BOB DYLAN : NEW ORLEANS 2024

Disc One (57:37)

1. Watching The River Flow
2. Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
3. I Contain Multitudes
4. False Prophet
5. When I Paint My Masterpiece
6. Black Rider
7. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
8. My Own Version Of You
9. Crossing The Rubicon

Disc Two (51:11)

1. To Be Alone With You
2. Key West (Philosopher Pirate)
3. Gotta Serve Somebody
4. I've Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You
5. On The Banks Of The Old Pontchartrain
6. Mother Of Muses
7. Goodbye Jimmy Reed
8. Every Grain Of Sand

Label : no label

Venue : Saenger Theatre, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Recording Date : April 1, 2024

Quality : Audience Recording (A+)

Concert Review (Bob Links) : New Orleans has been always my genuine favourite city in the US, even before I ever visited it. I prefer to be in New York or Chicago, because the european heritage is more palpable so you don't feel so stranged. But, to feel in the deepest possible way, New Orleans is the place. Two years ago, 2-3 days sufficed to fall in love with the city, with the jazz blowin' through the streets, with the least american urban planning around Jackson Square, with the river flowing that gives so much things so much sense, though on an unconscious level. I fell in love with the wrought iron balconies/galleries, framing your gaze wherever you looked; I fell in love with the tramways, with Garden District, even with the pounding heat, that burn your brains from the inside out. Two years later, after bidding farewell to the Mississippi thinking that I'd may never set foot there again, at least with my mum, we're arriving from Memphis, in the exact opposite direction as we did in 2022. In the morning, we visit the farthest cemeteries at the north; two of them hit me really strong: Holt Cemetery and specially Cypress Grove Cemetery. First one is a bit of a potter's field, many unmarked or reused graves, wooden handmade markings and mostly african-american buried there; I'm not sensitive, but the place has a real eerie feeling, with some live oaks scattered, one of them with a wooden cross that suggest a burying next to it and a crow saluting us at our entrance. Cypress Grove is nearby, next to the more famous Greenwood Cemetery, but it is such an example of time at work. Some rundown mauseoleums, from a chinese one to many french or even one that suggested catalan heritage, but the most impressive thing about it are the niches at the sides: most of them are unmarked and I suppose empty, but some of them have still the stone placed, and you can read the name of the person, the age and the procedence. What shocked me the most about Cypress Grove is how many of the buried in the niches were people in their early thirties, like me, and that they had been lying there for about 200 years in some cases, all that fuelled by the silence of the place, gave me the shivers. I took pictures of many of those stones and their names, and specially of some inscriptions engraved in them, one of those expressing so eloquently the love of the parents for the son they had lost. It pierced me how the words we use today when remembering are not so different from those used two centuries ago, neither are the feelings. With all that in my mind, we went back to the French Quarter, and just some hours there were enough to again fall in love with it, the air was also a bit cooler, and Jackson Square was quite full of carefree people. Some 'kids' (on their early twenties I'd say) were goofing on the banks of the Mississippi. With the right mood in me, sensing it would be an special night, I headed to the Saenger. New Orleans was the show I was most happy about those announced in the second phase of the tour, as this time I could fulfill the dream of seeing Bob there. I had a nice left seat very close to the stage, everything was meant to be turned out right. "Hey! Where are you from?!", a man to my left inquires. "Barcelona!", I answer with a friendly smile. Usually this answer enhances the conversation (not acting proud, I say it's normal it does), yet he is already so full of himself that he only says something about how he has seen Bob "about 150 times" and that as he's from New Orleans this will likely be his last time meeting the man. "Never say never!", I go again friendly. He seems quite OK to be honest, he's with a friend at his left, and a couple of minutes before showtime he moves one seat that is free to his right, so then he's sitting next to me. The guy has BAD mobility issues, so much that both his friend and me have to help him to move. Band cames out, and as soon as it's obvious that Bob is not joining yet, he keeps talking to me, inviting me to a place he owns afterwards or something, which I kind of ignore, trying to focus on what it means the most to me. At one point I remember the ghost guitar playing and try to guess who's playing what, and then at one point a plonky three note riff makes your head explode. I look at the only electric guitar on stage, Bob Britt's, and he's obviously not the one playing that, and also he's grinning big time looking at his left to the backstage. There's not doubt about what's happening here: Bob Dylan is playing guitar just a few feet away from us, it's unmistakable and just the idea is the coolest thing imaginable, I get my first pump moment of a night that will have plenty of them. I notice also that the curtain is lifted up, a ladder is back there against a wall, and that the classical intro before the band takes the stage is not anymore Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring', but something different. The guitar stops and Bob Dylan enters the stage. Act 1. As a man that has seen Bob Dylan "about 150 times" I assume my neighbour may be interested in what's going on so I excitedly tell him that "Bob is playing guitar backstage!", something that doesn't seem to provoke in him the slightiest effect. The show commences, and I could go on on many deetailz, but let me just say that the first half of the New Orleans 2024 show is, I'd say by a mile away (not in quality itself but in the determination with which I'm saying it), the best first half of a show I've ever seen. CRA-ZY stuff, the songs have a profound power within that turns them into witchy experiences, creativity of all members on stage feels off the charts, the sound is so well bodied yet all the instruments clearly audible. 'Multitudes', which in some shows felt a bit taken for granted, has meaningful textures, as for example a way of saying "Anne Frank, Indiana Jones" and some pauses in the "them British bad boys, the Rolling Stones" that are worth any hardship. 'Most Likely' carries on a guitar riff and a piano melody inherited from the back-and-forth piano approach from Bob in 'River Flow', and 'False Prophet' is a true one of a kind with, again, a piano ritornello that turns the song into a chant, hence 'Masterpiece' is driven more like a voodoo dance than like a rumba. I tell, you the stuff dreams are made of. 'Black Rider' gives us a bit of air, though with also an extremely powerful wisdom in it, another song that slowly burns towards a human sacrifice in the aim of getting transformed. Whatever it was going on, it was quintessentially 'neworleanesque'. From here on, regardless if maybe from another point of view than the one I was in New Orleans I would still feel that other second halves of the concerts have been a tad more meaningful than last night, something happened that turned the night into the most intense, wild and probably unforgettable ride of my life following Bob. My dear voisin had been talking here and there and singing along, really bad and cranky way, during some lines, but there's one crucial detail I have not mentioned yet: he was holding this huge cane that from time to time he would move up and down to, I assume, make himself visible to Bob. In case you have seen the Tarantino's movie 'Inglourious Basterds', you may remember the big, exaggeratedly sized smoking pipe that nazi Col. Hans Landa takes out in the first scene of the movie. Well, we are talking about this kind of oversized object, a truly character building accessory that, to be honest, makes to whole thing a bit amusing. This mister decides that 'Baby Tonight' is the perfect occasion to do a full sing-along, except he sings each and every line out of tempo, REALLY out of tempo and with an insufferable voice, which makes for a perfect occasion to realize how a hell of a singer Bob Dylan and how amazing is to be in his presence enjoying his craft while the world outside keeps spinning in such pathetic ways. The next thinking of my dear companion is next level stuff: I guess that realizing I'm ignoring him, he decides to do something with his hand in front of my face, like he was trying to catch some child's attention. I can only exclame a "Come on!", to which he answers an "Excuse me" that makes me think, mistakenly, that I'm seated next to a normal human being. Pissed by my reaction or not, he spends the whole amount of 'My Own Version of You' talking with his friend, which strangely pisses me off a lot as the approach to the song is more somber and reflective than usual but not to the point that I don't enjoy how great of a rendition it is. I'm indeed between heaven and hell. 'Crossing the Rubicon' is, how it could be otherwise, the pivotal moment of the show: our friends keep talking. I had to say that during a previous song I already told the crippled guy that "we have to focus" so it was already two polite warnings to leave me the f**k alone. They just talk and talk and, mind you during an spectacular rendition, it comes the first heavy piano attack by Bob, and I lose my mind. I get up, jump, cheer their energy, channel it and, while going back to my seat, I fold my hands and pray: "Can you please STOP talking?!". It's an angry request, a pissed off command better put, so even with how really annoying they were and how right I was to make them shut up, I get that it can trigger someone's balls, but what followed was truly nuts. I sit down, still nervous about the whole situation, and the cane guy grabs my arm and quietly says this: "You've f***ed it up, man. You don't know who I am. You're not leaving New Orleans." He went along with similar stuff for a couple of minutes to my complete bemuse, first suspecting he was heavily bluffing but then being overcome by my inner sense of self-protection, cowardness and, specially, the 'what if' doctrine that usually it's something so double sided. I won't go on about the innumerable scenarios that keep popping in my mind during the rest of 'Rubicon' and a crazy 'To Be Alone With You' that sees me cheering like a man on a mission the "I'll hound you to death" and "I know you're alive" lines, stupidly carefree and realising that my biggest worry is that, in case it's true I'm not leaving New Orleans, I'll enjoy the last Bob Dylan show of my life. I kind of give a look to the friend and he's quite undecipherable, I don't know if his eyes are also threatening or not. They are not scary looking guys 'per se', and as I say the cane boss is heavily disabled, but we all know that these people do not take care of the garbage themselves. Out of selfishness because I start to feel that if the status quo stays the same the arguably best concert of my rough and rowdy life will go down the gutter I offer my hand to the cane guy and apologise for "being rude". He says again that I've f***d up badly and that I'm not leaving NOLA but that since I apologised it's OK but that I have to come with them after the show to that place they invited me before. I let him know I'm not alone in the city, which seems to take him by surprise. Mind you, all this thing is of course during the show and the craziest part of it all is how not only it did not deter me from enjoying the show but it enhanced the experience to an insane degree, I was feeling so much, sweating, cheering, grooving, an intensity very few times felt before. As Moses, his fate was sealed because of a cane. The idiot kept waving the cane heavily, and an usher, a black woman, came to tell him to stop. "You stop, you move", he said to her pointing his finger at her, "you don't know who I am". I guess a 'younger' foreign guy and then a black woman scolding him was too much for our macho mob boss. A bit later, she cames again, with a similar outcome. 'Gotta Serve Somebody' is performed in an incredibly crude and stripped fashion that gives it pure rocky groove and feels like my mind is trying to break up. The guy grabs my arm again during the "you may be on a run, you may be on the borderline" lines, which is a bit worrying again. 'Made Up My Mind' is beautifully performed, specially the last part of the song is Bob channeling his voice within him, the man's, not the performer's. Then it all happens so quickly. A violin warns us something is about to happen, that can't be 'Big River'. The whole thing is utmost beautiful, is like time travelling, I only catch words here and there, but I do catch one verse in full: Then one day, a man put his hand on my arm And said I must go west again I left her alone without saying goodbye On the banks of the old Pontchartrain Many lyrics last night hit me pretty hard with the whole cane-gate going on, but that one, figuring by myself what the words were, sung for the first time live by Bob Dylan, that was something, because that was the plan: leaving without saying goodbye. I can't wait to hear it again, but in a way I feel it will never be that special to me as in New Orleans. It puzzles me how much the cover blends into 'Mother of Muses', to the extent that I think they're still playing the Hank Williams song, and those two songs merging is such a beautiful way of expression the magical currents running below all the music. It happened so quickly, so quick by surprise, right there in front of everyone's eyes (including Bob Dylan's!): my right eye is looking on Bob goodbying Jimmy Reed, while my left eye realizes four police officers are in front of me. "Sir, you need to come with us", they told my caned-armed friend. He seems truly surprised. I fold my hands again to the officers and utter the most heartfelt "THANK YOU" of my life. Bob is killing 'Jimmy Reed', it is trance-inducing, I sense while I try to relish on both situations at the same time. The guy has REALLY BAD problems to stand up, and for the first time in my life I enjoy seeing a disabled person suffering, I must confess. The officers don't help him, the only one lending him a hand is his 'friend', which I enjoy even more. Both Bob and I wave goodbye at the same time, I yell a "x FINALLY" at the guy, and a smirky "bye bye" while he's taken out. I stretch my legs, put my left arm where this sorry old man, this pathetic thug was seating and I lose myself within the music, thinking about something he said at the beginning: that this most likely would be his last Bob Dylan concert. I'm not ashamed to say that I truly hope it was, that his last memory of Bob Dylan, who he told me saw for the first time in 1986, is him being kicked out for disturbing everyone's experience and for f***ing threatening my life. 'Every Grain of Sand' featured two outstanding instants: the middle harp solo was really shining, but then Bob took a turn in the rhythm and the whole thing suddenly rose above the reality of men and entered into the realm of the eternal questions, the mysteries of our deepest selfs. And then, while ending the last line, he pierced the last "grain of sand" in an unfathomable way, he made it sound 100% musical, and I was there, alive, to spread the word, as I could swear he gave me a couple of affirmative looks during those last compasses of his concert. I rushed to the stage, still shaking and sweating about the undoubtedly roughest and rowdiest show ever experienced, a degree of intensity that just kept rising and rising, fever pitch. While I was cheering all that was flowing at the same time, I sensed a quick look by Bob, and then, for the first time in my life, I was positive that I needed a drink, something strong to distract my mind. In the end, it could've been my funeral his trial. To cap it off, I want to share the last paragraph I've written on my twitter recollection of the night, I think it sums it up quite well how it all feels: New Orleans was rough, was rowdy, was exactly as it was meant to be, unforgettable, swampy and magical. So I also like a lot of places, but I like New Orleans better, though now my head has a price back there.