DVDylan ID:

D483

Recording type:

Mixed

City/Venue:

Northern Illilnois University, De Kalb, Illinois, US

Date:

Sunday, 31st October 2004

Never-Ending Tour Concert #1684

1.    Down Along The Cove

2.    God Knows

3.    Positively 4th Street

4.    Things Have Changed

5.    Forever Young

6.    Lonesome Day Blues

7.    Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again

8.    Blind Willie McTell

9.    Highway 61 Revisited

10. Not Dark Yet [first verse cut]

11. High Water (for Charlie Patton)

12. Honest With Me

13. It Ain't Me, Babe

14. Summer Days

15. Like A Rolling Stone

16. All Along The Watchtower

Number of discs:

1

Running time:

01:44

Video standard:

NTSC

Authoring:

DVDs with menu and chapters are circulating


DISC D483
SOUND Dull, murky four star. Hard work.
IMAGE Tonight's camera is up in a fairly distant right side elevated position with a good angle into left-stage keyboard Bob. Its view is wholly unobstructed and its operator does a fine handling job, with no skid, slide or roof/floor interlude all through. Zoom and panning movements are easy and assured. The frame periodically tracks down, such that we get jeez the odd look at his knees, but each time quickly corrected. Pictures, though just faintly coloured are fresh (see screenshots) though on high zoom lose definition such that the closer looks at D are less than sharp. The only regrettable aspect of an otherwise excellent night's work is the camera's dogged Bobcentricity. There's an occasional pull-back or panning tour of the band, but (for me, anyway) not nearly enough. This is exemplified best during the extended break in Summer Days when we hear the band giving it their all and even get briefly to see them, but spend most of the time fruitlessly Bob-gazing. But a capable, above-average effort all the same.
RUNNING TIME 103:50. Sadly, the first verse of Not Dark Yet is cut, otherwise all is here.
PERFORMANCE Enjoyable late '04 fare. Nice to see Forever Young on the set-list (and so high - I've always thought of it as a show-closer or late-show highlight) but D speaks more than sings the lyric, and in a fractured, disjointed way that does its otherwise lovely benediction* no favours. And though he frames his delivery with harp at both ends, it's just his standard peeping squeaking sort rather than the give-you-the-shivers soul-balm he's capable of when the spirit moves him. So it goes. McTell's arrow is on the doorstep again (see D222) and then there’s Lonesome Day Blues. Bob's mother Beattie passed away in January 2000, aged 84. And, whether co-incidentally or not, and _ propos of nothing (in terms of the song - but that's how grief is - just there) Bob ended verse six of 2001's LD Blues with the line "I wish my mother was still alive". Whatever his feelings on the matter (probably not hard to guess), it's a line he no longer sings. Tonight, instead, we hear I'm telling myself that I'm still alive while in Uncasville in early June of this same year (see the marvellous D469.su) he belted out with fiery conviction the much stronger I've never FELT more alive! Time, as they say, wounds all heels.
HIGHLIGHTS A gorgeous 4th Street, Not Dark Yet (cropped or not) and another well-sung and played re-worked Me Babe.
COMMENT (1) If you're wondering about this DVD's subtitle - it's Hallowe'en and the cross-reference is back to this night forty years back (so long!) when young Bob was effortlessly charming a New York crowd in the manner all can now hear on BS6. Apart from the well-remembered masquerading crack, he also responded to a call of "What do you do for a living?" with

Whatever you say! Hope I never have to make a living!

And, in that sense, fortunately for us (though possibly to the detriment of the wooden leg industry (!) - see Chronicles page 164) he never has. As for this De Kalb Eve, he acknowledges the date and possibly his distant past too with another joke for his audience (Larry was going to go trick or treating tonight dressed up like a skeleton, but he didn’t go because ... Can you guess the rest?) (2) Watch what George does during the final line-up. Watch especially his hands and his ears. (3) No sixties dinosaur, this. Tonight's set-list is a healthy mix of songs from right across his career, and all the better for it too.
THANKS Willow
STARS Another s/u contender. Meanwhile, as is, three and a half.

* Robertson Davies, quoting Jung, regards the song's lyric as less benediction than curse. Why? Because the second half of a well lived life - i.e. the half of superior intellectual and spiritual strength that develops (if at all) only with years under the belt and water under the bridge - is potentially better than the first. Yet the spiritual reward can only be reaped if the concerns of youth are first set aside in timely fashion. Thus to "stay forever young" is an impoverished hope and a malign blessing and it could be argued that Bob's continued adherence to such facile sentiments - listen to John Brown or Masters Of War for more of the same - seriously undermines his artistic credibility.


Reviewed by Jim50 on 01st April 2007