Bob Dylan 990618 in Concord, California
From: Eme1ok@aol.com Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 12:14:02 EDT Subject: bob in concord To: karlerik@monet.no A few quick notes about the Concord show: Bob sounded just great. his voice was crystal clear and wonderful. The look in his eye was clear and steely. The harp playing was also fantastic. His guitar solos are coming right along. The band really misses Bucky. Charlie certainly has some movie star looks and is having a great time up there but hasn't quite melded with the rest of them yet. The downside to charging a king's ransom for tickets is that you get a crowd of royalty and they just don't clap so hard. I think Bob sensed the lack of energy and while his playing and singing were to die for, he didn't do as much moving around as the other shows i've seen in the last year. The setlist was fairly standard and if I'm doing the math right, we got gyped out of Lovesick and Not Fade Away. That disappointed me. Not Dark Yet was fantastic and only seeing one TOOM song hurt a little. Great to see Paul. It sounded just like the record, which isn't a bad thing for him and most performers. Bridge over Troubled Water was arranged differently because Paul is not Art. I can't help but mention (not being petty, just making an observation) that if Paul didn't have "Graceland", it's about a 20 minute show...on the other hand, there is no one Bob album that you could take away that would really hurt his ability to draw great live material. Looking forward to tonight at Mountain View and Las Vegas in a week. Brian Boyd
Subject: dylan, concord From: Dylsic dylsic@aol.com Date: 19 Jun 1999 18:21:27 GMT I was at Concord last night with a coworker, my 16 year old son, his two friends and an empty seat as my friend's husband lost the ticket. So he says. She was very liberal paying for everything as a result, but somewhere exists a ticket that some people would have done almost anything for yesterday. I was at Sacto. 2 nites earlier. I put down Simon I guess, to an extent, but last night he was great. I actually enjoyed him more than Dylan. I don't know why. Dylan actually did not sing Soy Bomb's favorite song. Only 2 encores. He didn't seem into it as much as Sacto., and the crowd seemed much more into Simon then they were in Sacto. also. The greatest part of the night was Dylan, after playing "Lay Lady Lay', saying "I don't have a brass bed anymore. I never had a brass bed." Well, now it's back to reality again. Someone else will post the setlist. Simon's setlist was exactly the same. His speech before his Capeman song was almost the same word for word as 2 nights ago. I guess not touring for 9 years and playing with ten people makes it harder to improvise your setlist. If you are out there and ever play music onstage or plan to, realize that 95% plus of the people who will listen to you don't have a clue of what the difference is between a good or bad song, performance, words, anything. Catch the eye of someone you think kinda gets it.
Subject: Re: Concord Setlist From: Zardoz eckos@earthlink.net Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 10:50:41 -0700 A while ago someone said regarding Bob, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything." I thought, "clueless Paul Simon fan." But unfortunately, I can't think of much good to say about Dylan and the band last night. They were frequently awful. Someone next to me said at one point, "We should all chip in and buy them a metronome," and he was right. I longed for the knife-edge precision of Live Aid. Also, Bob seriously forgot the lyrics in two different verses of "The Times" -- not just a word or two, but extended gibberish. Things picked up with some pretty singing on "Lay Lady Lay," but the musicianship was still below par. After that song Dylan said, "I don't have a brass bed anymore. [pause] I never did have one. [pause] Just kidding [mumble mumble]. "Not Dark Yet" was played just as the evening was "getting there" and worked pretty well. Also, the duet portion was a huge improvement over Sacramento -- everything worked much better despite the fact that the band had been playing badly most of the evening. "Sounds" was interesting and even a bit spooky, the medley was bouncy, and "Knockin'" approached excellence. At one point Dylan and Simon "high-fived" each other. Then Bob and the band left, just as they were getting into the swing of things. Paul was again very good, but he repeated the "flop musical" bit almost verbatim (note: "Capeman" was not just great, but "so great.")
