Expecting Rain

This.

The up-and-downing had started to annoyingly creep in at Cardiff but only on a few verses, mainly during the end of Desolation Row and Early Roman Kings if I recall correctly. If it again starts to "take over" every song then I too will be scrambling for the exit.

In the live mix (at the shows I attended, at least) the piano tends to be more percussive, whereas it's more noticeable as a distinct sound on the recordings. I agree it could safely be trundled into the Thames without negatively affecting the show.

it's better than the circus organ.

2004 and 2005: yes - but can you point me to just one single "excellent show" from 2007-2011? For me the IOT and the croaking/barking killed every single performance at that time.

I Want You was played in Vancouver on July 20, 2005.

There are a lot of good shows from 2007. If you don't like the MT material, whatever. I do. Fall tour.

For 2008 I like the shows from Mexico and the shows from early on in the Europe tour. My favorites are Trondheim and Odense. Warsaw and Trento are good. They're interesting. It's Alright, Ma was great then. I'm sure the vocals are gruff but whatever. The shows had bite.

I wasn't at the Wembley concert, but went to Palladium 2 and Nottingham and thought both concerts were brilliant, my son felt the same and he's seen Bob with me in 2007/2009/2015. (I saw Bob in 1987 but can't remember much about it)
No real cause for complaint at all on this tour, in fact we both would have done more concerts this time had we the time and money.
So in answer to the original question, unless Wembley took a horrible downward spiral I would say that the review is too harsh.
Setlist was fine for me but then I haven't been on all of Bob's tours, so the static setlist hasn't made any difference.

moab

I meant Stavanger not Trondheim. Trondheim was 2001.

This describes my recent experiences spot-on, particularly the bolded bit, but, in general, the sense that the current shows are "pretty good" but nothing to write home about.

Here's another review I found, kinder but still our man was still a bit of a disappointment:

http://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/bo ... -upsetting

I think it is a bit fairer though, and the comments below the review are interesting!

So my views on the bad sound are vindicated, glad it wasn't just me.

Makes me wonder why you even go back to concerts if you haven't liked his output since 2000-2002. Its been 15-17 years since then!

I think a lot has to do with peoples personal mental investment when going to concerts if they judge it as being good or bad. Also the venue, where you are seated in the arena has a lot to do with the experience. And ofcourse his performance and the sound.

Personally I think his output this year has been stellar. Checking back on 2015 shows they were equally good. His voice is better than its been in years. He is invested in his performances. The band is delivering steady good performances every night. One can argue as a fan that it boring with the stale setlists. But thats what 99% of all artists do. So if its boring don't waste time on listening to the shows or follow what he is doing touring wise.

So to all nay sayers - what is it exactly you wish for? It seems unclear. Saying 2002 was great doesn't really tell what you are looking for
- Setlist changes from night to night with the chance of many ragged performances?
- Bob playing the 'best of' set?
- A new band?
- More rocking sound?
- Bob's voice to be better?
- Something else?


Im pretty sure peoples opinions on this is very different - therefore it would be impossible for Dylan to fullfull (not that he would ever care anyway)

That's everything then.



Yes

How can we know its boring without listening or following?

This is how that pesky Dylan keeps us enslaved!

He would do us all a massive favour by releasing the setlists and comments on performance quality before each tour.

That's about the truth of it, it certainly sums up why I'm still a fan!

Fair question, and I'll do my best to give an honest answer. Bear in mind, review my comments. I think there's been a generalized decline since 2002 or 2003, but I liked the shows I saw in 2003 and 2004 pretty well. I saw him in 2006 and it was pretty dozey, but I thought maybe it was an off-night. I saw a show in 2007 and was a little more aware of the decline and then came the 2008 show that I walked out on. I've been back-- for one show in the years since. So basically, I have cut way back.

There is always an element of the unexpected with Dylan. If you saw the NET in 1988 and liked it and stuck with it through those down times in, say 1991, you might have given up. But by 1994, it was a new and different thing. Maybe he comes back and fixes it.
I waited about 6 1/2 years to see another show, and I did like it better. But not enough better to go back to the ways of, say, 1999, when I saw six shows.

What would make it better for me? I would come back for a varied setlist, even if it meant a chance of seeing some sloppy versions. That was true in the 1997-2002 era, although it didn't happen a ton. I would come back if Dylan sang better-- which was the one thing I did find in 2015 that had been sorely missing in 2008. That (in a mild sense) was the improvement, basically. He sacrificed a fair amount of intensity, but managed not to bark every song. Either a new band or a new sound would be nice. If we had the first two, I'd probably be okay without them, but they would increase my interest generally.

I remember the early days of the old Dylan Pool and thinking, "Wow, maybe on this leg of the tour, he'll play some random songs we never hear" or "He'll start playing harp on every song" or "He might have a new drummer, who makes it all sound completely different." There's no real possibility in what he's doing now. The best you can hope for is, "He tightened up and played a relatively professional sounding show of the same stuff." I don't sense any burning commitment to the material and performance, which may be me, and again, is on the basis of one show two years ago.

Lest you think I'm just a cranky old man, there's an element of me acknowledging that he's paid any debt he owes anyone many times over. He can play the same songs in the most uncommitted manner possible with the worst backing in the world and it doesn't touch the years of delivering the goods. He has long ago earned the right to do whatever he wants. But as a live performer, Bob's just not that interesting to me now, and it's not that good.

Joe

From reading a lot of comments on this forum you'd think Bob's show had completely crashed and burned somewhere between 2011 and now. This clashes with my own instinct that he has actually dramatically improved. Not reaching the heights of "the good ol' days", but still very good.

For a great example of just how much the live show has been revived, compare SPOT's audience recordings of Cardiff 2011 and Cardiff 2017.

The 2011 show is a fairly typical example from that tour; not amazing, not terrible. It clearly has a more unpredictable setlist than 2017, which was fun. And it has a handful of stand-out performances. So pick a random song and you might well get lucky, thinking "what's the problem?". But listen to it as a complete show (rather than just cherry picking performances) and you'll notice just about every song is being fed through exactly the same "mathematical" process. Bob's voice seems to have two settings: mumbling or shouting, with not much in-between.

In 2017 he's back to using a wider palette of vocal colours. His singing is better, the show flows better, there's a much wider range of songs; he's treating every song as a distinct entity rather than just random information to be fed through the same basic mathematical process. He brings the songs to life (and then, on occasion, kills them).

And conversely, I don't think there's been that much of a decline since 2014. Though there are some very clear recordings from that year, which helps. The live sound is now more of a 50/50 blend of the 2014 laid-back Shadows sound and his usual amped-up boogie, more grit and gravel getting into the workings. But his voice (whilst as unreliable as ever) still has a sense of control and strength and expressiveness to it that would have seemed impossible 5 years ago.

I haven't heard Wembley so I don't know if there was some dramatic drop-off at that show. As McG pointed out, the sound quality might have a lot to do with it. But the few other shows I've heard don't strike me as deserving of the distain they've attracted.

The tracks I've so far heard from Wembley are a bit...weird in some way. Desolation Row doesn't sound all that different from how he's been playing it for a decade now, but I have to admit I do get the whole Bruce Hornsby analogy. Love Sick is odd - something doesn't quite work there. Wembley is a waste of time as a venue though, in my opinion. Even if it was his last show ever in Britain, I'd still boycott Wembley.

When people were claiming in 2015 that the Set was boring etc. at least the performance quality was there. It now increasingly seems that the performances are getting sketchier but the Set isn't even changing to offset that fact a bit. He's doing the motions maybe...I don't know I didn't see him at the Palladium shows, which appears to have brought out a superior performance based on reviews given here. It's never overly wise to judge a tour on recordings alone.

But, yeah, the reviewer is pretty lacking in knowledge. Also, I wonder why on earth people are still reviewing the man's shows these days? Despite relentlessly touring, his shows haven't being doing all that much new for a decade now, excepting the Sinatra covers which do represent quite a big change from the old, 1960s-dominated format.

For me it's the set lists. I think the Scorsese movie came out in late 2005 and Dylan played a near exclusive 1960's set in 2006 with the new cheesy organ sound. I missed the show that year. I tried to like Modern Times but it's just lousy. Finally caught the Modern Times show in 2007 (two of them, actually) and it was a couple interesting tunes then unremitting sludge except for a carefully sung Workingman's Blues which I dislike anyway because he pulls his punches. Then there were the barking years, endless versions of High Water and similar dreck. Shows in 2015 and 2016 were better, mostly carefully performed and paced and studded with songs I don't care for.

For the mainstream press I think it is fairly balanced, and it does reflect my own opinion of the Palladium show I caught. In terms of where these current shows stand I do think there's been a decrease in quality from both the Fall 2016 shows, and Dylan's last British appearances in 2015. I can handle the Sinatra tunes, a lot more than 2015 anyway when for the first time I found myself bored at a Dylan show, but when the rest of the set has the weakest of the Tempest tracks; Soon After Midnight, Early Roman Kings and Long, And Wasted Years (can anyone please explain what they enjoy about this song?), Duquesne Whistle has been stripped off its most defining feature (the riff) and that's not even mentioning the horror that is Spirit On The Water, or the done to death sixties tunes, there's not much left. In 2015 Lovesick, She Belongs To Me, I'm A Fool To Want You, Autumn Leaves and Scarlet Town all stood out. This time around it was only really Highway 61 and Autumn Leaves. For me anyway.

Yes exactly most factors has do do with a subjective opinion not not Bob actualy performance. At the start of this tour I was quite annoyed by the setlist continuing to be stale. I even tried to sell my ticket to one of the concerts I attended. Anyway after first concert I attended I was very happy that I went to all three concerts that I had initially planned. I would highly have regretted not going now. But then again I had row 2-8 seats for all concerts so that might be a big factor. And also being at the concert is a whole other thing than judging by bootleg recordings.

He thanks for the reply El_Joe. And for keeping the discussion serious. I agree with a lot of you points. But at the same time some of the bad years from 2005 and onwards they did acutally change the setlist up a lot - up to 110 songs in 2005 to 64 to be exact. And from 2013 we saw the drastic change of only 24 songs (2012 had 71 songs).

So even though te mentioned years were not good they did a lot of changes from night to night. So Im not sure how much it would change anyway. Especially not if the songs to be added to the set are the likes of Lonesome Day Blues, Jolene, I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, It aint me, Honest With Me, Cry A While, Rollin' And Tumblin, Summer Days, Thunder On The Mountain and Levee gonna break.

Would anyone want that back? I think a lot has to do with Bob not wanting to be a 'best of' museum act and at the same time has decided to cut the cord on some of the songs mentioned above. The set they do now - for one nighters - is much stronger, clear and to the point than chagning between these latter day blues songs.

Anyway I still agree that a bit of changing would make it more interesting and fun. It still puzzles me why he decided to Working Man Blues #2 and What Good am I etc after doing the drastic change of the setlist concepts.


A few rotating songs like TO Ramon, Waiting for You, Working Mans Blues # 2, What good am I, She Belongs To Me, Highwater, Simple Twist Of Fate, Forgetful Heart, Visions Of Johanna etc - this wouldn't change the basic concept of the set, but still make it a bit more interesting.

I don't think it's a question of varied set lists making the shows better - the Albert Hall shows in Nov 2013 had almost identical set lists and they were superb, up there with Dylan's best ever concert performances in terms of being consistently good all the way through. 'The Set' as we called it was a stunning two-act drama, with almost all individual scenes contributing to its impact. I knew what was coming next, but that only enhanced the magical mature of what I experienced - I still get goosebumps remembering the goosebumps I got knowing a harmonica break in 'She Belongs To Me' was about to happen.

The current set simply doesn't make any sense. The sense of the whole set as a 'drama' set has vanished - dropping the intermission indicates that Dylan no longer sees the show that way. Instead, his own songs have been dropped to be randomly replaced with hoary old standards. The stunningly audacious end to the main set in 2013, 'Long and Wasted Years', is now relegated to being a lead-in to 'Autumn Leaves', and its dramatic power is completely lost. Dylan undermines his own songs by the dominating presence of the standards to such a degree that he insults them, pissing not just on the audience's expectations but on his own songwriting legacy: he insults us, and himself.

But the very worst thing about the recent performances is that they are terminally boring. Really, really dull. Sinatra was never a dull performer, but Dylan sure as hell is these days. Maybe he should pay more attention to Sinatra's stagecraft and ape that, rather than copying his repertoire.

Well again a very subjective opinion. I see it as a treat to see Bob perform these standards and actally doing something else than performing even more
Lonesome Day Blues, Jolene, I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, It aint me, Honest With Me, Cry A While, Rollin' And Tumblin, Summer Days, Thunder On The Mountain and Levee gonna break. He did play Autumn Leaves after Long Wasted Years during the two set period.

That said it's now been three releases in the "Sinatra period". Where does he go from here? Whats next for the Nobel prize winner in litterature? Are we gettinga new album or originals or is this whole standards really just a cover up of him not having new material?

Likewise. Enjoying the discussion, and you raise another good point. It's not just the lack of variation... probably back to 2005, there's been almost no meaningful setlist variety. Even if he had options, if it's the same two or three songs-- often not exactly the ones best representative of his canon-- I'm not sure I would much care. Honestly, Dylan has written so many great songs. If he did vary it at this point, he'd play Jolene or Rollin' and Tumblin' instead of, say, Duquesne Whistle. Not much better to me.

I'd even be okay with a stagnant setlist within a tour if there was any real variety. Work up 15 different songs for each leg, which probably wouldn't take more than a couple days. But yeah, even what you're proposing below would make for a much more interesting show. Not that I'm expecting Bob to drop in and take suggestions

Joe

I was at the Wembley show. It was my 8th time in 26 years; and the last couple of times have been very adeptly performed but very, very boring. The set list is to blame.

From 1991 to 2007, he got better every time I saw him. What was initially frightening became the highlight: his unpredictability. I've heard him lecture the audience that his new bass player Tony Garnier was really quite something, whilst seeing Don't Think Twice, It's All Right fall apart in front of my very eyes. I've seen him bring on Al Kooper, Ronnie Wood; I've seen him reach into his bag and pull out songs as obscure as Tough Mama or Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread. I saw him in 2007 at Wembley Arena, just after he released Modern Times; his best album for me since Desire. He restored my faith in both him and in Wembley Arena.

I crumbled in 2015 to get the chance to see him at the Royal Albert Hall. For the first time, I wasn't surprised once. I was bored.

I was persuaded to go again this year. I should have known better. The set list was, again, mind-numbingly dull.

In 2015, he performed three - three - songs that reflected his career pre-1997. A quarter of the set list came from Tempest; more than that from The Great American Songbook. I swore never again.

This week he'd at least managed three songs from Highway 61 Revisited; and doubled the pre-1997 material. But it didn't feel like it: he still devoted over half the concert to The Great American Songbook and sodding Tempest. My only consolation is that he's probably more bored of Early Roman Kings than I am; and that's saying something.

Looking back over the set list now, I can only forgive it when it appears that there might be some sort of code in there as to what to expect: I used to care, it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, beyond here lies nothing, why try to change me now, nothing more wretched than what I must endure, gone is every joy and inspiration, you think I'm over the hill, so much for these long and wasted years.

Theoretically, by ending it with "Something is happening, and you don't know what it is", he has the last laugh. In fact, increasingly little is happening, and I don't care what it is.

@ Somebody Naked

Great post. I agree that he is clearly doing this set as a statement. Just as much as cutting down the reperoire to 24 songs in 2015. I think the whole Triplicate thing and the continues focus on covers is a typical Dylan reply to anyone who came out for this tour thinking that now they would get the "best of" set and clearly also a statement to the Nobel Foundation.

Back in late 2016 we saw a switch back to a more familar setlist in the start of the tour. Probably Bob converted back because of playing the Dessert trip gigs. Those concerts only included one cover song. But once that was done he endend up with seven covers again. Hopefully he will soon move on from this and get back to playing only his won material.