BOB DYLAN : Dublin 2022

BOB DYLAN : DUBLIN 2022

Disc One (54:37)

Intro
Watching The River Flow
Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
I Contain Multitudes
False Prophet
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Black Rider
My Own Version of You
I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Crossing The Rubicon

Disc Two (57:24)

To Be Alone With You
Key West (Philosopher Pirate)
Gotta Serve Somebody
I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You
That Old Black Magic
Oh Shenandoah
Mother of Muses
Goodbye Jimmy Reed
Band Introduction
Every Grain of Sand

Label : Crystal Cat Records

Venue : 3Arena, Dublin, Ireland

Recording Date : November 7, 2022

Quality : Audience recording (A+)

Review (Collectors Music Reviews) : The Crystal Cat label have come back around again with two new shows from Bob Dylan’s ‘Rough And Rowdy’ tour of the continents. From the 7th of November, 2022 we have the Dublin show played at the 3Arena. Not surprisingly, the only show on the tour that features an instrumental cover of the traditional, ‘Oh Shenandoah’. The Oslo show at the Spektrum was unique in the fact that is was the only show where Dylan started the show on guitar, through, ‘Watching The River Flow’.

Concert Review (Irish Examiner) : Bob Dylan was bathed in burnished orange back-lighting as he and his band took to the stage for a long-awaited return to Dublin. It was the colour of the sun going down, which was likewise the feeling evoked as the 81-year-old delivered a set full of melancholy and – was this truly Bob Dylan? – wistfulness. His choice of material reflected that autumnal mood. The hits which upended popular culture in the 1960s and which have united the generations in awe and wonder were largely absent. This was instead an introspective and plaintive performance, full of mid-tempo numbers that begin with the ennui-soaked splash of Watching The River Flow. “Right now I'll just sit here so contentedly / And watch the river flow,” he sang. His voice was a thoughtful rasp. Conspicuously absent was the barbed sting which, in the latter half of his career, has made Dylan the ultimate marmite troubadour, provoking veneration and bafflement in equal measure. Many of the songs had a diaristic quality. I Contain Multitudes, from 2020’s Rough and Rowdy Ways album, was a sparse unpacking of Dylan’s interior life. “I’m just like Anne Frank, like Indiana Jones And them British bad boys, The Rolling Stones,” he half sang, half intoned – a lyric that could have been pulled off only by Bob Dylan. That measured stride occasionally threatened to become glacial. Another Rough and Rowdy Ways pick, Key West (Philosopher Pilot) was stretched out to nearly 10 minutes – and felt like it. But if the pace never changed, the intensity was cranked up to heartbreaking levels with I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, from 1967’s John Wesley Harding, and a cover of Johnny Mercer’s That Old Black Magic, which Dylan negotiated as if wryly exorcising demons. As a strictly phone-free gig, attendees had to put their device in a Yondr pouch on the way in. You keep the pouch through the gig, and it gets unlocked on the way out. Dylan spent most of the near two-hours behind a battered upright piano, so that only his scarecrow hair, twinkling eyes and downcast mouth were visible (this must have been one of the first Dylan concerts in Ireland where he went on without a hat). Occasionally Dylan would step out and acknowledge the crowd. Towards the end, there were even some words to go with the smiles as he revealed that Shane MacGowan was in the house and that Fairytale of New York was a favourite of his (“I listen to it every Christmas”). Also late in the evening came a heartbreaking harmonica solo. As Dylan parped, there was a sense of a sea parting as the audience sprung to their feet, clapping and hooting. If this was goodbye, then Dylan and the crowd were united in ensuring it was a grand farewell to remember.

Concert Review (Irish Times) : At two minutes past eight Bob Dylan shuffles on to the stage to thunderous applause. It’s his 103rd live show on the current leg of this tour in just a year and loose change. At age 81 he’s not slowing down. That voice of a generation remains a powerful and irresistible force, one not to be messed with. Dylan never sings out of tune; that’s always been true. At a sold-out 3Arena on a rainy Monday night in Dublin, that singing voice is front and centre stage, the Nobel Prize winner as captivating as he’s ever been, stirring the emotions at times beyond words. Dylan sits behind his upright piano, which looks as if he found in a skip on the way in, partly obscuring himself for the show but never once out of our full and rapturous attention. It’s no prop: his piano-playing constantly leads the way. Dressed in a black embroidered suit, the shades and hat long gone, Dylan never lets up for an hour and 50 minutes, aided perhaps by the fact all our mobile phone devices were locked away in fancy zip bags until after the show. There is no support act, no stage intro, certainly no “hello Dublin”, just the dimming of the lights and a few blasts of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, and Dylan warming up on piano with a few bars of Oh, Susannah, we think. Of the 17-song set list on the night, more than half – nine to be exact – are fresh off Rough and Rowdy Ways, his 39th studio album, released in June 2020, his first original work since Tempest in 2012. He’s been moving through European dates since September, the 3Arena the last stop, for now. Dylan does breaks off into the occasional “thank you”, though he’s fully aware of exactly where he is. After introducing his band after the penultimate song, he says “I want to send shout out to Shane MacGowan, one of our favourite artists, and let’s hope he releases another record sometime soon ... Fairytale of New York is one of our favourite songs, sing it every Christmas.” Most in attendance are likely hearing the new songs live for the first time. Dylan, just right of centre-stage, repeatedly looks to his five-piece band to ensure they don’t miss his cue, as if he’s singing the new songs for the first time too, trying to figure out the exact placing of every word and meaning. He seems to be coming alive as a performer again too, with Rough and Rowdy Ways. He opens with Watching The River Flow, from 1971, which didn’t appear on any studio album release, the light not shining from anywhere above but from the stage floor below. His five-piece band shift between the whip tight and jazz loose. Bassist Tony Garnier has been with Dylan since 1988, Charley Drayton on drums now (Dylan always gets the best drummers), Bob Britt and Doug Lancio on guitar, and Donnie Herron on the violin and pedal steel guitar. When Greil Marcus was interviewed recently about his new book, A Bob Dylan Biography In Seven Songs, he was asked: “What’s so special about Bob Dylan?” He answered: “I’ve always said, I’ve always believed, that it’s the voice, it’s the inflection, it’s the way of dramatising small things, enormous things ...” There is ample inflection of that voice here, in all its gruffness and softness. Second up is Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine), then two straight from Rough and Rowdy Ways, I Contain Multitudes, then False Prophet, a rocking beat on that one. After a joyous When I Paint My Masterpiece, he breaks into Black Rider, then My Own Version of You, the singing majestic, before a real crowd pleaser in I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight. Then it’s Crossing The Rubicon, softly rocked out, To Be Alone With You followed by Key West (Philosopher Pirate), one of his modern masterpieces. Gotta Serve Somebody is relished up again too, then I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You, the arena in complete silence. That Old Black Magic is the only cover of the night, before Mother of Muses, then Goodbye Jimmy Reed, which sounds as fresh and as good as anything he’s written. After the band introductions he finishes with Every Grain of Sand, and for the first time all night he reaches for his harmonica after the last verse fades. He moves from behind his piano to greet the standing ovation, the band posing still and straight behind him, and then he shuffles off. Only he’s not gone yet, responding to the now wild chorus of approval to return, the lights shining clean on to his face, the look and sense of respect and appreciation widely mutual to all in attendance.