Arrived in Wales late afternoon for the Bob Dylan show in Cardiff that evening at 7.30 pm. Driving down into Penarth off the M4 the sun came out and all of a sudden everything looked beautiful. By the time I got to Cardiff Bay to take the road into Penarth I was astounded at how much development was going on down there, blocks and blocks of flats were rising up from out of what for years and years had been a wasteland but it instantly appeared more desolate to me; at least before it was a strangely beautiful desolation, home for thousands of birds who day after day flew over the mudflats. All that has gone now as man has moved in and man has brought his unique brand of ugliness to the show as well. Pity the poor people who live there although they probably don’t deserve any.
Stopped briefly in Penarth just to dump my stuff at my parents flat and then head off out again to take the train from Penarth into Cardiff. When I got to the station I found there was a replacement bus service in operation which would take me from Penarth to Cogan, a few miles down the road and I would then get the train from there. This meant that by the time I reached Cardiff Central it was just gone 6pm. Walking out of the station I was confronted with the sight of a row of drunks in the forecourt outside the station. One of them had his face covered in blood and there was also a pool of blood in front of him. He was saying in a broad Cardiff accent “It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s my fucking dog and I can handle it!” I walked on at a brisk pace in the direction of the Cardiff International Arena, didn’t want to catch any more of that thank you very much, and by the time I got there the inevitable queue was already halfway round the block. The usual kind of people were there, people like me; early middle aged, the medium middle aged and the ancient middle aged. All of us trying our best to hide various degrees of desperation.
We did not have to wait that long before we were let into the arena and after a quick piss in the bogs I made my way across the floor and found a reasonable position in the gaggle of people about a dozen rows from the stage. It was now just a question of standing there and waiting for the next 90 minutes or so before Bob came on. I had been in this position many times before over the last dozen years or so as it was now my 27th Bob Dylan show since first seeing him at the Hammersmith Apollo back in 1993. You could say that the first time I saw him I was converted. There were the usual rituals to get through before Bob came on stage – the Oriental guy with the limp walking round the stage tuning all the guitars, the incense lit in a couple of buckets at the back of the stage before it wafted over the audience in thick fragrant clouds, spotting the amp on which Bob’s Oscar stood and the classical music pumped over the PA before Bob and the boys finally appeared from out of the shadows as the standard announcement of introduction was given. The usual conversation floated about as we were waiting, from people who were seeing Bob for the first time to people who had seen him hundreds of times; all speculating, anticipating, wondering just what was going to be on the menu.
The set turned out to be heavily tilted towards the 60’s from which 10 out of the 15 songs came, along with one from 1970, two from ’97 and two from 2001. For me the best two songs of the night were the reworked ’97 songs from Time Out of Mind, an album that saw the beginning of the process of Bob’s critical rehabilitation, although it is now quite popular in Dylan circles to claim that it is not half as good as what people first thought it was. Personally I disagree with this re-assessment as in my book it is an absolute classic Bob Dylan album and it is interesting that in a live context the Time Out of Mind songs have been far more radically re-worked than any of the songs on Love and Theft.
Love Sick was quite simply the best live version of the song I have heard Bob play yet with thunderous echo applied to his voice and an atmosphere created of intense brooding. If Love Sick was impressive then Cold Irons Bound, one of the supposedly lesser songs from Time Out of Mind, was stunning and was without doubt the best song of the show, building up as it did to a tremendous climax. This was the show stopper and although it is seen by people who think they know all about Dylan as one of the lesser songs from the album it is significant that it has remained a solid fixture of Bob’s set more or less since 1997 and it has also gone through a number of different incarnations.
From Bob’s current band I really like George Recile, who has been Bob’s drummer since 2002, he really gives the skins a good pounding when the occasion warrants it and Cold Irons Bound certainly required him to let rip which he did with a glorious but fully controlled abandon. Recile also gave a great performance on Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee the third song of the set and also in my opinion one of the best performed numbers of the night. This Love and Theft song in particular seems to be disliked by a great many regular Bob viewers but I have to say myself that I think it is a song that is constantly evolving and if listened to closely contains tremendous musical innovation.
It was surprising that in the main it was the more recent material that stuck in the memory for me although that is not to say that the ‘60s stuff was to be dismissed, far from it in fact. Positively Fourth Street for one contained some great keyboard work from Bob whilst Watching the River Flow rolled along at a very pleasing pace and was simply tremendous as was Ballad of a Thin Man which brought one of Bob’s better vocal deliveries of the night. Stuck Inside of Mobile was fine whilst Absolutely Sweet Marie had some great music but poor vocals from Bob. Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright was the big crowd pleaser towards the end of the main set.
The most unfortunate aspect of the whole show for me didn’t really have much to do with Bob; it was more to do with the simple fact that it was in Cardiff where a hell of a lot of people had clearly been drinking in significant quantities for good few hours beforehand. This was fully brought home to the section of the crowd in which I was standing halfway through the second song of the night, a reasonably good She Belongs to Me. It was at this point that our space was invaded by a shaven headed man of around 40, who was clearly drunk, wildly dancing and full of aggression, jostling people to push his way through until he ended up not too far in front of me. The woman who was with him and who he had dragged through the crowd was just as bad as him, if not worse. They crashed into the couple, a young lad and his girlfriend, who were just in front of me who had been patiently waiting for over the last hour.
The lad tried to complain at the drunk but was meet with a torrent of abuse, almost to point where he was lucky not to get a punch in the face. Such aggression and total disregard for others was really quite sickening and cast a shadow over the whole show not just for me but also for a good few people around me as well. There was really not much that could be done as it was quite obvious that the shaven headed drunk would not have minded staying there dancing to Bob and bumping into people or getting into a big punch up and getting thrown out. It was the same for him as to which possibility would arise, that was clear. A final attempt was made by the young lad to reason with him but the shaven head just shouted in a broad Cardiff accent, “Not interested, not fucking interested. I’m dancing OK? I’m dancing!” This was vociferously backed up by his woman and at it was at that point that everyone realised it was going to be better to just try and ignore them; accommodate them as best they could in the confined space we were inhabiting, just 8 rows or so from the front of the stage in an arena full of people.
That little incident was quite a distraction as far as my mind was concerned. There was nothing that really could have been done however, as discussion and reason were not what the man wanted to get involved in. It amazed me how aggressive people were prepared to behave and how they really couldn’t give a fuck about what effect their actions might have on other people. In this case the shaven head was solely interested in himself and his pleasure, irrespective of the effect his actions might be having on others. The most galling thing about it was that as the show went on and he continued with his wild gyrations it was quite clear that he was familiar with virtually all of the songs that Bob played! So it wasn’t just a case of him being a drunk at a concert who was there more because of the concert rather than the artist who was performing. No, he was clearly there because he liked Bob Dylan and dug his music to enough of an extent to fork out good money to get a ticket to see him. In my mind that requires a person to have at least a certain amount of sensitivity in order to get the most of the material. Then again maybe I’m just plain wrong. Strange all the same.
When a pretty unimpressive Girl of the North Country finished and Tony Garnier readied himself with the stand up bass I knew that Summer Days was coming next and with it the end of the main set. After the antics of the shaven head I felt like I needed a drink and so I made my way out of the crowd and joined the long queue at the bar. This was something I had never done before in all the times that I had seen Bob play. When I found my spot I always stayed there right to the bitter end but this time I really found the prospect of a cold pint of lager more appealing than witnessing yet another rendition of Summer Days which would no doubt be danced wildly to by the shaven headed drunk and his girlfriend. It took a fair few minutes to work my way out of the crowd and at times it was not easy, with more than a few Welshmen unwilling to make way for me despite the fact I was wanting to go backwards and not forwards. Their attitude seemed to be one of anything to make it as difficult as possible for people.
By the time I got my precious lager the end of the main set had been and gone and Bob was halfway through Like a Rolling Stone the first song of the encore. From my new position right at the back of the arena it all seemed rather unimpressive and despite the inevitable roar which came at the end of the song I felt that I had seen and heard him play it far better on many occasions in the past. The same went for All Along the Watchtower that, far from being the usual sterling rendition was actually pretty bad. It was at this stage that I really felt that Bob had fully sensed the vibe of Cardiff and had decided to let us have it as he proceeded to murder the words to the song. In his mind he was already on the tour bus and out of there; on the road to next place along the line. I have to say that I didn’t blame him in any way whatsoever. Cardiff, despite all its pretensions, can still appear at times to be a first class dump populated by some of the roughest people on the planet. End of story.
As I made my way through Cardiff Central to get the replacement coach service back to Penarth I saw a man who was about six foot six pushing a supermarket trolley full of black bin bags through the station entrance. He had a pair of tracksuit bottoms on which were slung low enough so that the upper cheeks of his arse were clearly visible, and he was wearing a pair of slippers. His hair was forming dreadlocks because it had not been washed for so long and he had a half crazed look on his face as he stared at the people passing by. This just about summed up the whole Cardiff experience for me, and the next morning I was out of town by 9.30 and on the road to Bournemouth, in search of Bob Dylan.
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