Reviews

At exactly 8:15 the curtain rose at the Beacon Theater on Merle Haggard &
the Strangers doing "Big City."  And for the next hour, Haggard led his
excellent band through a set that not only touched on his hits and classic
songs such as "White Line Fever" and "Silver Wings," but also was a tour
through several styles of American roots-based music, not only country,
but blues, swing and dixieland, somtimes hitting all of the above on one
song.  

For close to 40 years Haggard has had the best road band in country
music, and he still does, despite the fact that the only original
members are drummer Biff Adams and steel player Norman Hamlet.

While the intensity of the late Roy Nichols is missed, the Strangers
remain top-notch, and Haggard's vocal skills have not diminished one
bit.

Sometime after 9:30 the curtain rose on a hatless Bob Dylan and his new
band tearing it up on "To Belone With You" with Don Herron leading the way
on fiddle.  

This was followed by "Hazel" with a great harp solo and then a killer
version of "Cry Awhile" with brand new stops added on the time change. 

A careful and gorgeous "Shelter From the Storm" followed with all
members playing quietly letting the words be the focus.  

This was followed by "Cold Irons Bound" with Denny Freeman adding a
slide down on the bass notes of his guitar.  Stu Kimball picked up an
acoustic afterwards and began strumming in what once was referred to as a
Dylan strum a few centuries ago.  Herron came in on steel and the song
turned into "Chimes of Freedom."  The tempo was perfect, and when Dylan
confused a couple of lines on one of the later verses it didn't matter. 
It was a truly moving performance.

Dylan put on his hat for one of the best versions of "Highway 61" I've
seen in years came next with great work from all guitar players followed
by "Love Sick."

At first "Watching The River Flow" seemed like a letdown, but there
were surprises in store, started by a wake up guitar solo by Kimball, how
handed it over to Freeman, who handed it to Herron and then surprise of
surprises, a piano solo by Dylan!

The curtain behind the players took on a starlit background for an
ethereal "Not Dark Yet," which pointed out one of the interesting
things about this tour.  On the last few tours it was almost as if
Dylan didn't want to touch his slow songs or let them be slow.  This
time he is treating them with the respect they deserve.  

This led into a jumping Summer Days, with Herron playing a Driftin'
Cowboys lap steel and by the end the song was up there with the best of
the Sexton/Campbell years.

The new "Tambourine Man" closed the show, with Herron playing heavenly
pedal steel that reminded me of Buddy Emmons' version of "Wild Mountain
Thyme."  The arrangement of this song has grown since the tour began, and
while I prefer the original, it's a lot better seeing it than hearing it.

They returned for a terrific "Things Have Changed" with led into a
great jam that went on and on with call and response between Dylan and
Herron, followed by a not bad at all "Like A Rolling Stone."

This was easily the best Dylan show I've seen in years.

‘Series Of Dreams’


Friday night at the Beacon. I’m standing inside the venue, but outside the
auditorium, with my back to the wall. Merle Haggard is twanging away on
some corny country tune in the distance. What a crazy routine this has
become. 

Returning to see Bob for the fourth show running tonight seemed less an
act of faith, and more one of gluttony. There could be no doubt, after
Thursday’s show, that Bob was on  top-ratio form. Now I was back simply to
soak up some more of his wonderful music, if I could. I would leave
saturated.

Bob’s opening performance tonight, however, sowed a few seeds of doubt.
Bob didn’t quite launch into ‘To Be Alone With You’ with the same gusto as
he had the openers of previous nights. The voice sounded a little frailer,
and from my seating position near the back of the stalls, he didn’t look
terribly animated. Was Bob going to be up for it tonight? Still, he
whipped out the harmonica to good effect, jabbing away at the music in
high-pitched stabs as though trying to burst a hot air balloon with a
javelin.

‘Hazel’, the second song, caught me off guard. It was truly moving; no
love song has seemed simple in Bob’s hands this week, and something was
definitely happening here. Bob delivered the words more as a plea than as
a declaration of love, with contrition, an open-handed gesture. He placed
the words tenderly, in a way you couldn’t ignore. Then the harmonica
returned, treading carefully around the guitar sounds as though not to
hurt anyone’s feelings. 

‘Cry A While’ didn’t care whose feelings it hurt. Bob had a new trick in
store with this one. After the third line of each verse, the band stopped
dead. Before you could wonder what the hell had happened, they slid back
in on the beat. It was hilarious, and Bob really hammed it up. Perhaps
this device was inserted to create tension in the song, but it ended up as
a brilliant joke, one more to add to the roster of “Love And Theft”
wisecracks.

Then heaven descended. ‘Shelter From The Storm’: if you weren’t there, I’m
sorry. You’ve never heard singing like it. Bob took this song, as far as I
could tell, in its complete form, and laid out its words with such
deference and delicacy that it became virtually a visual art-form. Bob was
taking a night-time stroll under the stars, holding a rhetorical
conversation with some treasured individual about the mysteries of
womankind. We saw little hill-top villages and old men with broken teeth.
We felt scorned and loveless. We were sheltered from it all. 

Bob’s vocal timing allowed the possibilities of ‘Shelter From The Storm’
to reach out, for each person in the audience to develop their own
relationship with the unfolding myth. For example, he sang ‘Everything up
to that point had been left (long pause) unresolved’. Everything could
just have been left, but eventually, if you wanted, the thought was
resolved. It’s strange to have felt so alone among a boisterous, packed
concert audience, but this performance of ‘Shelter’ took me out of my
surroundings and into my dreams. Bob was holding a huge bunch of keys on
stage tonight, and for me, this was the one that fitted the lock.

Tonight, when the loud rock numbers came – I’m thinking of ‘Highway 61
Revisited’, ‘Cold Irons Bound’ and ‘Watching The River Flow’ – they felt
like breathers from the emotional intensity, only there to leaven the
intake of all the words we would hear during the concert. They were
delivered with all of the punch and aggression we’ve come to expect from
Bob these days, yet the show placed its emphasis on the reflective songs
this evening. Ironically, many in the audience seemed to have come to rock
out; it was a Friday night in NYC and it was rowdy. But for me, the
foot-stomping songs were not the point of this show. 

‘Chimes Of Freedom’ was a real stomach-tightener. It’s a song for the
confused, accused, strung-out people, and Bob sang it as such. He sang it
with uncertainty, nudging away the sequences of words to see if they would
slot in with the next in line. Some would, and some stayed as separate
thoughts; a performance of deep empathy. There was no sense of clinching a
result with this performance, no resolution. Just a richly musical
explanation that, for all the people cut out of the loop, there could be
hope. Bob’s singing tonight was arguably a different art-form to the way
in which all other singers project words.

The flip-side performance to ‘Shelter From The Storm’ seemed to emerge
with ‘Love Sick’. Out under the stars once more, yet this time the answers
weren’t coming. The band played a deathly, depressed march, and Bob
half-crooned, half-growled the lyrics with a sense of anguish. It’s a
performance of high drama and tension, and as the spaces open up in the
music it’s frightening, because they’re big and black enough to swallow up
anything. As with so many performances tonight, there’s a plea for
connection at the heart of Bob’s singing.

Hearing Bob sing ‘Not Dark Yet’ tonight was like watching him turn the
pages of a book. The performance swam with melancholy, and the harmonica
returned, played with such expressiveness as to be the best substitute yet
for Dylan’s voice.

‘Mr. Tambourine Man’, in its new, hushed arrangement, closed the main set.
It’s such a joy that Bob, once again, has the confidence in his voice to
showcase it in this way. The meaning of the words expands with the timbre
of his vocals. The images owe their colour to the clarity of Bob’s
diction, rather than any band momentum. Tonight ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’
emerged as a meandering tour to the heart of the Dylan muse, rather than
as the dizzying, circular pattern it has become in recent years. The voice
launched high, rhymed with itself, and swooped down low and tremulous. The
pace was funereal, and as Bob rummaged for inspiration, the band hovered
in the background. 

As the band formation began the crowd noise swelled from warm, respectful
applause for ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ to a vast bellow of approval. Not
everyone got from the show what they came to hear, but surely everyone
would leave with more than they could carry.

Two encores followed, and still Dylan wouldn’t take his eye off the ball.
‘Things Have Changed’ rumbled up, churning like a cement mixer, flinging
out ideas to set hard and fast in your mind, ideas to build on. After the
last verse the band swept down to virtually nothing, quiet, just a bass
being plucked, a cymbal brushed, a keyboard prodded. Then they slammed
back into it, the drums went off and Bob’s cowboy-hatted head nodded
feverishly. Quick as a flash the song crashed out for good.

‘Like A Rolling Stone’ closed the show, following the band introductions.
Just three of its four verses were sung; even this was surprising given
the full head Bob has been giving his songs this week. He just wouldn’t
drift comfortably through a song though, and sang the verses quietly,
refusing to commit himself. He blurted out ‘How does it FEEL’ with force
though, and as the houselights blared, the applause exploded and Bob stood
awkwardly center stage for the final formation, I only knew it felt bloody
fantastic to be in the room.

It was a show in which I found I came up against my own limits time and
again, only for Bob to crash right through the ceiling and keep on
climbing. The performances spiralled beyond my grasp. But how wonderful to
stand there and reach out to grab as many handfuls as I could. And how
wonderful to be able to cheer him. It felt like Bob realized a million
dreams tonight, and mine was only one. 


Toby Richards-Carpenter

This wasn't a great set at all, sorry to say, though far better than
Newark.  Thursday was easily the best show I caught on this tour, with the
new band flexing its muscles and with committed vocals and harmonica
throughout.  Admittedly, the sound was a lot better at the front of the
loge than in the steamy center orchestra last night, where the mix seemed
rough, at times muddy; still, even allowing for that discrepancy, I
thought Friday started out strong but gradually deflated, like a pricked
balloon.  

A warmly sensuous "Hazel" and a crackling, perfectly-executed stop-start
"Cry A While" gave me hope that Dylan would be as fully engaged as he had
been the night before, but a few other standouts notwithstanding, it just
wasn't to be.  "Shelter" was gently and even reverently sung, yet it was
here that the "upsinging" crept in and began to spread like an infection. 
Whereas on Thursday he was able either to sidestep this approach or
harness it to interesting purposes on "Floater" or "Hard Rain," tonight it
seemed indiscriminate, out of control, marring otherwise effective
versions of slower material like "Not Dark Yet" and "Tambourine Man."  

It was at this point, after a competent if uninspired "Cold Irons" 
complete with goofy echo, that I began to realize that tonight was going
to be much more of a hit-or-miss affair.  The greatest disappointment,
however, had to be "Chimes of Freedom," simply because of the magnitude of
the song and the expectations aroused by the rarity of its performance.  I
'd deeply hoped to hear it this Friday in spite of reservations about the
05 versions so far, but wound up wishing he hadn't played it at all:  the
flubs I would have gladly overlooked had his vocals betrayed even a trace
of passion, but instead he sang it as if talking aimlessly to himself in a
grocery store, the band seemed correspondingly directionless despite
Freeman's supple backing, and the whole mess amounted to the sonic
equivalent of stale rice pudding.  Not that they were perfect, but the
2000-01 versions when compared to this one could almost make you weep.  

As for the rest, I don't wish to disparage unduly:  "Love Sick" sounded
freshly sinister and "Things Have Changed" freshly defiant with Herron's
rakish fiddling.  But warhorses like "Highway 61," "Summer Days," and
"River Flow" struck me as pretty dismal, regardless of Dylan's keyboard
"solo" on the latter:  meandering, disengaged, at times downright boring. 
Only the tapes will tell, but I believe that juxtaposing these with other
standbys from the previous night, "High Water" and "Honest with Me," for
example, will reveal a sharp contrast in quality.  

I wish those in attendance on Saturday the best of luck for a final 
rebound; the Beacon will always be my favorite Dylan venue, and who 
knows, maybe he'll set fire to the place as a parting gift.  Myself, I'm
grateful to have been there on Thursday, which demonstrated that even
though the shows have been wildly inconsistent there is still much room
for hope.  At the same time, I'm puzzled about the rote weekly setlists
and the creeping singsong yet again; these and other irritating stylistic
tics make me wonder if the restless minstrel has developed a late-blooming
case of obsessive-compulsive disorder.  Nevertheless, while next tour
perhaps he will straighten up his mike, at least he sang like a human
being.  Better still, on Thursday he even sang like Bob Dylan.  That's
good enough for now.

George, nobody will ever do 'Cold Irons Bounds' like you did last night. Thank you. 

What a show. George and the boys were on fire. Oh. Bob and the boys....Please excuse the mistake. I am 
just so impressed with how distinct each song can be when a band has a drummer that has not only power, 
but imagination, skill, and (it sometimes seems) twenty arms. Like 'Cold Irons Bound', 'Cry Awhile' had 
an absolutely distinct character because of the drumming. 

This band is all about dynamics. I can still see the curtain open from my seat front center in the 
balcony: the band was laid out like a magnet pulling me in - Bobby front left, Stu behind him a little 
to the right, George in the back center, Tony crunching and leaning and stretching on George's left, 
and Mr Herron out front right with the fiddle at his chin. They were like a gang out of the old west 
and I wasn't sure if they were here to help or if they were out to get me. 'To Be Alone With You,' 
'Hazel,' and 'Cry Awhile' to open. They were on fire. The songs just kept coming. (What an example of 
Bob's love/hate relationship with love - these three into SFTS, and then later 'Love Sick' and 'Things 
Have Changed.')

Then they played 'Shelter from the Storm.' So delicate, and yet insistent. Stu's acoustic assured 
against the lag. The entire band was there to make sure that Bob had the atmosphere he wanted 
to...Y'know...I felt like I was in that song 'Up to Me,' and Bob had "the harmonica around my neck, 
I blew it for you free. No one else could play that tune. You know it was up to me." (Which kinda has 
the same structure as SFTS.) Anyway I hope you know what I mean. 

'Chimes of Freedom' was very very nice. I am honored to have had Bob sing that for me. And all of you. 
This song was especially poignant after 'Cold Irons Bound.' (wow - first he's sheltered, and then bound, 
and then free.) 

How many times have you seen Highway 61? Ten times? Twenty? More? I would have declined to hear HW61 if 
I had the choice and I would have been WRONG. Bob sang every verse - I think it's the first time I have 
seen him sing every verse - even the fifth daughter showed up. This was absolutely a group effort, with 
Mr Herron's slide driving us at breakneck speeds down the Highway. 

'Love Sick' was very cool to hear with its reggae feel. I am hoping that Bob realized that they could 
just as easily have been playing 'Man Gave Names to All the Animals' and works it up for tonight at 
today's soundcheck. 

WTRF and NDY were both very cool to hear. Bob played a "Bob Solo" at the end of WTRF. Very tasty. 
'Summer Days' rocked. And I very much enjoyed 'Tambourine Man.' Denny, who played great all night, 
offered a subtle and chill solo for this song - just the thing to keep the jingle-jangle away. This 
performance more than made up for the last 'Tambourine Man' I saw on 8.8.03 when Bob was opening for 
The Dead. (That one he might as well have not played.) 

'Things Have Changed' is a very cool song - and we got a jam featuring Mr Herron's fiddle and at the 
end, another Bob Solo! LARS is another that I wouldn't necessarily pick to hear given a choice. But, 
it, rocked. Stu's solo really brought back an old time flavor. What a great show! I wandered around 
the Beacon after the show to soak up everybody's vibes. Everybody was so excited. 

This was my first and only show of the tour as the ticket prices around
the northeast were rather expensive, not to mention the ticketmaster
charges. Anyway though, I guess if you're going to do one show, might as
well be a Friday night in New York. The Beacon Theater is total class.
Walked in around 8 hoping to catch most of Merle's set. No annoying
security pat downs, no lines, easy stuff. The place is beautiful. The
crowd in the orchestra had a great vibe, standing and grooving with Bob
all night. Bob gave us the energy right back.

The highlights:

Shelter From The Storm: I know Bob says he sings from the gut, but this
one seemed from the heart. He seemed to make an effort to turn and sing
towards the crowd. The vocals had all the moods from the soft sorrowful to
the harsh and angry. The harp solo at the end was pleasing.

Love Sick: The band had an amazing groove. Almost reggae, but true to the
original. Bob sang it carefully.

Highway 61: Bob put the black cowboy hat on for this one. Really hit it
right when he took the band down low only to fire them throught he final
verse.

It was also great to see songs like Hazel and Chimes Of Freedom. First
timers for me. Hazel had a center stage harp solo. To Be Alone With You is
almost completely different lyrically. It was a bold move to close the set
with Tambourine Man following Summer Days and the way he sang Things Have
Changed, you know Bob must really have wanted that in the encore. The
fiddle playing was very good on that. No Watchtower at the end, but
Rolling Stone. Great stuff.

And finally, Bob looks and sounds great. Can't wait for the ballpark tour!

Jason

STOPPING TIME AND RAISING THE DEAD ON BROADWAY.


Have you ever thought you knew someone, knew their motives and the way they behave, only to find that
things have changed and you see that you never knew them at all?  Tonight, at this penultimate show at
the Beacon, I came face-to-face with a new Dylan. 

I thought I had begun to understand what was he was doing at these New York shows.  I thought I saw a 
straightforward theme beginning to emerge tonight - something about regret and love lost.  But I was 
wrong.  It was to be about so much more than just that …

Hazel, poignant, persuasive and going way beyond its recorded version, set what I thought was to be 
this overriding theme of yearning for love and loves departed.  Cry A While with its startling new 
stop-start arrangement and then a mesmeric Shelter From The Storm seemed to confirm that tonight was 
to be exclusively about matters of the heart.

Highway 61 offered a breather. But then Bob Dylan pulled the rug, confounded my expectations and 
stopped time.  Chimes Of Freedom was outside/beyond/above all notions I have of popular entertainment.  
It towered.  It loomed.  Bob sung it with utmost care and precision and suddenly it was no longer 
obvious what he had in mind for us, just that it was universal.  Every wrong ever committed 
systematically washed away by a storm as metaphor for redemption is not bad going for a pop song, 
when you think about it!

Maybe, I thought, this is the same storm Bob had sought shelter from only two songs earlier.  It felt 
like a different storm to me … but what do I know?  All I knew was that the personal had shifted to 
the universal and time had stopped. This was getting serious.

Cold Irons Bound was superbly executed and a ghostly Lovesick, complete with counter-rhythmic chop 
from Donny, brought us back again to the personal for a moment.  

By now it must have been apparent even to the oaf in front of me with the beer -swilling and shouting 
habit that this was an exceptional show: a towering tour-de-force from Dylan and there was still more 
to come …

Not Dark Yet stopped time AGAIN: stopped it dead.  What do I mean by this?  I mean that for the 
duration of the song a state of heightened awareness set in.  I could not tell you if the song lasted 
a year or a few seconds.  All I know is that it spoke directly to me at a very deep level.  'I just 
don't see why I shouldn't even care,' sang Bob, turning the recorded line on its head and making mine 
spin in the process.

Summer Days was a Jazz-inflected romp, a chance to catch breath and enter time again … for a moment.  
And then the performance of the evening arrived: Mr Tambourine Man.  For this one time left the 
theater, romped down Broadway, bounced around the lights of Times Square, departed the planet and 
finally filled the 'whole wide universe'.  The theater held its breath.  It was as if Bob were 
singing direct to God, not to us at all.  If you don't believe me check out the recording when it 
arrives.  Check it and weep that you weren't there.

Things Have Changed was the first encore.  Unbelievably Bob still had more to say and give.  At this 
stage I was drained and I can't say anything sensible about the song other than it sounded like a top 
performance.

Like A Rolling Stone replaced Watchtower as the closer and sent the bear pit wild, arms in the air, 
bellowing the refrain.  Then it was all over: time out.  I sat back down in my seat, stunned, unable 
to move until Security came and forced me out of the building.

A show that says everything that there is to say about love, love lost, redemption and the universal 
hopes and dreams we all share and one that manages to stop time, too!  Well, I wonder if Billy Idol 
will have such luck when he comes to the Beacon in the next few weeks.  I'd like to think he might 
but I have my doubts.

The new Bob Dylan is here.  He is singing like a bird and he operates, seemingly at will, quite 
outside time and space.  God knows what tomorrow night will bring.  Maybe he will heal the lame 
and raise the dead.  In this mood I wouldn't put it past him.

Jim Bishop 

I first saw Bob Dylan many years ago on a cold January night in Long Island with three high school 
friends. Thanks to this web site I now know it was January 29, 1974. I was more then a little awe 
struck and for years I tended to be a harsh amateur critic of Dylan concerts. The Rolling Thunder 
Review was sloppy.  Dylan dressed and sounded like Neil Diamond in the Big Band Tour. I won't even 
get into what I had to say about the Gospel Tour.

I realized about the last time Dylan played the Beacon about fifteen years back that listening to 
Dylan had become a part of my life. I also began to understand that those songs and performances, 
which brought a tear or struck the gut tended to be those written by Dylan when we were of the same 
place or age.  "Tangled Up in Blue" was merely a great song when I was 18 years old but touched my 
heart in a much different way when I was 35. I look forward to seeing him every time the tour comes 
to New York. I have been going with my children now for years, the oldest of whom is now going off 
to college. I hope one day to take a grandchild to the show.

I enjoyed Merle Haggard and his old fashioned Grand Ole Opry band. The crowd was in good spirits by 
the time Dylan and his new band took the stage.  I was up in the loge where the sound at the Beacon 
is near perfect.  I know there have been some harsh statements about the band but the new lineup was 
tight and focused on Dylan's performance.  A guy nearby had a pair of binoculars and it was easy to 
see Stu Kimball taking every cue from Dylan.

I don't see a reason to attempt a song-by-song review.  I tend to think that each show on this tour 
creates a mood.  For me last night the most powerful performances were those of fading but still 
present life.  "Not Dark Yet". "Love Sick","Cold Irons Bound" and " Things have Changed" were (I 
can't help the cliché) right on target-so direct. For the old time Dylan fans of my age there was 
"Hazel" and for everyone there was a an old fashioned high energy "Like a Rolling Stone"

At every show since 1974 the crowd has revisited Highway 61 along with Dylan and many different 
musicians. It has been a constant in our lives. Dylan performed the visit yesterday like it was a 
song he had written that afternoon.  My wife, who is not a fan and has gone to see many shows in 
good humor was herself struck a bit by the power of the performance.  I knew it was a great show 
when on the way home she mentioned he would be playing with Willie Nelson at Yogi Bera Park in 
Montclair late in June.

These shows at the Beacon just don't stop being the most exciting and just
plain best concerts I have been to in ages.  Bob kept up his wonderful 
singing for this show. To Be Alone With You was a great opener, high 
energy.  No question, the boys were ready to rock the Beacon as indicated 
by this crackling performance.  A stellar, well sung Hazel was next and it
was a thrill hearing this one.  The dirty blonde haired girl leaving Bob
on the hill leaving him with longing and desperation. You could not only 
hear it in his voice but you could see it in his eyes.  Dylan felt this 
song and the band was right there with him.  Cry A While was rocking and 
just plain kicked ass.  The new stop between the verse and vocal bridge 
made my heart jump for joy! What tension, what suspense.  Bob knows music
so well, what to do to knock your friggin' socks off. That is why I call 
him the master.  Shelter from the Storm.  Let me tell you people you had
to hear this to believe it.  It was beautiful.  I love this song so much
and Bob made me love it even more.  What a well sung, gorgeously played
song that was as visual as it was aural.  So artistic and real.  Cold
Irons Bound added a cool slide guitar effect after each line that added a
new dimension to the song.  Bob was bouncing behind his keyboards while
George Recile was slamming the drums.  I would hate to be this guys'
snare drum.  He is a monster. Highway 61 Revisited kept the rocking
barrage going with thunderous instrumentation and Bob Dylan singing about
that famed stretch of highway where he was born.  That leads south taking
a lot of history with it, musically and historically in the context of 
American culture.  A truly raucous version, couldn't stop moving if I 
died.  Love Sick had asomber, haunting quality that was very emotional. 
The quietest the band was the whole night.  But also powerful.  If you
understand music you know what I mean when I say that.  Bob sung it like
he really was sick of love, watching silhouettes in the window and
listening to the clock tick.  Bob Dylan really knows how to sing to get
the emotion he wants to come across get out there and make you feel it. 
He sure did that here, my friends.  Watching the River Flow had a bluesy
feel to it but also some country sheen and was a whole lot of fun.  I
love the lyrics to this song and Stu had a great solo to round out this
super performance.  Not Dark Yet was next and Dylan sang it so so so
well.  Bending the last line of each verse and it swept me off my feet. 
What an emotional song. I feel like Bob knows me and was singing about me
when he wrote this.  I connect with it.  Tonight, it was a beatiful 
connection.  The band was great here too.  Man, they are so  good.  Summer
Days jolted in next and it was rockin and swingin and so fun.  Picturing
Bob standing on a table proposing a toast to the king and using all eight
carburators and of course when he tells that lady of course you can
repeat the past.  The instrumental break before the last verse was tamer
than when i saw it with Larry in the past.  But it was still great with
Bob pounding on his keyboard three times in unison with the band and then 
doing it again in a different measure.  This kept happening always in a
different measure like four times.  Then after some scorching solos they
did it again!  The band got quiet and then BOOM the loudest they had been
the whole night rocking that beat, that glorious rhythm blasting
throughout the  theatre.  I though a plane landed outside the venue,
that's how loud they were.  Superb.  Mr. Tambourine Man with it's
beautiful new arrangement followed to finish the first set.  Bob knows
how powerful these words are and how much they mean to people and every
word was clear and crisp and sung to perfection.  After a rather long
time, Bob Dylan and band strolled back out to break into Things Have
Changed.  Awesome version with Bob grinning during some parts of the
song.  The band played hard but controlled.  Got a lot of people moving. 
Bob was having fun and we were too.  Love that song, too.  It so deserved
that Oscar that is still diplayed on Bob's amplifier.  Now for a
surprise.  The show closer was Like A Rolling Stone.  Everyone was so
happy to hear this one.  Bob and the band tore this absolute classic up. 
Really burned, baby!  Bob sang it real loud: "How does it FEEL?"  People 
were dancing, cheering and totally amped.  What a show.  What a great 
show. Thank you to Bob Dylan and the boys in his band for an unforgettable 
show!!!  Now, for tomorrow......

Peter Murano