Review

London, England

Royal Albert Hall

October 25, 2015


[Trevor Townson]

Review by Trevor Townson



Jenny; What; It's me; I know, who else calls at 3 in the morning; Well,
that's it for now, my final night spent in the Hall of Residence; Soon be
time for me to join you and see him in Manchester, I hope he is still
doing the Sinatra songs even if you don't like them; Look, for the last
time I never said that I do not like them, you know me I would even pay to
see Bob play the spoons having first travelled half way across the world
for the privilege, must say that I am pretty thankful that those bag pipes
he bought never surfaced though; All you do is go on about his old stuff;
One song, one song, an absolute classic of a song mind, a diamond amongst
coal, Tangled Up In Blue, what am I supposed to do, ignore it now that Bob
is copying someone else again; There must be other songs that he did that
you could write about; Well, actually in the current set list there
probably isn't actually, well I mentioned them at the end of my last
review, I mean comments; What else you been up to then, have you been back
to Selfridges; Well actually I did venture back in there but not too far,
I was looking at men's watches but still within sight of the door; What
were you doing looking at watches; Well you will never guess what, you
know that watch that I bought off that man at the quay side in Tenerife,
that big gold one; Yes; Well they were selling them in Selfridges and you
will never guess what; What; for some of them they were asking tens of
thousands of pounds, there must be some real suckers of tourists in London
if they are prepared to pay that; Those watches must be different to
yours; No they were identical, anyone could easily afford to go from
London to Tenerife and buy one and still have enough money left over to
buy a car or even a house if you wanted to live in West Yorkshire like me;
Yes but you do not have a very good house do you even by West Yorkshire
standards since you bought that book on Buddhism and decided the best idea
was probably to live life way below your means; No point spending a lot on
a fancy house then spending most of your life living in The Albert Hall
listening to Bob; Anyway, what were these watches called; Rolex, just like
the man said mine was; I don't really think that you can buy a Rolex and
still get change out of a fifty euro note; Well that's what good old
fashioned Yorkshire bargaining can get you; Are you sure that the man did
not say yours was a Rolix; No, well he may have done but that was purely
down to his Espanic accent; Well as long as you are happy with it; Well
actually I'm not as it broke after a couple of weeks but by that time I
was back home and it would have been pretty expensive and inconvenient to
return it; Well you don't need to spend thousands just to tell the time,
but probably best to spend more than fifty euros on a quay side in future
if you want something more reliable long term, a kind of Bob Dylan
Together Through Life watch, so to speak; Actually, I remember seeing Bob
wearing a watch, that could have been a Rolex; Where have you seen that;
Rolling Thunder Review concert footage, that part where he is actually
playing the spoons, during ISIS I think, he is banging two spoons together
and you can clearly see that he is wearing an expensive watch, possibly a
Rolix, sorry Rolex; It amazes me how you Dylan fans observe everything
about the man, two spoons and a watch in a darkened video clip; Bear in
mind I am a total amateur in this respect, someone like Clinton Heylin for
example would be able to tell you the exact model of the watch, it's
serial number and what time it was displaying when the clip was taken,
whilst Derek Barker for example could tell you what key the spoons were
tuned to; Bob really does go back a long way with you and amazingly is
still as big as ever; Yes, I truly believe that in the end I made good
life choices in selecting Bob as my sole performing artist and Burnley
Football Club as my only sporting interest, got a lot of grief at school
on both fronts from others who thought my choices should have been Slade
and Leeds; So what else you been up to; Well as I ended up embracing
shopping I thought since I was in London I should embrace a bit of tourism
too; Well if you are sure and feel that you can handle it, I somehow feel
you were safer in the pub watching the Blackburn v Burnley match on Sky,
even being amongst all those West Ham and Arsenal fans but I worry about
you getting yourself in trouble down there; Me, get myself in trouble,
what do you mean; Well I know what you can be like and I remember the
Leicester City match; Look the guys all took it in good spirit down here
having a Burnley fan in their pub, even the West Haaaaaaam fans, that's
actually what they say, not West Ham but West Haaaaaaam, in'it; Look that
is exactly the type of observation on life from you that gets me worried,
I never know with you, you could be telling Bob Jewish jokes next; No
problems there as I don't know any, well only the one about the Jewish
Kamikaze pilot who crashed his plane into his brother in laws scrap yard;
OK lets change the subject; Stop worrying it is not as though I am
actually going to write that to Bill and even if I did he is not going to
post it anyway; Have you got your fingers crossed, OK but I'm worried now
in case you do and he does; Look there is absolutely nothing wrong with
that observation, in fact it is what any Kamikaze Yorkshire man would do
as well, so there, do I now go to jail as a racist for being a Yorkshire
man telling a joke about a Yorkshire man, hell world wake up and kill
those trolls, I have heard Jews from New York telling Jewish jokes and I
don't think too many of them are serving time, anyway why should I care,
you have seen my house and a few months banged up would be an excellent
time to take up that meditation that I have been putting off; So what
tourist attractions caught your interest then; Museums, I spent a couple
of hours doing them; How can anyone do the museums of London in a couple
of hours; Easy, you just need to be focused on what you are looking for, I
may have skipped doing the Science Museum though if I am honest; So which
museums did you do; I started with the Natural History Museum, I wanted to
see if I could find out anything further on Bob's current songs; Was there
anything; No, the museum was concentrating on a different kind of history,
dinosaurs, well skeletons actually with loads of school kids queing up to
see them, the songs of Sinatra probably pre dated that so there was
nothing doing on that front; So what next: The V&A  across the way of
course, you know the same guy who gave us The Hall, The Royal Albert Hall,
or as they say down here The Royal Allllllllllllllllllbert Haaaaaaaaaal ;
What was in there to interest you; Well there was nothing from Merry Olde
England or any other land for that matter, the Buddhist bits were quite
interesting though for me but pretty limited but then I found something;
Where; In the Modern 20th century section; What; Only an Holy Grail item,
a Dylan Poster from 1967, that offset lithograph by Milton Glaser, the one
with the black faced Dylan profile with the coloured hair, was before it's
time but it reminded me of Tangled Up In Blue, said it was given by the
Museum of Modern Art, New York so probably some kind of original that I
was looking at; Trust you to go on about Tangled Up In Blue again; Well
you just wait and see, I mean listen, in Manchester when he does yet
another word perfect rendition for the sixth and seventh time, then tell
me if I am right or wrong, if that song does not get the hairs standing
up, if that song does not "glow like burnin' coal, like it was written in
your soul from me to you" I'll buy you a Rolex the next time that I go to
Tenerife;  Well that's a challenge for Bob; Yes and he better not blow it
otherwise I will be taking out dad's Basildon Bond writing set and putting
quill in hand to pen a letter in best West Yorkshire copperplate writing
just like dad did telling Bob that he owes me fifty euros for screwing it
up; Go on, tell me some more about the final night; Well Love Sick was
probably even better than the previous night but I am not going to give
Bob another challenge, anyway you do not need two watches and even Bob
would think a hundred euros pretty steep on top of all of his other
concert expenses; What about his new stuff, I want to know about the
Sinatra songs; OK, I must confess, after five nights they are growing on
me and you will, I believe really enjoy them in Manchester; How do you
know; Well I sat next to a lady tonight who was pretty much sitting in the
same spot she sat in at his 1966 concert, hows that for Together Through
Life with Bob, she stood up to clap after every one of his Sinatra songs;
Well seems like she has adapted to change better than you have; Look for
the final, final time I have never said that I do not like them, in fact I
have now confessed to them growing on me and just to shut you up on this
subject, Tangled Up In Blue was again fantastic tonight as was Long And
Wasted Years with Love Sick being better than previous and again another
hair standing song but the song that I sat back through and enjoyed the
most of all was The Night We Called It A Day, absolutely brilliant for a
song to touch you like that; So how come it has taken you so long to
appreciate that song; Well it is one of the only songs that he presently
changes around in the set list so he does not always sing it, hopefully he
will perform it one of the nights in Manchester so you will get to hear it
and judge for yourself; Well you never can tell with Bob so I will just
have to wait to see and live in hope; For sure Bob is never predictable
and would never do any song if you asked him to so call out for ISIS like
all the idiots do, sorry, used an emotionally charged word there, should
have used fools, then he will never do that; What do you mean; Well the
minute Bob goes on stage in Manchester shout out ISIS, ISIS, ISIS like an
idiot, sorry, I mean like a fool, that will destract him and make him more
probably likely to sing The Night We Called It A Day for you in preference
to ISIS; Well if you think that will help but I am not sure Bob likes
people shouting out; It happens; Yes you have done it but you should
behave yourself better, save yourself for the Burnley matches where it is
appreciated; OK I promise, no more shouting out at his shows from now on
and apologies for ever doing so; Lets just leave it up to Bob what he
sings on the night and I will be happy enough with that; Bob is performing
so well at present, even the shyness he seemed to have on the David
Letterman show whilst performing The Night That We Called It A Day is now
gone and he can stand out there as relaxed and as confident as Frank in
delivering those songs; I can't wait now, Roll on Manchester; A lot has
been said about how good Bob is in these performances and that is
absolutely true but it is easy to forget the back up, and that back up
provided by that band cannot be underestimated in what they do in making
these shows as good as they are, it is actually so good that you can
almost miss it completely, ignore it or just take it for granted as
background, but consider this, I have probably never experienced what Bob
is presently allowing these musicians to do in delivering such a polished
performance, take some time to watch, listen to and really enjoy those
musicians backing Bob up, for sure Bob is delivering as good as ever and
the tendency is to focus fully on that but take some time out to
appreciate what those guys backing him up are bringing to make these shows
as truly outstanding as they are, Stu, Charlie, Tony, George, Donnie,
absolutely fantastic stuff guys and last but by no means least, good work
Bob for putting it all together and nailing it, Brilliant! 

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