Thanks to Carsten Wohlfeld for the following review: Welcome back... the third and final leg of my lil Euro-Bob tour started in beautiful Paris, France, where indeed everything was very beautiful except for Bob's choice of songs and the obnoxious french audience. Gunter and I had started our trip to the french capitol very early in the morning so were arrived rather early in Paris as well, picked up our tickets, had a slice of pizza and then went straight to the venue, just to find out that there was nobody there yet. Even though I had booked a standing ticket, the promoters had decided at the 11th hour that there would be chairs on the floor, too, thus reducing the capacity of Le Zenith to a mere 2,500. And it wasn't even sold out! You get Van AND Bob on one bill on one of the hippest cities on the planet and they don't even sell 2.,500 freaking tickets. Of course they weren't cheap (but not more expensive than Boston were the two sold close to 40,000 tickets) and a most french people are probably so in love with the soccer worldcup that they just couldn't be bothered but it still was very strange. Van came out at 8.05pm, black suit, black glasses, looking as if he was waiting for a bus (as Robert put it afterwards) but still delivering a killer show. This was my ninth Bob and Van double headlining show this year and for the first time I enjoyed Van more than Bob. Morrison has a 'new' band now, I guess the Mister Scott on guitar is the bass players brother and Gorgie Fame has been replaced - permanently as it seems - by John Savannah, who's doing a lot of the "Van the Man" crap Brian Kennedy (who's also left) did before. Anyways, Van played a lot of his monster hits, inluding "Tupelo oney", "Moondance", "Jackie Wilson Said" and my personal favourite, "Crazy Love". He also pulled out some songs he doesn't do every night, like an amazingly touching "The Healing Game", that closed the very short main set and made way for 40 mins of encores, including "Wherever God Shines His Light" and a rare "No Guru...". After a short break Dylan took to the stage at around 9.55pm to launch into: > Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat Which of course was the first minor disappointment - no "Serve Somebody" tonight. The sound was bad and the intro messed up badly. "Things can only get better" I thought, but next up was: > Lay Lady Lay Which made my smile because a) a guy next to me went nuts as soon as they started it and b) I had to smile at the fact that our friend Uta missed this one again even though she definitely would've loved to come and see this show. Solid performance. > Cold Irons Bound The "weird" intro gets longer and longer with each performance it seems, harder as well. Tonight David waited very long till he joined in. Bob turned his head as if he was going to say: "Hey man, whatcha waitin' for?" > To Make You Feel My Love Yet another disappointment. As soon as Larry changed guitars I knew that my least favourite song in the curent Dylan repertoire was going to be performed. Solid version that, as I said before, is several lightyears away from the LP version, so much better. > Silvio David messed this one up badly, thus ruining the whole song. It simply wasn't as good as it used to be. > The Times, They Are A-Changin' (acoustic) A huge crowdpleaser, not much more. Bucky played a very nice low-tone solo on pedal steel. > Masters of War (acoustic) Yet another one from the greatest hits section, but for me the highpoint of the show. Sounded very dramatic, verrrry intense. Maybe it#s time for yet another arrangement, but the song remains one of my favourite Bob tunes ever. > Desolation Row (ac) Only six verses tonight and one sounded to me as if it was a 'medley' from several others. Maybe a tape will clear that up for us. Seems to be one of Bob's curent favourites - he only played it once last year, but now he's plays it almost three times a week in Europe. > Mama You Been On My Mind (ac) Solid. Not a big surprise that this one was performed, as it has been featured in the set at almost every show since it made it's first European appearnace in Brussels two weeks ago. Bucky joined in on the chorus, Larry did not. As far as I know there's only two songs where the two of them don't share the backing vocals, this one, and Larry's "solo spot" on "Tomorrow Is A Long Time". > Happy Birthday (acoustic) After "Mama" Bob had a short discussion with Tony who told Larry to come over. A few smiles later Bob stepped up to the microphone and started "Happy Birthday", Tony and Larry following close behind. I don't think that he actually got eneither the chords nor the melody right, but it's the thought that counts, right? It was sung for a mysterious Suzie, that's all I know. After he had finished the song, Bob laughed and said: "We did play it in a different key at the end, didn't we?" and then he played it again! > Happy Birthday (acoustic) 2nd time It was almost a solo version cause Larry and Tony were laughing so hard that they almost forgot to play. They totally killed the melody again and it actually sounded even worse than the first try. Still a charming surprise, not only for Suzie, but all of us. > Tangled Up In Blue (acoustic) was "Tangled...". Solid performance. > My Back Pages (acoustic) closed the acoustic set that had either six, seven, or eight songs, depending on how you look at it. If you ask me or Bill Pagel, it had eight. The last of which featured a harp solo that was short and not very loud at all. Solid is the word, I guess. No band intros followd, he actually didn't introduce the band at all! > Highway 61 Revisited yes, they revisited the highway as well, but didn't find anything new. Halfway through the song Bob went over to Bucky to show him what to play. Bucky imitaed Bob's riff a couple of times but as soon as Dylan had turned away again, he went back to what he had played before. > (encore) > Love Sick Was very fast and not very convincing. > Rainy Day Women Nos. 12 & 35 was "Rainy Day Women". Houselights on so Bob could take a look at the almost sold out venue. > Blowin' In The Wind Closed off the proceedings. A solid 95-minute show that gave us some strong singing, but a rather predictable (you also may say boring) setlist and generally not too much fun. Given the fact that the tickets were pretty expensive and Paris isn't very cheap generally as far as food and accomodation is concerned it wasn't exactly value for money. Hopefully he'll remember that he can play 17 songs on a van-less night in Dijon tomorrow. Until then... bye! -- carsten wohlfeld "what once you called home is a minefield" (damon & naomi)
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