Bob Dylan 990716 in Bristow
Subject: Review: Nissan Pavilon 7/16 From: John M dinomartino@hotmail.com Date: 17 Jul 1999 10:12:21 -0700 Organization: None Bob Dylan & Paul Simon Nissan Pavilion Manassas, VA 7/16/99 most of this review was written at 4AM. Please excuse the typos... Bob came on 25 minutes late, dressed in his now-standard black suit (accented with a frilly polka-dot tie). The first thing to notice about the setlist is that it's almost exactly the same as Raleigh two nights before. Lest you think I hated the show, I'll say up front I didn't. But it was nowhere near as good as the other shows I've seen (well, it was at about the same level as Fairfax--just going thru the motions for most of the show). Perhaps I've been spoiled by having caught some very fine shows over the last couple of years, but this one didn't strike me as anything more than satisfactory. Somebody Touched Me -- a great warm-up number, though it would have been vastly improved if the backing vocals had been mixed much lower (they were easily as loud as Bob's, and "the boys" tended to drown him out). I was hoping to hear this one (as opposed to Hallelujah I'm Ready To Go or Cocaine Blues) Between songs, Bob told a joke about how his ex-wife had just left him again. Tambourine Man -- Can't say I like this arrangement all that much. I much preferred the bluegrassy romps from 1996. But Bob did a really fine job with the vocals on this one, getting out every nuance and making the most of the bottom part of his range (something he'd never have dreamed of doing ten or fifteen years ago). The verses were completely picked apart and mixed back together in almost random order, and often the first half of a verse was paired with the wrong second half. The harp solo was appreciated, but rather muddled and didn't build to anything at all. Masters Of War -- had far too sunny a disposition for its own good. The song needs to be menacing. This just sounded like they couldn't think of anything else to play. Tangled Up In Blue -- Tangled suffers from the texture Bucky added to the sound, and on something as energetic as this one tries to be, you need something other than another damned acoustic guitar to carry the song along (especially during the jams). I really didn't p-lay particularly close attention until I heard "written by an Italian poet" part come up. I have no idea when Bob added that verse back in, but it must have been sometime this year, since it was definitely absent last November (and has been missing for as long as I can remember). Did anyone catch which century he sang? To me, it sounded like he sang seventeeth century, but whatever it was he seemed to swallow it partway through. Baby Blue -- At first I though this was gonna be Love Minus Zero, and it wasn't until the very end of the intro that I realized it was Baby Blue. Featured Larry on steel guitar. One of my least favorite songs. The big video screens came on at the beginning of this song, since it was just beginning to get dark enough to see them. Watchtower -- hadn't heard that one for a while, and it's much improved now. Really a rockin' performance, with Sexton beating the hell out of his acoustic while the others were all on electrics. Just Like A Woman -- ho hum. Perhaps it's time to take this one back to acoustic instruments? Silvio -- rocked, with Bob paying attention to the vocals (instead of just slurring them together the way he did when it was a standard). They kept the camera zoomed in on Bob, and each gag line was accompanied by a devilish little grin and a squint over the microphone (trying to catch a reaction from the crowd?). Not Dark Yet -- made enduring the heat, paying a ridiculous amount of $, and driving into northern VA all worthwhile. A wonderful performance, with gorgeously nuanced vocals and a sympathetic (and surprisingly clean) backing. Sadly, bob cut the song short right after the last verse. For once, apparently he didn't feel like showing off his guitar prowess (pathetic as his solos can be sometimes, the song would have benefitted from not being ended quite so abruptly). Highway 61 -- I'm sorry, but I thought it pretty well sucked. The band sounded like 1976 RTR at it's worst, with the wall of sound mass of guitars, all doing their own thing. The vocals were unsettled, as if Bob wasn't ready to let 'er rip quite yet. Something other than a third electric guitar would have helped the song enourmously, as the sound seemed all bunched up into one register, where it just got more and more knotty and tangled as the song went on. Also, the whole thing was much quieter than I remembered from shows last year (it was deafening at Fairfax in Feb '98) encores: LARS -- never gets old. Not exactly the scorching performance I hoped for, but awfully intense. Blowin In The Wind -- I apparently groaned loudly enough at the beginning of this one to cause the people around me to turn and stare for a minute. Not an offensive performance by any means, just could ahve been so much better. I thought I could take confort in hearing Not Fade Away finally, but no, Bob kept the acoustic strapped on and started mumbling into the mic about "a man who needs no introduction, but I'll introduce him anyway." Sounds of Silence -- Ick. Who came up with this arrangement? Couldn't differentiate the voices at all, so it sounded like one guy with a deep voice and a bad cold singing a song he didn't quite know all the words to. That'll Be The Day-->The Wanderer -- an absolute riot. Knockin On Heaven's Door -- I went to the bathroom, but from what I heard, it was the usual KOHD, just with that short guy singing along (I'd forgotten how tiny Paul Simon is until I saw Bob towering over him on the video monitor. If his hair hand't gone grey, they'd probably still card him at movie theaters). There have been better collaboration on this song (Van Morrison at Birmingham last summer, for instance) than Dylan/Simon. And that was the last we saw of Bob. Highlights of Simon's set, at least for me, were a luminous Boy In The Bubble (what's with the hand motions, Paul? Been hanging around with those New York "artists" too much...) where the band really got to show off a remarkable amount of cohesiveness for a bunch of guys who were thrown together just over two months ago. Trailways Bus was very nice. If the rest of the Capeman album is like that one, I'll have to pick it up ASAP. Mrs Robinson was a fun little romp down memory lane, with a nicely conceived arrangement. The slow parts of Cool Cool Water were very nice, but the pumped-up tribal salsa the made up most of the song was a bit much for me. Diamonds On The Soles of Her Shoes was unbelievable. The intensity and virtuosity completely blew the original version away. After a drum interlude (groan), they leaped into Al, which was a hand-clapping good time (interactive, where Diamonds was a stand back and watch 'em go kinda thing). The four encores were most unexpected. Good as Still Crazy After All These Years was (some of Paul best singing that night, IMO), The Boxer was just fuckin' amazing. I was hoping a dark-clad figure would lope on stage during the song to join in on a verse or two, but the song was more than fine without him. The trumpet solo did a nice job of blending the old and the new, fitting in new directions seamlessly with remnants of the version from the original recording. I'd be most interested in getting a tape of this one (both Bob and Paul), especially since I took a friend who'd never seen either one live and would like to be able to pass along a tape to him. I've got excellent recordings of Portland 2/25/99 and Zurich 4/25/99, as well as a very good tape of Columbus, OH 2/10/99, and a bunch of older stuff at: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/3948/bootape.html regards, Dino
