Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 05:24:21 GMT From: zym@CNJ.DIGEX.NET Subject: December 13, 1995 Setlist Setlist for Stabler Arena Down in the Flood Lay Lady Lay All Along the Watchtower You're a Big Girl Now I'll Be Your Baby Tonight Silvio @Tambourine Man @Desolation Row @Mama You Been on My Mind @Dark Eyes (duet with Patti) Seeing the Real You at Last Ballad of a Thin Man Alabama Getaway Times They are a Changin' ? (probably another, missed it) __________________________ zym@cnj.digex.net
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 11:48:10 -0500 From: ral2@LEHIGH.EDU Subject: Set List for Lehigh University 12/13/95 Sorry, but I did not know the title to one song. Come to think of it, nobody did. If anyone taped this show, please let me know how I could get a copy. Down In the Flood Lay Lady Lay All Along the Watchtower You're A Big Girl Now I'll Be Your Baby Tonight Silvio Mr Tambourine Man (Acoustic) Desolation Row (Acoustic) Momma, Got You On My Mind (Acoustic) Dark Eyes (Acoustic) w/ Patti Smith [ Don't know the title ] Ballad of a Thin Man Alabama Getaway (Encore #1) The Times They Are A-Changin' (Acoustic) (Encore #2) Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (Encore #3) One hell of a show. For you people about to see the Philly shows, get ready. Bob really sounds great up there. Best show I have seen in a while. Later, Rob P.S. Does Dylan play 'Desolation Row' regularly? Just curious.
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 16:48:13 -0500 From: Andrew Russ (endwar@HBAR.PHYS.PSU.EDU) Subject: Bob Dylan & Patti Smith concert review, Bethlehem PA 95.12.13 Well, here is my review of the concert i caught at Lehigh University. Long, but pretty complete. I think this show may be the weakest of the lot, but i was still real glad i went to actually see it. If you get the chance, do go. NB, i won't be answering email for about 3 weeks, so i won't be able to follow up or reply to mail until after then. I hope this entertains you a bit. andrew russ Patti Smith and Bob Dylan Stabler Arena, Bethlehem PA 95.12.13 20:00 I made the pilgrimage to Bethlehem and here's my report. My aunt and cousin (and her daughters) live in Bethlehem, so i called them up & arranged to have dinner with them. It was about a 3 hour drive from State College. After a warm family welcome, we settled to dinner and talked mostly about the weather. Two of the girls are in a school chorus and they were scheduled to ride down to Washington next day and sing in the White House. The local news did a story and one of the girls got interviewed. But there was also a rumor of an ice storm to come sliding in over night, threatening the cancel the trip, and threatening to make my own drive back adventurous if not dangerous. I was glad i _didn't_ check the Weather Channel before i left, or else i never would have gone to the concert. But for the whole trip i felt i would make it safely through, even if it would be difficult. The rumor was the snow would start early and get its worst around midnight. So i would have to keep one eye on the heavens and the other on my map getting to the show and back that night. My cousin took her twin daughters to their final practice, then i set out for the show. The Stabler arena is about 15-20 minutes away from their house: get on 22 west, look for state route 378 south, go over the big mountain and follow the signs. I went through downtown Bethlehem, stopped to get gas at the base of the mountain. On the other side the city gave way to the open spaces of the Lehigh campus. The arena is near some research park in the middle of the field. The signs guided me in to the parking, where i paid my $3 and found a place to put my car. No snow yet, and it was quarter of 8. I got inside, showed them my floor seat ticket, and got my hand stamped with some invisible UV-sensitive ink. I wanted to see what it looked like, so i put my hand under the black light that was set up for re-entry. A little star glowed weakly in the light. "You better get your hand stamped again," joked the guard. So i did. Much brighter. (There was one theory that the star of Bethlehem was really two stars that became aligned to look like one bright star.) So i go in and look for my seat number. The chairs are unnumbered. I ask an usher about this & she says the end of the row is #22 -- she helps me find my seat. Row 12 & seat 19, so i'm just to right of center up pretty close. I had a good view of the whole show. The venue looked like it doubled as a basketball arena, though the floor was grey concrete, not wood. Some bleachers were rolled back under the front row of balcony seats. The man sitting next to me was talking to another guy and his wife standing in the aisle in front of row 11. They had a weird conversation about whether one of them was going to bring any "stuff" with the Christmas presents this weekend or not. People milled about and ran around. They seemed to be caught unawares by the sudden dimming of the lights at pretty precisely 8 PM (i didn't check my watch, but it seemed like a pretty short time to wait). So the lights went down and the band walked on and finally Patti Smith walked on and told us that her grandfather was head foreman of the Bethlehem Steel Mill and her father was born in 1916 in Bethlehem and this is a Bob Dylan song. (She gave the exact names and dates.) "This is a Dylan song," she repeated as the band got ready to start. Patti Smith: Wicked Messenger Dancing Barefoot Ghost Dance Walking Blind (w/Oliver Ray & Tom Verlaine) Southern Cross (?) Rock and Roll Nigger Not Fade Away. (no encore) Patti was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, and socks and high-top shoes (maybe boots). The arrangement was slow and dramatic, the band powerful, Patti sang like she was ramming points home in a podium. The lights remained nearly dark for the whole song. After the end of the song (or maybe before the next one), someone asked Patti who the drummer was. "What do you mean who is the drummer? He's the only drummer i ever had!" She then introduced Jay Dee Daugherty, who now has a short haircut and was wearing a suit with a vest, but not a jacket -- i.e. very businesslike. "I'll excuse you for not knowing if you're a monk who's been living in a cave." The rest of the band at this point was Lenny Kaye (guitar) and Tony Sheridan (bass). They launched into "Dancing Barefoot". The song had some extra punch coming from some tom-toms (or something). It rocked. Patti shed her hooded sweatshirt like a skin after the first verse, then sat down and rolled onto her back and kicked off one of her boots, then the other, then pulled off her socks, making a kind of striptease out of it. Then she gracefully got up to start singing. Next was "Ghost Dance". As the band got ready, she started to tell her cannibal joke. "What did one cannibal say to the other cannibal while they were eating a clown?" Some stupid guy in the audience, maybe the same one who didn't know who the drummer was, gave away the punch line. Patti didn't like that -- "I can tell you never went to the Johnny Carson school of comedy. It's all timing. See, you told the punch line and nobody laughed. Now if i did it, it would have been hilarious." "Ghost Dance" sounded fine. Then she introduced Oliver Ray and Tom Verlaine, who came out. Tom had to sit in a chair because of his lumbago. Oliver wrote the next song "Walking Blind." It was a nice song. Tom's contribution was to make some odd guitar noises to punctuate the music nicely. He sat in his chair, looking like a scientist calibrating his instrument, and sporadically tones would burst forth. Oliver left at the end of the song. The heckler/fan to the left (it seemed like it was always the same guy) said "Hey Tom, move forward so your fans over here can see you." Tom stood up, or almost all the way up, and waved in that direction. Meanwhile the roadies were having problems adjusting the mikes for Patti on the next song, where she was going to play acoustic guitar. "Yeah that's about the right height," she quipped when one of the roadies put a mike set for her standing height in front of her chair while he fiddled with another. The crew was having some trouble changing all the equipment around. (Plus Patti's guitar was seriously out of tune -- i think she dropped it, so whe was making do with a substitute that was much larger.) Then Patti leaned over and said the punch line of her joke into the guitar microphone. When the vocal mike was set up, Patti said "If it seems like i'm feeling antagonsitic tonight, well it's just because i am." She went into a fairly long acoustic based song that i'm guessing is called "Southern Cross" -- i think that title's appeared on some setlists. Before the next song Patti said "What do you want?" and the heckler on the left said "I want you!" "You want me? You got a long way to go, buddy." The next tune was a loud & raucous "Rock and Roll Nigger" (is their any other kind?). Lots of energy on this one. Couldn't really hear Tom's playing on this tune -- he never quite broke into a serious solo the whole night, in fact. so maybe his guitar was turned back down to the sound level of the first Boston show. Then came the finale of "Not Fade Away", the first Jerry Garcia tribute of the evening. In the recital in the middle Patti seemed to babble at some point, so i don't think it was the same thing she was saying earlier, but it also seemed to be the first time that Patti and the band were opening up and improvising, searching for some new direction. The show was finally fully up to speed. Tom was putting in a few solos; so was Lenny. Then it was over. Patti and the band walked off the stage. Tom waved goodbye, Jay Dee Daugherty took a bow (he smiled). There was no encore. After reading the reviews of the previous shows, i thought maybe the heckler plus the fumbling with the stage crew put the band off. Then again, maybe because Patti's guitar was out of tune, she decided against singing "Farewell Reel". At any rate the lights went on and the crew switched sets. It was 8:55 or so. A bit under an hour. The show was great, but probably not as great as the others i've read about. I headed for the bathroom. There was a line at the men's room, but i got in and out fairly quickly. I walked out by the front door. No snow yet. The guy next to me started talking to another one of his friends about the opening act. "She's really good, isn't she. You have any of her albums on CD?" "Yeah i have all five of them. I'll bring some over on Saturday." Another conversion? The changeover was efficient -- Dylan's band was through their first number by about 9:20. Maybe they had heard the rumor about the bad weather and wanted to get out ahead of it. The lights when down and here what was played: Bob Dylan Down in the Flood Lay Lady Lay Watchtower You're a Big Girl Now I'll Be Your Baby Tonight Silvio Mr. Tambourine Man (acoustic) Desolation Row (acoustic) Mama, You Been On My Mind (acoustic) Dark Eyes (acoustic, with Patti Smith) Seeing the Real You At Last Ballad of a Thin Man ------- Alabama Getaway ------- The Times They Are a Changin' ------- Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35. Dylan and his band walked out in the darkness, put on their electric instruments, and immediately started into "Down in the Flood." It was the first time i'd seen this song performed live. Bob wore a magenta silk shirt under a grey suit with stripes down the sides of the legs. The rest of the band wore similar, though maybe less flashy suits and hats. Bucky Baxter didn't have a suit coat on, just a red shirt. Winston Watson also didn't have a coat, just a white shirt and vest (just like Jay Dee Daugherty). Second song was "Lay Lady Lay", which some folks liked, but i didn't get into. Dylan's voice was somewhat garbled for the first half of the show, which hurt the first part of the show. Plus the sound system occasionally gave the sound an annoying sharpness, though overall it was fine. Security seemed to be all over -- keeping the people up front in their seats, and often running around, to various emergencies. I caught a whiff of marijuana in the air, which went away after a few songs. No surprises what the third song was. The extended jam at the end was actually very good, and i found myself more interested in it than the last several versions i've heard. Bucky Baxter worked up a nice organ sound out of his pedal steel for "You're a Big Girl Now". (At least it looked like a pedal steel, and certainly sounded that way for "Lay Lady Lay"...) Next was "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight". Then "Silvio", which featured this trick where JJ Jackson and Bob would make their guitars scream together. It was effective in making the song much more interesting than on "Down in the Groove", and started the show's general improvement. The acoustic segment started with "Mr. Tambourine Man". Somewhere towards the middle of the song Bob's voice got clearer and everything started sounding better. Plus we got the first couple harmonica solos of the night. Then came a very long "Desolation Row". He may well have sang all the words as well as put in a few guitar solos. Dylan had hit full stride. I heard someone laugh out loud at one of the lines, too, a reaction probably not heard in concert since Forest Hills in 1965 (:-)). The pace picked up with a fun "Mama You Been On My Mind." Then Dylan introduced Patti again, and the two sang "Dark Eyes" together. I enjoyed it. Patti would sing the first 4 lines (or verse), then Bob and Patti would sing the next 4 lines (chorus, sort of) together. We were all moved by it. Patti left after giving him a kiss on the lips. When she was offstage, the band kicked into "Seeing the Real You at Last", which came off as a real rock number. Better realized than on the album. Stage rush, but the people in the floor seats didn't get up, so i watched from my seat, too. Then the band did "Ballad of a Thin Man", a very enjoyable version with Bucky's steel-pedal organ sound, and Dylan giving an impassioned reading of the lyrics. The band went off and was called back for the first encore. "Alabama Getaway". The lights were almost fully up and everone was dancing in their seat. It sounded great and everyone was into dancing to a fun rock and roll song. At the end of the song, Bob looked at the people at the front of the audience and he went back to where his guitar amp was and got a red rose, then walked over and traded it to some woman at the front of the audience for a yellow rose. He started to leave and one woman (maybe inspired by Patti?) got up and kissed Bob. He let her, then she went back off the stage. Then as Bob walked to the back of the stage, another woman jumped up on stage and nearly got to Bob before being held back by the guitar tuner. Dylan came out for another encore, "The Times they Are a-Changin". Another fine performance, not rowdy, but carrying it's own momentum. After leaving the stage again, Bob and the band came out for a third and final encore, "Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35". This was the real party song of the night, "Alabama Getaway" notwithstanding. Another woman tried to get up on stage, but JJ Jackson blocked her path and stared her down, so she stayed there for the song. At the end, Dylan and the band took an extra bow, and Dylan looked at the audience and shook a hand or two and left. The lights stayed dark for a minute or two while people clapped and stomped on the bleachers and some people in front of me banged chairs on the floor. It all had an interesting rhythm to it, but when the lights went on, the enthusiasm died quickly. It was after 11, so the show was probably an hour and three fourths. I walked out. There was no snow falling ("White as Warhol's hair..." i recalled). Got in my car and slowly snaked my way out of the auditorium, playing Radio Ethiopia on the car stereo (i played Biograph on the way in, so it seemed fair). I went back up the mountain, made a wrong turn (or more precisely, didn't make a right (well, actually left) turn), but i found my way back to route 378 and retraced my steps to my Aunt's house and slept. In the morning i got up and there was snow on the ground. I wiped it off the volkswagen, got in and made my way down the road. It started to sleet a bit, but by going 35-50 mph i was able to get pretty close to Harrisburg, where the freezing rain was coming down. I had to pull over several times to scrape the ice off my windshield, missed the exit to State College, missed the next exit, finally turned around, discovered i had lost the end cap on my windshield wiper, so i improvised a fix with a paper clip (the last thing i could afford to do in this weather was lose a wiper!). Scraped more ice. Changed Dylan tapes. Worked my way onto 320 and made a call to the office. Once i got north of Harrisburg, the worst of the freezing rain was over, though i still had to rely on the occasional splash of salted water from passing trucks to help break up the ice. When i got home, 5 and a half hours after starting, after passing a couple jackknifed trucks and a VW that had spun off the road and was facing traffic, i saw the ice was about a quarter inch thick on the front of my car. I was thankful to make it back in one piece. If i'd known the weather would be this bad, i probably wouldn't have gone, but now i can say i did go and can say i was there. Some random notes: 1. I didn't notice Patti spitting at all at this show. Maybe she read Mitch Gart's message and decided to change her habit -- nah. :-) 2. Someone said that this was Patti backed by the world's greatest rock band. I wouldn't go that far. I mean they're a fine band, but i don't think they quite qualify as "world's best", especially given the disorganization in Wednesday's concert. Besides, half the band comes from the old Patti Smith Group, so i think of this band as an extension of that group rather than as a total replacement. I think this band needs to practice and play more so that they go beyond being the competent rock band they already are, but get back to become a flexible platform for creative exploration, which was the real strength of the old group. I'm not saying this to be critical, because i'm really anticipating how this band will sound (with or without Verlaine -- i assume he'll continue on with Television or as a solo act if he can). Some hopes: 1. Tom Verlaine plays a lot on the new Patti Smith album. It will probably happen, and hopefully as an outgrowth of these shows. 2. Now that Patti is writing again maybe it will rub off on Bob, and either they'll think up a song or two, or maybe it will just kick- start Bob into writing some more. I don't know if it is a matter of Bob meeting up with feminine energy, as one previous writer remarked, so much as Bob meeting up again with _creative_ energy, which has always been at the heart of Patti's art (imho).
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 13:20:08 -0500 From: SLOTH9318 (sloth9318@AOL.COM) Subject: Bethlehem, PA--12/13/95 Set List 1. Down In The Flood 2. Lay Lady Lay 3. All Along the Watchtower 4. You're A Big Girl Now 5. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight 6. Sivio 7. @Mr. Tamboruine Man 8. @Desolation Row 9. @Momma You Been On My Mind 10. @Dark Eyes (with Pattie Smith and Bucky on pedal steel) 11. Seeing The Real You At Last 12. Ballad Of A Thin Man encores: 13. AL Getaway 14. The Times They Are A-Changin' 15. Rainy Day Women, #12 & 35 Great show!!!!!!
