Bob Dylan 990427 in Linz, Austria

From "Der Standard" (with thanks to Marion).



From "Oberösterreichischen Nachrichten" (with thanks to Marion).



Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 13:03:18 +0200 (MEST)
From: Carsten Wohlfeld (happyjaq@gmx.net)
To: billp61@earth.execpc.com
Cc: karlerik@monet.no
Subject: linz review

	Bob Dylan
	Linz, Austria April 27, 1999
	Sporthalle
	A Review by Carsten Wohlfeld


After a very relaxing day off in Uberlingen at the Lake
Constance (thanks again to Tim and Regine for red wine 'n'
sympathy) we all travelled on to Linz. Amazingly enough
Christian didn't even get in trouble with the Austrian
border guards and we all arrived way before the doors were
opened at 5.45pm. Unfortuantely we neither have the time nor
the patience to do a small sightseeing tour of the city, but
from what we saw driving around it was okay without being
special.

The show at the - compared to Zurich - rather small venue
(which was about 2/3 full) only started at 8.30pm though.
Tim had hoped to get to hear "Friend Of The Devil"
tonight and you can imagine the gigantic smile on his face
when the opening song was indeed

Friend Of The Devil (acoustic)

Lovely performance, much better than Zurich's opener. Great
backing vocals by Larry 'n' Bucky as well. Right from the
start it was apparent that Bob was in an even better mood
than in Switzerland two nights before. He smiled constantly
and did this weird one-legged dance than I've never seen
before.

My Back Pages (acoustic)


Another great choice, always very welcome. Too bad though
that it was a very quick performance, cause I don't think he
sang more than three out of the six verses. He ended with my
favourite verse, though, the "equality" one
followed by a long harp solo. It wasn't *that* special but
better than the quickies we got recently.

Masters Of War (acoustic)


Great performance as usual. It might be somewhat
diappointing that he plays it every single night, but rarely
sounds a song this good nevertheless.


It's All Over Now Baby Blue (acoustic)

A repeat of the fast version we already got to hear in
Zurich. The vocal delivery kinda reminded me of the classic
version from the Madison Sqaure Garden Theater shows last
year. Very nice indeed.

Tangled Up In Blue (acoustic)

was "Tangled", just a little longer and louder
than usual with Bob playing all the solos himself. Bob:
grinning, crowd: nuts

It Ain't Me Babe (acoustic)

Another song I can't stand anymore that sounded pretty good
tonight. It had the long slow ending that always indicates
that it's one of the better "Ain't Me Babes". When
he sang the first verse he made this funny apologetic face,
as if he was gonna say: "It Ain't Me Babe" and I'm
really sorry for it... Before the song Tony had asked Bob if
he wanted to play "4th Time Around", but obviously
his Bobness wasn't in the mood. A pity, especially when
you've heard the staggering performances from the spanish
leg of the tour... oh well...

Desolation Row (acoustic)

Absolutely fucking amazing! Apart from the Madison Square
Garden show in January '98 I never ever heard a better
"Row". It also had the "Ophelia" verse,
which just means that Bob was really into it. By this time I
thought: If he follows this up with a half decent electric
set, it's gonna be the best Bob show you've ever been too.
And as you might know, I've seen a few!  After the song he
was striking some funny poses, as if he was to say:
"Look at me, wasn't that fab?"

Can't Wait

Was a disappointment at the start of the electric part (see
also  my comments on that for the show in  Zurich), even
though it was much better sung this time. On all the song
Bob's vocal delivery was really good and even his guitar
playing was way above average.

Not Dark Yet

Another lovely performance, very much the same as in Zurich.
Unfortunately it also meant that there was very little
change to be expected for the electric set. And yup, they
also followed it - again! - with:

Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again

Which gave Bob another opportunity to flirt with the girls
in the front row and to show that he hasn't lost anything of
his charme. He actually had so much fun goofying around that
he missed the first line of the "Mona" verse cause
he was too far away from the microphone.

She Belongs To Me

Only "new" song to the electric set and a very
"unnecessary" version, as Robert put it
afterwards. It just went by without offering anything
exciting. Band intros followed, funnily enough Bob said
"and on LEADguitar...Larry Campbell", which I
never heard him say before. Tonight it was especially
ridiculous, cause Larry hadn't played a single solo up to
this point.

Highway 61 Revisited

About three minutes into the song Kemper wanted to end it
and played the closing part, while the other four were still
going on! To save the situation Larry put in a somewhat new
and interesting solo. A couple of minutes later Bob turned
around to Kemper (usually the sign that the song is about to
end) and shook his head a if he was going to say: No, David,
it's still not over!" - David almost fell of his chair
laughing. Bob also couldn't remember the first line of the
last verse, funnily enough.


(encore) Love Sick

Much better and more concentrated version than the night
before. Also, the solo was a lot more energetic.

Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat

Longer and louder than usual with a lot of nice interplay
between Bob and Larry. Then again... it was just
"Pillbox", so nobody got over excited.

Blowin' In The Wind (acoustic)

It was there, and a graying guy next to me was close to
tears.

Not Fade Away

Closed the show as expected (even though Tony tried to
persuade Bob to do "Maggie") and was fun as
always. It's interesting to see that Bob usually opens his
song with a cover and closes it with one, too! Tonight it
was even a Grateful Dead song at the start and one the Dead
made famous at the end...

The show lasted for about 100 minutes and was just about as
enjoyable and good as Zurich. The crowd was *very*
ethusastic and I'm sure that fired Bob and crew up a fair
bit. In Zurich things improved during the electric set,
tonight the acoustic set was a killer, but the second half
of the show was kinda boring, cause it was basically a
repeat of the night before. Still worth the money (and
more). Many thanks to Robert aka Shelter for letting us stay
at his place! See ya in Slovenia!

-- carsten wohlfeld (happyjaq@confetti.ruhr.de) "i went
to college - i got a fancy car - drop dead apartment - and
now i'm a shining star / but she never made it / she's
selling avon / but she had you"  (nick saloman / mary
lou lord)




Subject: belated musings on the Linz show, 27 April 1999
From: Christian Zeiser (z@nikocity.de)
Date: 4 May 1999 10:19:36 -0700


So the normal life has me back on its lap, after ten days on
the road and seven Dylan shows that were good in the worst
and fantastic in the best cases. I'll try to recollect my
thoughts on six of them, after already having sent a review
on the show in Zurich.

Anyway, Linz, Austria, 27 April 99:

As usual, Dylan and the band came our pretty on time and
went into Friend Of The Devil. The crowd was on their feet
immediately, climbing over the chairs that were used to make
the venue look fuller than it really was. The atmpshere in
the venue was very intense and relaxed at the same time, a
fine audience that consisted of people of all ages. The
renditions during the acoustic set made it easy to forget
the lack of setlist variation: each song was performed with
great care. It's lovely to watch Dylan perform: he is both
very relaxed and concentrated, clearly in good shape and
mood. highlights of the acoustic set were (for me) It«s All
Over Now Baby Blue and Desolation Row, which is performed
with a heavier beat than formerly and almost turned into a
danceable song, weird as this may sound.

The electric set started with Can't Wait once more. Somehow
I think that this song should be featured later in the set.
As an electric opener, it doesn't do a very good job - a
more fast-paced number like one of the former show openers
would fit in better and help get the second half really
going.

One of the highlights was Not Dark Yet. It took Dylan long
to figure out a good live arrangement for this song, but now
it reflects the dark and dramatic tension that is there on
the studio recording. The line 'I was born here, and I'll
die here' gains a very special meaning when sung on a
concert stage, by the way.

Again, it was *loud*, like at the Zurich show. Highway 61
Revisited rocked like hell, as did the final encore Not Fade
Away (thanks to Bob for pulling this one out night after
night, I just didn't get enough of it).

So again the setlist could have been more interesting, but
Linz was no doubt one of the two best performed shows of the
ones I've seen recently. I don't like to compare shows
usually, but Linz was so totally different from Zurich -
where zurich was more of a party (and a fine one, too!), the
performance in Linz was concentrated and deep, the audience
being not as cheery as in Zurich, but a very animated and
grateful one nevertheless. After two shows, I left Linz
pretty exhausted but excited, looking forward for the things
to come.

.... to be continued ....

Christian
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Christian Zeiser                                           z@nikocity.de
Hamburg, Germany                        http://www.geocities.com/~unclem