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