Bob Dylan 2001.11.03 in Nashville
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan Subject: Nashville, Nov. 3, 2001 From: Jim Maynard jmaynardnospam@midsouth.rr.com Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 09:40:03 GMT I believe this was my 10th Dylan concert. Since my hometown of Memphis was bypassed this tour, I bought a couple of tickets to Nashville for me and a co-worker (Glenn) who I turned on to Dylan back in 1999 when Bob played the New Daisy club here in Memphis (a great great show). Glenn was blown away by how good Dylan was live--like most people he had some appreciation for Dylan's work, but he was not all that familiar with his work.... and being a former "rock star wanna be", Glenn really dug Dylan's band and how well they work together... Anyway...Glenn had stood me up when Bob came to the Pyramid in Memphis in Sept. of 1999 (he got sick), and then when Bob performed at the Beale Street Music festival in Memphis in May of this year.. so I was afraid that he would back out on me again... I called him up about noon (our agreed upon time) and he was still in bed! I gave him one hour to get ready and I drove to his apartment.... after stopping by Sonic we were finally on our way to Nashville... One thing I love about Dylan's concerts is how diverse his fans are---and how young! We saw many middle and older aged people.. but almost as many young (YOUNG) kids... I saw several pre-teen boys with Love & Theft T shirts beside their parents.. (I wonder who brought who to see Bob... and I hope that IF I ever have children.. they will not force me to take them to see Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boyz... I hope they would want to see Bob Dylan...) I have decided that I don't like these big auditorium shows as much as the smaller venues... there is a world of difference between seeing Dylan in a small club like the New Daisy and in the Pyramid in Memphis... and the Nashville Municipal Auditorium was too big for me (although it probably would seat about 10,000 I guess only about 7-8,000 attended the Dylan concert). But the sound is just not as good.. and it is so far from Bob up in the balcony (but Glenn did not want GA floor tickets because he doesn't like to be crushed in a big crowd...). Well I was hoping to hear some songs I had not heard live yet (like Blind Willie McTell or John Brown) and not hear songs I have heard many times (like Tangled Up IN Blue) and I was hoping for maybe Idiot Wind or some other song from BOTT. And I wanted to hear Lonesome Day Blues, Summer Days, Mississippi or Sugar Baby from the new album. Glenn wanted to hear Things Have Changed which he has loved ever since he got the soundtrack to Wonder Boys. From the beginning song, Humming Bird (a nice opening song I haven't heard yet, though I had sort of wanted to hear Wait for the Light to Shine) I knew the acoustics were not great...although on some songs Dylan's voice was clear and understandable on many it was not... It Ain't Me Babe was nicely sung and I loved Dylan's phrasing...I heard something a little different in the way he would sing the verses and then pause for a second and emphasize (BUT.. It AIN'T ME Babe!)...and we got an early harp solo at the end that built up nicely... Desolation Row I heard before in Little Rock this year but I liked it. This World Can't Stand Long I heard at Beale Street but I needed to hear it again after Sept. 11. Lonesome Day Blues was our first of SIX songs from Love and Theft, and one of my favorites... I had been anticipating Dylan singing lines like "I"m going to preach to the crowd....!" Next came my first real pleasant surprise.. "I Threw It All Away"... I had played Hard Rain for Glenn on the way to Nashville and drew his attention to this song and how Dylan sung it just at the time his marriage feel apart (having been through two failed marriages Glen emphasizes with Dylan on a lot of his songs about relationships...). Dylan sung it just as well tonight... with some different phrasing ... very mellow and beautiful. It sent chills down my spine every time he would sing the words of warning to lovers not to throw away what they have and keep each other close... that love is all we have and we can't live without it.. and it was the way he would sing (as a much older/wiser person) "take a tip from one who tried!) that have be goose bumps... Then the only song I did not care for on Love and Theft "FLOATER" which did not nothing for me live either... a lot of people love this song, it does nothing for me and I usually skip in on the CD.. and this live version just was not very good at all to me. The words were not understandable... and I don't know if they were trying to follow the album version or were doing something else.. but the band did not seem together on it TO ME.. maybe I just didn't understand it... It seemed like Dylan was starting to loose most people in the audience to me. The only "bad" song tonight for me... I have heard One To Many Mornings once before at the Pyramid in Memphis Sept. 1999, but I love the song.. and it was so well sung... Dylan's voice was very clear ...sad and pretty... THEN came one of the songs I hoped to hear live for the first time.. JOHN BROWN... I wanted it instead of Masters of War. Unfortunately either Dylan slurred or hurried the lyrics along too fast.. or the acoustics were bad in the auditorium because it was very difficult to understand.. I recognized it but a lot of people didn't... and I wish they could have heard the lyrics... this song is one of Dylan's best songs addressing the horror of war.. VISIONS OF JOHANNA.. I have heard once or twice.. but I"m always awed by it. Glen loved it too... I've got to show him the lyrics on page.. they are among the great works of art I know of... Another song from L&T, SUMMER DAYS, which I had hopped for and imagined the whole crowd dancing to... but they didn't. Well some were dancing on the floor.. but most people stayed in their seats.. and Bob kind of rushed it too much think, but it was still pretty good... but not quite as good as the album version to me... but it is one of my favorite L&T songs... and I hope he plays it when he wings the Grammy Award :) Oh my God... Another L&T song---MISSISSIPPI... another one I hoped for.. and performed very well live.. it was actually better than the album version.. it had more of a punch to it.. and Bob really got into it.. the audience liked it (in fact, all the new songs were well received like all 8,000 or so people had been listening to the new CD...) WICKED MESSENGER was also a pleasant surpass which I have not heard...it really rocked.. and Dylan's brief harp solo at the end was pretty wicked too... I wish he could have kept on a little longer... The first set ended with Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat which I like better than Rainy Day Women... And they left the crowd wanting MORE.... Back for the FIRST encore with the song Glenn wanted "THINGS HAVE CHANGE". Glenn slaps the knee of the guy next to me and says "man I love this song!) The crowd roared their approval of the opening chords of Like a Rolling Stone.. and the light show began to add excitement to the show by turning lights on the audience for the Chorus... showing a lot of happy faces and raised hands trying to sing along "How Does it FEEL!" Dylan slows this song down a little too much I think.. but he seems to be changing the very meaning and feel of the song on purpose. It is not longer an ANGRY song.. at least not as full of venom and revenge on a former lover.. now it is the song of an older wiser man who seems to feel SORRY for that person... living all alone.. like a complete unknown... out there on Desolation Row with the rest of us... I Shall Be Released was next...very good live, and well-received. The harmony of Dylan, Charlie and Larry was pretty awesome on this song.. Next was our 6th taste of Love & Theft, HONEST WITH ME.. which seems to feel the hard-rocking jam fest space once occupied by Highway 61... Amazing that a 60 year old artist can still produce music this good... BLOWIN' IN THE WIND would be a great way to close this concert... I've heard it one before live.. but the way Dylan and the boys harmonize on the chorus gives it a nice punch in the face and the song will hold up for eternity... The crowd wanted more.. we get a second encore with the predictable but enjoyable ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER (a song I have heard many times but never get tired of!) and I think this tops all the other performances I have heard... And a beautiful KNOCKIN' ON HEAVEN'S DOOR ends a very good show. We wanted more.. but the lights come up and we have to let go of Bob. All in all another good job by Dylan and the band... the only thing that would have improved it for me was to drop Floater and add one of the songs I wanted to hear from BOTT (like Idiot Wind, or Shelter from the Storm) and maybe a song or two from TOOM.. but it seems Bob likes performing as many L&T songs as he can and is moving on from TOOM.. Well.. I can't wait for him to come back to Memphis.. maybe next summer.. and I'm still waiting to hear BLIND WILLIE MCTELL...
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan Subject: Nashville Review From: Adam Selzer adam1117@yahoo.com Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 16:04:34 GMT This will be a greatly abridged version of the long form review that I'll write for part two of "Jewels and Binoculars: Memoirs of a Young Dylan Fan" (an e-book which can be read at http://bob.adamselzer.com ). Drop me an e-mail if you'd like to be notified when that review is up. Anyway, Nashville last night was the greatest Dylan show I have ever seen. That's not hyperbole. I mean, really, we got 6 L&T songs, including "High Water" and "Mississippi," and "Visions of Johanna" and the absolute coolest "All Along the Watchtower" I've ever seen or heard. Bob came out dressed in a knee-length black coat and white shirt with a red thing that looked like a cross between a neckerchief and a bow tie. He looked like a riverboat gambler whose name just happened to be Dracula. The band was wearing matching silver outfits. This, make no mistake, was a Love and Theft show, at least in the part before the encores. A third of the songs in the main set were L&T numbers, and the rest fit in with them perfectly. L&T has, of course, a very distinct feeling about it, and all of the songs in Nashville were sort of drawn into that weird little world. The band opened into Humming Bird, which gave Larry and Charlie and early chance to show off how great they are at backing vocals. Larry's electric guitar part sounded like a banjo. Then came a slow, gorgeous "It Ain't Me Babe," with Dylan singing it as more of a condescending song than a mocking song. At two points in the song, I thought "wow, Larry's really going to town on lead!" then looked up, I kid you not, to see that it was Bob. He was really all over the guitar tonight, playing lead like I'd never heard him play before. This song ended with a very long harp solo that danced around the melody before finally jumping into it at the end. Every time I hear "Desolation Row," I get a different feeling about it. One time he'll sound like a tour guide, then a sportscaster, then that guy at the party who stands in the corner whispering to you who everyone else is. Tonight, Bob sounded like he was describing a day that he'd seen over and over so many times that he'd memorized the events down to the last second. More on this in the long review. Please note: besides the regular knee-dance, Bob was really shaking his hips, Elvis style, on this one. He did all sorts of dancing all night, at one point walking forward and backward so smoothly that one could almost say he was moonwalking. "This World" was very well done, also. Bob seemed quite serious throughout. Then it was on into the "L&T" songs, starting with "Lonesome Day Blues," which got better and better. By the end, Bob was really getting into the vocals. "I Threw it All Away" came next, in an arrangement that fit neatly and cleanly into an electric set otherwise composed fully of L&T songs. I can't quite tell you how high I jumped when I saw Larry sling on the banjo for "High Water." I'd been scanning the stage for it, but hadn't seen it anywhere. The arrangement rocked, with Bob finding a certain groove and following it vocally. A real treat. "Floater" followed and was also great, though I must admit that I missed the fiddle part. It sounded very odd coming after "High Water," but also appropriate. The song seems to occupy the same sort of territory as High Water, only a few towns over, where it isn't raining yet. "One Too Many Mornings" was absolutely beautiful. "John Brown" never quite found it's rhythm, but was a worthy replacement for "Masters of War." Then came a very long guitar intro, which I began to suspect (partly because it followed "John Brown") was "Visions of Johanna." When Bob sang the first line, I was thrilled beyond any reason. My lifelong goal was to see Bob play this song, and I sat stunned the entire time, pausing only to tell some drunk to shut up when he got the idea that it would be fun to try to sing the words louder than Bob. Wow. "Visions!" A beautiful arrangement with a guitar part that sounded like raindrops falling in a pond. I didn't think that this song, urban as it is, could be made to fit in so well with "Love and Theft" songs. Bob threw himself into "Summer Days" with full force, reworking some of the words and singing them so fast that the music had to run to keep up. The stage was bathed in blue light with moving white highlights that made it look like a flowing river for "Mississippi." "Mississippi!" And in the same set as "High Water!" Bob really sang the hell out of this one tonight. Awesome. Then came a sharp Wicked Messenger and fun filled "LSPBH" before the encores. Most of the encores don't need too much comment in this particular review, but I feel that I should talk a bit about the coolest ever version of "Watchtower." There was no steel guitar on this one, just full out electric, in a version that could only be called heavy metal. Maybe I just haven't read the recent reviews carefully enough, but I was really shocked when, at the end, he started singing the first verse over again. He took it as far as "what anything is worth," finishing the line a cappella, dragging out the last word in a manner that I wouldn't hesitate to like to that sound that Ginsberg called hebraic cantillation from "one more cup of coffee." Awesome. Time to get to work on the longer review. ADAM "How Long Has It Been Since Dylan Played...." http://boblast.adamselzer.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan Subject: Dylan's last stand in Nashville: Summary From: Don't Tread On Me freeweezer@hotmail.com Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 01:41:50 GMT These thoughts are off the cuff. I don't quite have the energy to write a 'proper,' structured review, so bear with me. I will skip all the pre-show stuff (the seven hour drive, the four hour wait in line, how much I hate the Nashville city planner). My girlfriend and I landed a spot one body behind the front row, right in front of Larry. Being my third show ever, I was quite excited to be up front. I'll give you execuitive summary here. You can read the full review below: 1) Larry was gave the performance of a life time. There is just no other way to state it. He played acoustic, electric, electric slide, mandolin, pedal steel, banjo, and bouzouki! All around a stunning showing. I can't overstate it enough, but the finger picking on 'Visions of Johanna' is beyond description. Charlie was on fire. He was doing things on the guitar that I didn't think were possible. Fine solos throughout the evening. 2) Dylan's vocals we quite subdued, but quite beautiful. The vocal highlights were 'It Ain't Me Babe' 'John Brown' and 'Mississippi.' They were better than when I heard him in the Spring, and they were awesome then. 3) L&T live: Six songs! My three favorites (LDB, MS, HW)! Compared to the album versions: *'Lonesome Day Blues': not as powerful live, but give it some time *'High Water': I will never listen to the album version again, I think. See it in person, get a tape, do what you must do to hear this one it live! Possibly one of the 10 greatest NET performances I have ever heard. *'Floater': I hate to say it, but it was pretty bad to my ears. Never got a good rhythm, needs fiddle, and Charlie was playing some weird notes. Hopefully it will improve, but until then, stick with the album. *'Summer Days': It rocked live and the phrasing was so over the top that it gets the nod over the album. *'Mississippi': I thought the studio version was so perfect that I couldn't be improved apon, but I was proved wrong. Stunning, stunning, stunning. *'Honest With Me': Finally has the energy the album version lacks, thanks to Larry on slide guitar. 4) 'John Brown-Visions of Johanna': These performances were everything you hope them to be. 'John Brown' was drop-dead perfect. He got all the lyrics and it has this driving, hypnotic beat that was impossible to escape. This one cut to the heart. The vocals on 'Visions' were sparse, but the band provided beautiful accompaniment. The crowd was nothing short of entranced. 5) You can catch my song by song review shortly.
