Cost o' Bob

Two Bob shows on a roll and the aftermath is I'm feelin' kinda shattered. Two shows in London, both in Wembley, other side o' da town for me but I willingly trekked over. If ya's is lucky the cross town trip on the old publicio transportio can be done in about 1 hr 15. Really there are 2 options as far as the tubio is concerned - Central to Liverpool St and then change onto the Metropolitan to take ya up to Wembley Park, or Central to Bond St and then Jubilee to Wembley Park, there are other choices like just going down to Stratford on the Central and taking the Jubilee all the way to Wembley but that is really not an option unless ya got the time.

Bob was good, Bob was great even, but as I sit here now a day after the event I have those usual thoughts I always have of whether I will bother to see him again. I know this is because I am feeling tired and there is no other reason. By the end of the week I will probably sitting at my Lap dreamin' of whether to catch a cheap flight over to the Continent to try and catch one last show before he heads back to Yankee Dandle.

These were the 29th and 30th times I have seen Bob and by now of course it is easy for me to recognise how certain parts of the set are cast in stone, they just aint gonna change. So for this round of shows it means that Bob plays guitar for the first four songs before trotting off to stand behind his electric keyboard for the rest of the set and for the encore. It means that the opening song is almost certainly gonna be Cat's In the Well, a song from the forgotten 1990 album Under the Red Sky which 10 or 12 years ago used to be a set closer. End of the main set is always gonna be Summer Days followed by Like a Rolling Stone. There just aint gonna be any doubt about that. Summer Days has proved to be the most played Love and Theft song by far since the album was first released on 9/11. For a number of years now it has resided as the rock out number at the end of the main set and there is no end in sight for it as yet. Similarly Like a Rolling Stone is always guaranteed a position somewhere in the set due to it's legacy which hints at infinity of course and these days it comes right after Summer Days. It changes from tour to tour, for quite a few years it was one of the two encore songs, the other being All Along the Watchtower. Things have changed slightly in this regard, now the encore is Thunder on the Mountain and Watchtower. Always, without fail. Well, nearly.

Thunder on the Mountain of course is one of the new songs from Bob's Aug 2006 release Modern Times and from that album we got on both nights six songs which meant that Bob has built his current set pretty much around the new material. This of course is fantastic news for people like myself who have seen Bob many times as it guarantees us performances of songs we have not heard Bob play live before. It meant that besides Thunder we also got on both nights - Levee's Gonna Break, Spirit on the Water, When the Deal Goes Down, Rollin' and Tumblin'. Then on the first night we got the show stopper Nettie Moore and in it's place on the second night we got Aint Talkin' which was not as show stopping but still pretty damn handy dandy.

The two Wembley shows were therefore far richer in content and far more meaningful and interesting than the two shows from 2006 that I caught which were in Cardiff and Bournemouth. Last year it was clear that we were getting to fag end of the Love and Theft material shows and it had got to the stage where there were almost collective groans from the crowd when Bob played songs such as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum yet again. As a matter of fact I quite like the way he and the band explore the hidden contours which this song possesses but I know for a fact that a lot of people out there just do not see it that way. They are sick to their back teeth of hearing it.

Well anyway, it don't matter now as those days are now behind us. We have got Modern Times and it is going to be the songs from that which Bob will build his set around for the near future, meaning at least the next couple of years. I will be kinda flabbergasted if I am proved wrong on this point but we shall see. Don't get me wrong I aint complaining because his versions of all the Modern Times material I heard from the Wembley shows are versions are I could quite happily listen to again and again and I will not even have to do that as I am sure Bob will tinker with their arrangements before very long anyway.

Wembley first nite. Sunday, hot day, really hot day. Slap bang in the middle of April but it could have been high summer. Show a total sell out and excitement in the air. I was also excited, I had been quietly looking forward to these shows for a good couple of weeks as I knew it would be the very first time that I would be hearing Bob play songs from Modern Times. Stepped out of Wembley Park around 6.15. These days the steps from the station lead straight down onto Wembley Way and the new stadium is slap bang ahead of you, all part of the new design and renovations which have been going on for the last five years or so. Much better than before when you had to cross a nasty road more often than not bumper to bumper with aggressive London drivers.

By 6.30 I was in the new Wembley Square outside the arena. So warm, so very warm. I was just in a t-shirt. That was all I needed. The entrance to the Arena has been made to face the new stadium which means there is much less distance to walk and there is a pleasant space in front of the building for people to hang around and take in the atmosphere. Steps, trees and fountains brought out a carnival atmosphere as people sat around taking with each other in groups and drinking beer. Ice cold Fosters. Nice. Seeing the beer in the frosted plastic glasses kinda made my throat go dry and I knew that it would not be long before I headed inside to get one from one of the bars.


He's going where the southern crosses the yellow dog, yeah he's gonna get away from all those demagogues...there's a mean old twister bearing down on him...he's gonna have a whopping good time...but he aint talkin', just walkin'...

After the euphoria and sell out show on Sun night it was almost kinda inevitable that Mon was gonna be different, very different in fact. Kinda reminded me of the Mon show I saw Bob perform in Portsmouth back in 2000, nearly 7 years ago. There the show had a most definite sense of Mon about it and in a similar kinda way this Mon show at Wembley did as well. Bob tunes into it. He is a hard working man and he knows that it is the beginning of the week and that means low expectations. In this instance the show was harder, meaner and much more serious than Sun. It was also about 7 or 5 mins shorter. Maybe he was thinking the same kinda things I was...how nice it would be to just get back to bed.

Kinda noticed 2nd time around how fast the live versions of Levee's Gonna Break and Thunder on the Mountain are when compared to those recorded on Modern Times. Faster to the point of being almost punky. Bob thrashed his way through them, didn't care how rough they might have sounded. John Brown was the show stunner on Mon without any doubt, on Sun it had been Nettie Moore but on Mon it was John Brown. Seriously stunning to the point of making me wonder whether Bob had read the papers about the school massacre in Virginia that day. Not my thoughts I have to admit, but something I read from a review on Expecting Rain which listed the number of heavy, violent songs that Bob played in that set. Thought at the time it was preposterous but now it kinda makes a lot more sense. Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll was another. Serious and foreboding was Mon in a nutshell and it just goes to show that with Bob you should never assume that any two shows are ever gonna be the same.

Price I paid with Bobby this time was that by the time Tues came along I woke feeling absolutely knackered. Seriously shattered. Wasted. Yeah man, felt like my body was crumblin' in two, crumblin' into more than two in fact and the thing was I had to be up early that day to get down to Earls Court for the London Book Fair an' that meant a crowded tube ride on the Central to Holborn and then swinging down to Earls Court on the Piccadilly. Then once at the book fair a lot of walkin' round and talkin' to people. Gotta admit I took a lot of breaks, couple of times stopped for coffee and just to sit for a rest. Feelin' the pace that was no doubt about that.

Gettin' close to end of week now and energy is kinda low. Beginning of the week was extremely busy and the full impact of the schedule has taken a few days to filter through. Combination of that and the possibility I am not as fit as I should be. Let's see what it is I have been doing -

Sat - city trampin'
Sun - clearing loft of clutter, housework, going over to Wembley to see Bob Dylan
Mon - Wisdom Books all day, in the evening going over to Wembley to see Bob Dylan
Tues - London Book Fair all day at Earls Court
Wed - up in the loft most of the day putting down insulation and chipboard flooring. Began at around 9.30 and finished up at 7pm
Thurs - Wisdom Books all day, little bit of loft sorting in the early evening

Result of all that was that by Thurs nite I went up to bed feelin' completely an' utterly shattered.

Now Fri morn and I know I am gonna have to pace myself. Keeping things in good runnin' order means pacin', not taking on too much, being aware of your limitations.

Thoughts on the Dylan shows starting to fade a bit now.

Second show on the Mon with Carly I realised that now I was up to my 30th time seeing Bob there were certain aspects of the whole procedure I didn't have to get so excited about. I remember before in years gone by that when I caught the smell in my nostrils of the incense which is always lit behind the stage 10 mins or so before show time I would always experience a tremor of excitement in my belly. Wow, I would think, only a few more minutes and Bob is gonna be coming on stage and playin' there right in front of us. Well these days that particular ritual more or less passes me by in terms of the jumping up an' down in my seat factor. First sight of Bob walking on stage also raises a tremendous cheer from the crowd but here again I am not so likely these days to be standing there shouting at the top of my lungs. Really for the simple reason that I have done it all before, so many times. And yeah, just like Bob, a part of me probably feels like it is just another night.

Similarly when the main set ended on Mon me and Murty Carla took the opportunity to sit back down in our seats and have a five minute rest rather than remain on our pegs like the majority of the crowd who were shouting for more, for Bob and the boys to come back on stage to do an encore. Didn't even bother clapping in fact. In the past I would have clapped so hard it felt like my hands would fall off, shouting so much that I would have left my voice hoarse for a few hours afterwards. Now there was nuthin' approaching like that level of excitement. Seen it an' done it all before, many times.

In fact it was kinda nice just to let all those things roll past me, sit in the shadows and take it in as an observer. There is an illusion in participation. Ya think that somehow you are speaking directly to the artist and that somehow if you shout a little bit more or clap a little bit harder you are gonna be able to have some kind miraculous influence on the outcome. That your wildest dreams are gonna come true, and in this case you can think that because Bob is in touch with you he is somehow gonna anticipate ya deepest most heartfelt needs. All bollox of course. From my perspective these days it just don't work like that. Bob is an artist, Bob is a man but to put him up on high as some kinda saviour seeing your every move is dangerous, you are only gonna be settin' yourself up for a fall and dragging him down with you when ya see ya dreams just don't come true.