Expecting Rain

Hooee, you is easily amused. What do you like about it?

Didn't he mention this playing technique in Chronicles? I think he said some jazz musician had taught him this in the sixties. Almost some sort of mathematical principle. Or perhaps that had more to do with rhythm and not notes or scales. Either way, he always seems to be willing to try the unconventional.

Back in hotel now. Never thought I would be the only one reporting a setlist, funny thing to do, despite the fact that security asked me to turn off my mobile during tangled. What the hell do they think i'm doing?

Well, anyway: No special show, nothing special to remember. What strikes me most is how bad Bobs sound is compared to Marks. I would tend to think that my ears are shot because I only hear a loud booming noise - problem is: I can hear Mark & Band playing perfectly balanced.

Walking back to the trainstation I got the impression that Bob did not impress people in a positive way. But he still has a strong fanbase... People are trying to convince eachother that it was'nt SO BAD... Oh well, we are nuts anyway, aren't we?

having heard two shows on this tour, and being "warned" from the UK and french shows i was surprised by bob not being "all that loud" at all.but i do believe that all this depends on where you are seated/stood in the venue. so i DO believe Thinman saying it was too loud.

Thanks a lot thinman for reporting!

thanks thin man for giving us the first reports!!! great job - and thanks for fighting security for us - means a lot real bob friend!

seems to be a heavy crowd - how did you like it? sounds like a quiet show - nothing wrong with that - and deso and black coat!!

happy hotel rooming!

Yes - but not in a unique way. Once they've shelled out and it's too late to do anything about it, people will convince themselves that almost any decision they've made is a great one that they would never have regrets about.

"People are biased to think of their choices as correct, despite any contrary evidence. This bias gives dissonance theory its predictive power, shedding light on otherwise puzzling irrational and destructive behavior."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Just came back. Very good sound at my place in the hall. I think it was a good, not excellent, concert. Highlights for me were Mississippi, Black Coat, Levee and Thin Man. Very good guitar work on Baby Blue by Mark & Bob. It was my 5th show on this tour. Beneath Luxembourg, this was the best show for me. The people next to me - all younger people and not Dylan fans - liked the Dylan part very much.

yea - people have been programmed with so much pablum in commercial-propaganda-entertainment complex that bob's approach is jarring

first thing i learned in aesthetics class was aesthetic appreciation is a skill

not instant gratification like we are trained to think by consumerism.

cognitive dissonance is bob's method, like the great Monk discussion here

i get the award for mentioning yesterday Bob As Trane (learned from Monk)! keep talking great!!

Thanks for the info. Glad you were in a good spot for the sound, planetwaves. Are you going to anymore shows?

thanks planet waves glad the kids got it!! proof that fresh ears are the ones not bogged down by "cognitive preconceptions" -ha

thanks planet (why luxembourg vs your other shows?) (and thin man)!

that´s often my impression after the shows. And then, when I don´t feel so well too, I think that Dylans art isn´t compatible to many things. Not to industrial entertainment for example. And that many of his songs are telling stories and aren´t made for telling the same story again and again only with other effects. But exactly that Dylan is doing. The paradox reflects the special kind of his art…it´s not usual, but he and we like it usual (and sometimes especially that makes happy).

Absolutely agree with you

thanks Kle - well said bob friend!!

thanks wedding too - glad you saw bob lately!

This was my last show for this tour, nightly moth. Are you going to anymore shows on this leg?

Thin Man is mostly great in this version. Today he was on fire on this song! Yesterday in Hannover I think he had no good voice but was very "hyperacitve" at Thin Man. In comparison to other shows on this tour, he played in Luxembourg at a nice hall there. There were no seating places but a good accoustic. I stood in the second row and were very close to Bob. The setlist was also very nice. Oberhausen was also good (Love Sick!) but I hate this hall. Also Mannheim: This was the second time I saw him in the SAP Arena and surely my last time. I hate this hall. It´s too big and the audience was also very bad. Hannover´s hall is that ugly, too, but the concert was better, although is voice wasn´t that good. Nürnberg was really good, bobschool. I can´t wait for a recording!

oh great planet! thanks

glad nurnberg was great for you - yes the recent soundcloud uploads have been fantastic!

hope you can see him again soon, maybe the large halls were because of MK, they can be too cavernous for sure, see you at the rail

i'm wound so fast, i have to move real slow

So, I'm finally back from the Nuremberg concert. Well, I thought it was a really great show; definitely one of the better Dylan concerts I've heard (on the same level as Mainz 2011, I'd say). I sat pretty far away from the stage, though; somewhere on the upper tribunes, which is nice if your not taller than 1 meter (or 3,2 ft) because there was almost no legroom. But well, you get what you pay for, I guess.

The Mark Knopfler part was good. However, it was exactly the same set as in Munich (as far as I can remember) - and as MK tends to play his songs always in the same perfectionist manner, there were not really any surprises. However, the atmosphere was definitely better as in Munich. It seemed there were many MK fans in Nuremberg last night. During the last two songs there was even a small stage rush (maybe 20-30 people). All in all, it was pretty good, especially if you have a guitar fetish. Then the lights went on and the crew prepared the stage for the second part. In the meantime I went down the hall ...

And suddenly I turned around and shosha was standing there
With a beige scarf around her neck and her long black hair
She walked up to me so gracefully
... and then we had a really nice conversation. I enjoyed that very much. I hope we'll see each other again some time.

After 15-20 minutes, Dylan's set began:

1. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat: Business as usual. Good rock!

2. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue: First time I heard this song live and it was a lovely rendition. MK contributed some nice guitar sounds, Bob sang really well, the band was good, too. So, everything was fine. I loved it.

3. Things Have Changed: Another great performance. I liked it slightly better than the one they did in Munich. Bob's voice seemed to be better and stronger than two weeks ago (not just for this song but for the entire concert). Again, MK played some really nice guitar tunes.

4. Mississippi: My personal highlight of the show. I had never heard this song live, but I was hoping he would play this tune. And it was so awesome. The band, the voice, the lyrics ... just great! The crowd loved it and so did I.

5. Honest With Me: A nice rocking rendition of a song that is not really my cup of tea. The band was in a good mood during this song, though. Hence, I can't really complain about that performance.

6. Tangled Up In Blue: Despite the fact that Bob left out several stanzas ( ), I loved this performance. It was the third time I heard this song live (Linz 2010, Mainz 2011), and I have to say it was the best performance I've heard of this song. His voice was great and his harmonica solos even led to some spontaneous applause. So, that was my second highlight of the show.

7. The Levee's Gonna Break: Another nice rocking rendition; nothing special, though.

8. Desolation Row: My third highlight of the show. I thought it was a really great performance. Bob's voice fitted perfectly, the phrasing was excellent, the band was great, and at some point, there was really a kind of magical beauty as Bob pulled out some nice notes from his electric organ and Charlie tried to duplicate them with his guitar.

9. Highway 61 Revisited: This one was alright, some nice rock. However, I've heard better performances of this song. After this song was done, I saw maybe 15 people leaving the block. I don't know if they went home or down to the stage because there had been another, big stage rush.

10. Man In The Long Black Coat: It's always nice to hear this song and I liked it a lot. The band was great and Bob, too. However, I have to say that the phrasing could've been slightly better. In my opinion, the rendition from Munich was superior. Then again, the one from Munich was close to perfection. All in all, it was great.

11. Thunder On The Mountain: Business as usual.

12. Ballad Of A Thin Man: Business as usual, but it was a really good performance, especially if you see some idiots who are about to leave the show.

13. All Along The Watchtower: Business as usual.

14. Like A Rolling Stone: Business as usual, but not really good. I've heard better performances of this song. I don't know what went wrong but there was some kind of disharmony. Well, who cares!

And that was it!

(And with regard to the loudness: It was not as loud as in Munich. Where I sat it was definitely acceptable.)

well i´m also back from the Nuremberg concert and it was real good experience, i´m still in my happy little Dylan cloud =)

actually XRaylroad´s review says it all. i sat at another angle of the hall (block 201), and although i´m quite small i have blue marks on my knees because there was so little space. maybe i´m spoilt due to the decadent ticket i had at the Munich concert. i wish i had bought floor tickets, because dancing to the music at the stage rush etc is more fun than sitting between motionless and grumpy MK fans but it sounds worse than it was, i did enjoy the show and did sense it as loud, but not extremely loud.

more and more i come to the conclusion that the sound quality depends grossly on where you are seated - personally i found it better and more balanced in munich, where i had a perfect seat...

MK´s set was as usual, of course enjoyable and virtuously played, but from the phone of a friend i shortly watched the ER thread and when i read "same songs, same jokes" in the first post, i really had to smile, because it was like that (esp. when he introduced "privateering" ).

in the break, one of my personal highlights of the show happened, namely meeting XRaylroad (unfortunately i was no as punctual as Bobby, i´m still SO sorry!). in any case it was great, we immediately could relate to each other and i found it totally great to meet someone who is such a huge Dylan fan (we have both been to Mainz and Munich, too, but hadn´t seen each other)!





yeah, it definitely wasn´t the last time we met, i hope!!

maybe i saw some other ER people, too, but i didn´t recognize anybody else.

after returning on time to see Bob enter the stage, finally his set began. i was very positively surprised by his voice on Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat, and even a friend of mine who accompanied me and who is no big Dylan fan made a positive remark on its clearness, but of course it deteriorated later, or Bob used another technique, however you want to put it.
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue was great. it was also the first time for me to hear this song live and it seemed very intense, and very powerful to me. after Things Have Changed, Bob played Mississippi and i had to smile, because in the break we had talked about which songs we´d like to hear and XRaylroad´s wish was fulfilled (well my wish was a bit unrealistic, though) it was really great, and it seemed that Bob enjoyed the song and this energy was transferred to the crowd. quite intense performance.

luckily, my seat was on the left side so i had a good view on the stage and could see him fine at the organ and center stage.

Tangled Up In Blue was cool, too. especially nice was to see the communication between Bob and the Band, i observed it during the whole show, a real clockwork and really fascinating.

as for the "visions of bob" department, i can report that he wore his black suit with golden stripes, black hat, white button-down and black western string bow tie (i love when he wears this!!!) and though he seemed a bit slimmer than on the shows i saw earlier, he looked really good, healthy and moved a lot. enourmously handsome and attractive

it was the last show for me to see in 2011 and i´ll keep it in good memory.

Thank you for your reviews! Good Dylannews make me happy, because there´s many criticism in the air and the most important come from people who like him but have distance. For me it´s obvious that another aera of Dylans career started and I feel some late autumn wind. One thing I don´t do again: Compare the last recordings with some, that are a few years older. Some people write, Dylan knows exactly what he does, he plays like Monk etc. For me much more important is his passion, his will to sing, cry or bark. May he begins to whisper next year. If somebody would ask me, why I like Dylan and follow him so many years, I would answer: It´s all in the voice. And for me the voice can´t be destroyed. All I nead from Dylan is a will (and cheaper tickets).

this. i don´t actually go to the shows in order to listen to "perfect" music. in fact, bands that sound on stage like they do on cds rather irritate me, they seemnot exactly authentic to me - they are boring. of course i also dislike shows where i see that the artist is just doing "bad", where you feel kinda betrayed by the pr department (best example are such hyped pop starlets or something).

but when i see bob, like yesterday in nuremberg, it´s something different. i go there because i like to see my hero Bob in person. period. i like the atmosphere at those shows, i like the "thrill", i like the people there whom i always found very cool. i like to see at which point of his life Bob is at the moment. i just appreciate it that he is still there, touring, doing all those strenous things for - whom? for himself, certainly, but also for us. this is quite passionate, devotional, and also touching and somehow cute. i love to see him, esp. when he´s having fun. and i love it that he is so reliable. that you somehow can count on him to return, in whatever state. and in any case, he´s written those magnificent songs, he´s done all those changes and new inventions. how could going to see this be a waste of time and money? well for some people, maybe, but not for me. i go there to see "art", to get surprised and stunned in a way. it couldn´t "disappoint" me, because, like tellmemomma wrote somewhere else, i don´t expect anything - no getting "service" i paid for like at the barber´s.



hmm... there is something melancholic about that. i had similar thoughts last night, too.

And there's a first bootleg: http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-deta ... ?id=381025

thanks for the link! very nice! (haha last night i sometimes had to controll myself when having the impulse to say some silly/funny/nonsense things to my neighbor, because it occurred to me that ANYBODY around me could be taping )

If you want to I can upload my "tape" as well. But as already said, it was recorded with a potato or something which is equally effective when it comes to recording good sound...



Haha, that's good that you had the will power to control yourself. During Knopfler's set, which I also tried to tape, the dude next to me suddenly gave me a bump on my shoulder and said that he wanted to go to the toilet (well, he used other words to express his desire, though)

hmm if you don´t mind, it might be at least "interesting" maybe it sounds better to us than you think. in any case, it will sound better than what my cam "recorded" when i tried to make a video secretly