ever have done. That beautiful
man dressed in black and an almost blue shirt with glitter on the sleeves
and his collar, completely shook my hormones. Again! My promise to stop
being in love with him vanished like sim salabim after his first three
seconds on stage. He sung Make You Feel My Love and yes I felt it! I heard
every line very clear except the one going ”“you ain’t seen nothing
like me yet” where I hope he sung “you ain’t seen the last of me
yet”. Thank you Bob Dylan for that song that I wanted to hear in
Borlänge this summer! Even though I listen to his music every day and
know the songs I had to admit that it was difficult to hear the words. But
then came Highway 61 and Dylan and his excellent band were playing the wax
out of my ears. Then they played like devils to the end.

He looked so fine but I got the feeling that he wanted to be somewhere
else. The band saved him this evening. I just came to Stockholm to here
Make You Feel My Love and the magical moments when he say “thank you
frieeeends” and the lovely way he says “Tonyyy Garnieeeer” I swear I
could pay a whole ticket just for that! If, I say if, they had stayed on
the stage a little bit longer they would have seen our standing ovations
and felt our love as well. We all wanted to express that but he and his
band was gone. I really hope that he’s out there somewhere making “the
Nordic series”. My love to Mr Dylan and friends on his homepage from
a-swedish-soul! 

[TOP]

Review by Steinar Daler



My wife Tone, me and our good friends Geir, Vibeke and Terje had a long
drive from Oslo to Malmø, but it was worth it. It was an almost perfect
concert. I have never heard better sound in a big arena, and except for
one verse of "stackato" singing on Watchtower and a defenitely wrong rythm
on Like A Rolling Stone, Bob nailed all songs, and was more center stage
than ever before. My good old friends from Copenhagen, Michael K and his
wife Pia were sitting next to us, and Michael was as excited as the first
time we saw Bob together 30 years ago. (Copenhagen -- July 12. 1981). The
drive from Malmø to Stockholm is as long as our ride to Malmø, at least 6
hours driving, but as we felt asure that we were in for another treat, it
just felt easy.

A lot of good friends in Stockholm too. Micke S (who had his 150^th 
Bob-show in Malmø) and Jørgen (who had his 150^th Bob-show in 
Stockholm). Thanks a lot to Juhani too for supplying us with excellent
tickets. My wife saw Dylan for the very first time in Globen with me in
1987, and she had no doubt that this one was a better concert, but as she
have attended something like 40 concerts since 1987 she has learnt how to
listen to Dylan, and have very different expections from someone who sees
him for the first time. First highlight was To Ramona (played for the
first time on this tour). And Things Have Changed were also a highlight
with Knopfler really adding som great guitar playing. Knopfler left after
Tangled Up In Blue, another well done version with Bob forgetting some
words, but he managed to make some words up on the spot and making him
self and his band and the crowd smiling a lot. We kind of missed occasions
like that in the "perfect" Malmø show. Next song was Honest With Me, and
as in Malmø it was outstanding. As most fans who have seen Bob a lot, I
have been quite bored of Honest With Me, a song that never was my
favourite from the beginning, but I heard he was trying to do something
exiting new with it on the first concert in Glasgow, and now on both
concerts in Sweden he has managed to lift it to a whole other level. Real
blues, and extraordinary lap-steel playing by Donnie Herron. Finally for
to the Swedish shows he was easy to hear in the mix, something me and a
lot of others have missed for years. On "Honest" he was almost soloing --
and did it in a brilliant way. But, of course all songs and and all
concerts can not be perfect, and compared to Malmø, maybe Bob was not as
in to it,- as in a weak Summerdays, 'til he started our favourite from the
European summer tour; "Forgetful Heart". What a song, what a performance?
The ending of the concert was very good, no troubles in Watchtower or
"LARS" as in Malmø and on Blowing In The Wind he seems like finding back
to the real melody that he seemed to have lost earlier this year. Another
great show as usual in 2011, and myself and all the others who are joining
the tour again for the 3 Hammersmith shows at the end of the tour, can't
wait for it. We're all exited, but how he can top it in Hammersmith is
difficult to understand. Some real rarely played songs, maybe? (The
memories from Hammersmith in 2003 are of course something I'll neve
forget). See a lot of you there!

Steinar Daler

[TOP]

Review by Anders Tidström



First: Dylan appeared on Swedish ground a second time this year. A
sensation. Could there be a truth finally in what he already stated in
Stockholm 1966: "I happen to be a Swede myself". He feels comfortable
around? The encore - a fifteenth song - is probably a sign of that. Mostly
he only performed 14 songs on the concerts on this leg of his tour.
Second: The date 4th of November isn´t just any date in Bob`s career.
Exactly 50 years ago, this day, he made his debuting concert for money. 53
persons payed two bucks each then to hear him in Carnegie ´Chapter Hall,
in 57th street, New York. Things have changed. Third: the guy who promoted
Dylan half a century ago was now sitting right behind me in today´s
audience. Mr Izzy Young, a former New Yorker, has long been a Stockholmer
since those days. He planned for giving Bob a progamme folder from that
very first occasion ...  this particular day ... a newspaper wrote the
previous day. I´ve no idea of whether Izzy actually did or not. Could have
asked  him but felt like not disturbing the old man, just acting Corious
George. Fourth: to arrange a concert joining fellow-artist Mark Knopfler
was agood thing. The Globe Arena was sold out. Fifth: Mark Knopfler´s
Scottish roots were more obvoius than ever. Good feeling but, to be honest
with you, I was there for Dylan and his band. Sixth: Real good stuff was
finally delivered by Dylan. You just check the set list. I don´t repeat it
all. Seventh: To open with Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat is heavenly sent. I
always thought Charlie Chaplin´s soul converged with Bobby´s in that
creation. So comical and thoughtful and all. Eighth: Believe it or not. A
man in front of me just sitting there with a leopard-skin pill-box hat,
live. He looked Finnish, like he had been meditating in a sauna the whole
afternoon. All I know for sure is that I never saw him before and also ...
that specific hat wasn´t brand new. Isn´t this kind of hat destinated for
women, after all? A terrible prejudice? Who wants trains conformly running
on rails all the time? Ninth: Forgetful Heart was performed this night. A
beautiful arrangement and intense warmth - violin, base and song. So
different from all the rest: for example the swinging Summer Days, the
rocking Highway 61 or the beating Thunder on The Mountain. Tenth: For the
sake of Bob´s voice ... yes, it´s well worn. He´ll definitely not make it
till he´s hundred but he still does it with great dignity, yet for awhile.

Thanks Bob!

Anders Tidström

[TOP]

Review by Jakob Brønnum



”He looked so fine but I got the feeling that he wanted to be somewhere
else,” writes Lene G.

I wrote like this on my Facebook-wall, some 30 hours after the concert: 
”Dylan at The Globe on Friday after a warm and mild Mark Knopfler: absolutely 
nothing conciliatory; everything up-beat; no open feelings; ALL phrasing 
rugged and fragmented; the beautiful sound collages in Watchtower from 
the summertour eroding fast. The unfaithful Dylan; Dylan the Stranger. 
That’s been a determining part of the real Dylan since the first electric record
in 1965.”

I’ve had the chance to think over the concert again, and I must say, I don’t 
agree with myself or Lene at all. True, something magic went awol when he 
forgot the words deep down in Tangled, but another magic came instead, 
through Summer Days and into a golden Desolation Row.

Maybe it’s that no matter where he is (and he wasn’t there, true), there is 
a profound professionality in the organic band that pulls the music up and 
out of the black hole. There is a quietude, that I overheard – nothing moves,
every song stands as a perfectly crafted sculpture; there is an immense 
solemness that makes you feel the individual song can last forever.

There is a beauty and a pain that flows together. These musicians truly love
him, at least in professional sense of the matter, they hold him, and they carry
and they caress him. Have you ever heard the Desolation Row, where in the 
Einstein-verse something literally makes him cry and the band takes two 
instrumental verses while he goes to the back of the stage for a while and
then returns to sing just the last verse?

They never really got that intuitive musical flow back from the first four songs,
and it’s all a little off beat between Dylans phrasing and the band (which was 
what we all felt at the venue as staleness), but it has got a shakingly sensitive
feeling to it that makes it unforgettable, yet again. Thank you, Mr. Bob, for 
being there, maybe not in your mind, but in body and oeuvre.

Jakob Brønnum 

[TOP]

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