Bob Dylan 2001.10.30 in Green Bay
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan Subject: Green Bay comments From: Stu Levitan stu@stuartlevitan.org Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 03:22:29 -0600 Bob returns to Title Town USA and proves again he's the undisputed champ of the rock and roll road. Proposin' a toast to the King, indeed. Three tour bust-outs (including a new opener), four cuts from LAT (but still no Tweedle in Wisconsin, after 3 dates), a triple encore, and a musical span of 40 years. Maybe it was having Monday night off, maybe the proximity to the Packers Hall of Fame, but Bob gave a small but very appreciate audience at the Brown County Arena a night to remember. Tonight it was Larry dressed like an undertaker, with Bob in single-breasted black tuxedo with five silver buttons and black silk piping on legs and three sort of curlique-design pipings on the sleeve. Only spot of color on anyone was Bob's maroon neckware (forget its name -- sort of an X extending out past the collars). Charlie and Larry musta used 15 guitar line-ups between 'em, and some beautiful ones they were. Whether it's because Larry is doing that multi-instrumentalist thing, or because of the stage switch has Larry now over Bob's left shoulder and Charlie to his right, but Charlie seems to be the first assistant lead guitar. 1. Humming Bird (acoustic) 2. Song To Woody (acoustic) Bob reverts to the old Guthrie vocal ticks - "and it's ah, hardly been born." Cheers after first verse. Intricate 3-way picking on break. "Last thing I'd want to saaaaaaaaaaay...." Not doing some hard travelling, too? 1300+ shows in 13 years? Go ahead, Bob -- you can saaaaaaaaaay you've been having some hard travellin', too. 3. It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (acoustic) More Guthrie vocalisms: "except, ah, hatred" "all is, ah, phoney" Chugging ahead at a nice little clip, good cheers on verses. Charlie on beautiful maple colored national steel. 4. Searching For A Soldier's Grave (acoustic) Nice but short Larry mandolin break. 5. 'Til I Fell In Love With You Slow blues. "Till I fell, till I fell in love with you." Boblede good, Charlie lede great. "Thank you! I'm in a New York State of Mind!" 6. I Want You (Larry on pedal steel and Bob on harp) Bouncy. Relentlessly bouncy. Goes up a third or so on the last work at end of every line, except rips out the "time is on my side" verse. Boblede while Larry floats above on pedal steel. 7. Cry A While Bluesy, boozy. "...whiiiiiiiiiiiiiile." Larry slide, Charlie thumbpick. Bob left leg a-twitchin' heavy. 8. Moonlight (Bob on harp) Charlie gives lovely, delicate frills on red Gibson. Bob sits on drum riser for first half of harp break. Charlie takes it out. Good crowd reaction. 9. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (acoustic) Major crowd reaction, early on well before vocal, which turned out to be unexceptional, but good enough. Bob swaggers around at close, deservedly. 10. Fourth Time Around (acoustic) (Larry on bouzouki) What a stupid song. 11. Masters Of War (acoustic) Standard 2001 arrangement, with reprise of first verse that features the guitars cutting out after "see through your." Bob wails on "maaaaaask," then they come back with a crash. Starts quietly, but once DK's drums start pounding suddenly assumes a great power. 12. Summer Days (Tony on standup bass) Charlie and a cherry red Gibson. What more do you need? (How about a stand-up bass that spins around?) After the "nails ain't goin' down" line, Bob gives a little left knee jab (sort of to where the groin would be) 13. Mississippi "Every step of the way I walk the line." Very good crowd response. 14. The Wicked Messenger (Bob on harp) Lighting plays up shifting silhouettes of the musicians. Cool. "sweeaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrr they're burning" "briiiiiiiiiiiing any" Short, hot harp break, with great, great leg work going on -- almost gets down on right knee at one point. 15. Highway 61 Revisited Great Bob/Charlie duel. Sixtyyyyyyyyyyyyyy-one. Sixtyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy-on. Left leg really working when all three guitars start ringin'. The scattered formation -- Bob and Larry holding guitars by necks with right hands, Tony and Charlie stand apart with hands folded. Bob jiggles a little bit. (1st encore) 16. Things Have Changed a toe-tapping version "yes, but things have change." "yeah, but things have changed." "yeeeeeesssssssss, but things have changed." "not that eager, not that eager to make a mistake." 17. Like A Rolling Stone "he wasm't, wasn't where it's at." This one was. Assumed real power. 18. If Dogs Run Free (acoustic) Bob's feathery vocal again goes up at end of lines. "You can be Queen or King..." "It can pay your bills, it can cure your ills, if dogs run free." Nice Charlie lede. 19. Honest With Me LC slide on most gorgeous brass/bronze something or other kind of guitar. For my money, a better song than LARS. 20. Blowin' In The Wind (acoustic) Again, lilting up at end of lines -- but on the few lines he didn't do that, but sang closer to original, it was much, much more powerful. Gives a left thumb signal to front row at close. (2nd encore) (actually, the band never left the stage for this) 21. All Along The Watchtower Three vanilla creme Fenders lining up, doing some serious damage. Charlie and Larry's breaks could have gone Jimified, but they were cut too short. Pounding drums. (3rd encore) 22. Knockin' on Heaven's Door Sweet, sweet arrangement -- soaring acapella harmonies on the wordless chorus to open and close, just a beautiful piece of work. In middle, some lyric counterpoint, recalls arrangements with the Band. A beautiful Charlie break. White spots fade to black, and out. So what I need for Madison, Bob, is Mississippi, High Water and Sugar Baby. And don't forget Tweedle, OK? Gotta have that Bo Diddley beat at least once in the Badger State. Thanks for everything -- see you tonight. /s/ Stu
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan Subject: Re: Green Bay comments From: Stu Levitan stu@stuartlevitan.org Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 08:25:56 -0600 > 10. Fourth Time Around (acoustic) (Larry on bouzouki) > What a stupid song. What I meant to say was "what simple rhymes this song has." (hummed/drum/come, boot/suit/cute, rum/come/some, through/shoe/you -- you get the idea). Hey, it was three in the morning. But admit it -- not only isn't this Bob's best song, this isn't even the best song featuring a bouzouki in the repertoire, is it?
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan Subject: Green Bay Notes From: Dan Krass dankrass@shell.core.com Date: 31 Oct 2001 18:17:23 GMT Things Bill Missed: Larry played elec. on Humming Bird Charlie played dobro on Its Alright ma Tony played upright bass on Moonlight Charlie on electric for 4th Time Around Masters. Charlie dobro knockin. charlie on electric. same in MKE too pretty good show, pretty sedated crowd dan
From: "Robert Fresen" bobfresen@hotmail.com To: webmaster@dylanite.com Subject: Concert Review: Green Bay, WI 10-31-01 Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2001 11:48:33 -0600 Review of October 30, 2001 Bob Dylan Concert/Green Bay, Wisconsin The show that Bob & Band put on in Green Bay was a winner. My wife & I stood up the whole time back by the sound board and danced quite a bit. The new and old songs flowed together nicely and the crowd loved it. It's quite a treat for us in this little, old, mid-western, great lakes town(an area probably much like the one Robert Zimmerman grew up in) to get to see one of the all time masters, Bob Dylan. Its hard not to compare this Dylan show to Dylan shows seen in the past. I first saw him perform at a 1975 Rolling Thunder Review Show in Boston. In my mind, nothing will ever match-up to the energy and intensity of the younger Bob Dylan at that show("you can come back, but you can't come back all the way"). He came out in white face with a big white cowboy hat. His rendition of "Isis" (I don't know if he does that song anymore) was so powerful that I thought he was going to explode. The duos with Joan Baez were priceless. Of course, those days are gone forever and the next time I saw Dylan was in 1999 in Milwaukee exactly two years ago with this band. It was a good solid show with some real jewels like "Not Dark Yet" and "Every Grain of Sand". But I felt sorry for the young people at the show that never had the chance to see him at his peak in the Rolling Thunder Review. Anyway, I put on my white face with a pencil thin mustache in black and my white cowboy hat (it was the day before Halloween) and went over to the Brown County Arena in the rain. Like most of you, I have been following the set-lists for the current tour on Bill Pagel's excellent Dylan Links site. So I was tripped up by Dylan's opener of "Humming Bird" 'cause I was expecting "Waiting For The Light To Shine." In fact I didn't recognize the song at all but it had some good lines about a train. I figured all the train tracks that cross Green Bay had inspired Dylan that day to do something different. "Song to Woody" was awesome. I had always wanted to hear that one. "Till I Fell in Love With You", a nice blues number, was a pleasant surprise. It had some lyrics about the rain falling so I kind of related it to the day's weather. Another song that was a bit of a mystery was "Fourth Time Around". It had a such a Beatles-esk. quality to it that I thought it was a Beatles tune (Norwegian Wood). This song really had a magical quality about it that seemed to put a spell on the crowd. Highlights of the night included "Masters of War" and "Mississippi" This is just a fantastic song on which they had some blue back-up lighting that had a Grateful Deadish look. "Things Have Changed" made a great first encore. The rendition of "Like A Rolling Stone" just blew me away and I found myself singing at the top of my lungs "how does it feeeeeeeeeeel!". It felt great! Thank you Mr. Dylan for a magical night of diversion in a world gone wrong. By Bob Fresen