Bob Dylan
9th show of the superb 2003 European Fall tour
Berlin, Berlin Arena
October 20 (Monday), 2003
Download FLAC: Google Drive
DISC I [58:07]
01 Intro
02 To Be Alone With You
03 It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
04 Cry A While
05 Desolation Row
06 It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
07 Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
08 Things Have Changed
09 Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)
DISC II [1:00:08]
01 Can’t Wait
02 Highway 61 Revisited
03 Love Minus Zero/No Limit
04 Honest With Me
05 Every Grain Of Sand
06 Summer Days
(encore)
07 Cat’s In The Well
08 Like A Rolling Stone
09 All Along The Watchtower
Bob Dylan – vocal & piano
Freddie Koella – guitar
Larry Campbell – guitar, mandolin, pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar
Tony Garnier – bass
George Receli – drums & percussion
Bob’s 10th show in Berlin is a true escalation. Probably the best of all the 16 shows which has been played in October. The band play perfectly and so beautifully all over the show that all the performances are just simply tremendous. Most versions of songs are inspired – such as ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,’ or ‘Every Grain Of Sand’ – and appearently presented in their best forms of their ’03 fall renditions. Yet in the opening song ‘To Be Alone With You,’ Bob sings with full vigour and hits the piano more and more intensively.
They are determined to rock. ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ evolves and evolves and the band perfom another beautiful version of the song featuring a mindblowing ending. I listened through carefully all seven ‘Desolation Row’ from this fall and in my opinion it’s just tops all (even if it lacks a certain verse). The way Bob sings and uses his harmonica and his bandmates’ work all the way through it, is mesmerizing.
The tour debut of ‘Can’t Wait,’ – which is between the powerful performances of ‘Most Likely You Go Your Way’ & ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ shows signs of brilliance. During ‘Most Likely..’ Bob mixes the words many places – seemingly in joy playing the tune along with Larry’s and Freddie’s genuine co-work.
Larry’s playing is – again – haunting during ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limit.’
No matter how long or short this review is I’m sure that all the beauty just can’t be put into words. So give a try, don’t hesitate cause it’s the blueprint of ’03 Fall.
Buda
themidnightcafe.org 
Mat
Cheers for getting this one up for all the folks to enjoy. As I have stated on more than one occasion, this gig is simply on another level to the rest of the Euro 2003 tour (or the vast majority of post 2002 Dylan in fact). This is one os those ‘One Of Those Nights’ gigs that seasoned Dylan listeners may have been fortunate to be at over the years.
I totally endorse the uploaders notes (and more). If you only listen to one 03 gig (even if, like me, you don’t like the tour) listen to this gig. Ideally check this one out with the headphones, certainly late at night and preferably with a bottle of something suitable.
After you’ve done that check out the recent ‘Thousand Highways’ 03 post, which virtually ignores this performance, and explain his reasoning/selection to me as I just don’t get it!!
I will be interested to compare sound qual to my commercial boot ver ‘A Man Totally Into His Music’.
Clue’s in the title folks!
thanks,can’t wait to hear it.
Been looking forward to this one for some time. Thanks as always for sharing!
hey DylanDave – I have to say I rarely bother with the 1000 highways comps, for the simple reason that I rarely understand the picks/omissions – a glance at the selections is usually enough to get me thinking, really??
It’s great that people will do that sort of thing, and I must admit there are Dylan tours I’m not familiar enough with, so in theory somebody doing some of the leg work sounds like a useful proposition….. but….
It just goes to show how subjective these things can be.
THANKS MAT for the post
I remember being disappointed in this date, after the hype — so GO ON THEN, I’ll give it another go 🙂
Nice work Mat… great call.
Thx
Tony,
I hear you re ‘Thousand Highways’. I have enjoyed many of his comps overs the last few years, but you are right, it is subjective, and my issue is more of an intellectual one. Suggesting that a recent ’90 post ( a strong year for performances mostly) is some kind of difficult listen, ptoducing just a single disc comp to cover the epic stands at Paris and Hammersmith and then two comps of this tour (basically ignoring this gig) just doesn’t stand up to any kind of sensible analysis!
I should add that my low opinion of this tour, and the deterioration in Bob’s voice and delivery, was shared widely amongst the hard core Bob gig goers and tapers at the time, reflected in many boot sleeve notes etc. What was served up to me at the Wembley gig was not even on the same page as this in performance terms.
Great post Mat, Thanks