This show is from September 2000 when I went on the road in the UK to attend 5 shows by Colombia recording artist Bob Dylan who by that point was over 10 years into his Never Ending Tour.
After Sheffield I had to get down to South Wales the next day to see Bob Dylan at the Cardiff International Arena with my old friend Huw Jones who came from the same place as me, namely Penarth, a pleasant town on the western edge of Cardiff and overlooking the Bristol Channel. Unlike me Huw had never really left, apart from a few years down in Swansea doing an apprenticeship in stained glass window making. In fact it had been in Swansea when I had first got to know him, way back in the early 80s when I was studying at the University of Swansea and from where in 1983 I emerged with a 2:1 BA Hons degree in History, something which at the time I was quite rightly extremely proud of. Huw was not studying at the university of course, but had been doing his stained glass apprenticeship down in Swansea Bay and living in a cold bedsit located in an area of town called Morriston. He used to come to the Students Union coffee lounge and play the pinball machines there night after night, and where I have to say he got to be a bit of a wizard. Due to his almost continuous presence it was not long before I started to hang out with him, along with a guy called Rik Dixon who was from Norwich and a fellow student of mine in the university. Over the course of the next few years the three of us had more than one or two high old times together, when more often than not we were under the influence of weed, hash and other assorted psychedelic drugs. But all that I guess, is a different story!
It was a nice warm Saturday and it was the day after the night before when Marc Murphy and I had driven up to Sheffield in order to see Bob play what was by and large a cracking set, the highlights of which had been a stunning Not Dark Yet, a collectors’ item Dignity and anawesomely powerful All Along the Watchtower which had rocked the arena to its very foundations. By midday I had dropped Marc off at the station in Woodford after he’d crashed at my place, watched him hop along on his crutches to the ticket office and then get on the tube back home. Not long after that I was on the road again, back on the M25, this time heading west until I hit the M4 junction at Heathrow before driving straight down the M4 corridor all the way to South Wales. The plan was to reach Huw’s by four in the afternoon and then go straight into the centre of Cardiff in order to get a good place in the queue for the show that evening. Unlike Sheffield the tickets we had for Cardiff were standing ones in the stalls and where for me it was something of a priority to get as close to the stage as possible, a bit like the NEC I guess, only this time I would have one of my old dope pals with me.
Huw was up for all of it, I had checked it out with him beforehand. He probably thought I was a bit of a sad case for wanting to get to the show so early but that was just the way it was. When I had booked the tickets back in June I hadn’t immediately thought who would go with me, but not long after, I realised it would be a great idea to offer a ticket to Huw. He was living a quiet life in Penarth with his wife Tracey and his children Ben and Amy, so I was hoping it would be a buzz for him to get out and see Bob Dylan for the first time. He was one of the best people I knew for appreciating the occasion, of making something special out of an event which only comes along but once in your life. Not that one had to try too hard when it was a question of going to see Bob of course, because good, bad or ugly it was still going to be special, or at least it was for me. Guess it was also the case that seeing Bob was not an event which just came along just once in my life but actually quite often!
When I hit the M25 it was one in the afternoon and I realised I would be cutting it pretty fine if I was to get down to Wales three hours later. This was because I would have to rely on clear roads all the way, a precarious exercise at the best of times when travelling by car in 21st century Britain. Sure enough only 15 minutes down the line I hit traffic, going along at no more than 5 mph, crawling like a snail in other words, all due to a jack knifed lorry on the A1 southbound which had created an awful fucking snarl up and spilled over onto the M25. This more or less set the pattern for most of my journey as by the time I got onto the M4 it was infested with road works, seemingly every few miles, which needless to say led to feelings of great frustration on my part and which I just about managed to keep in check. It saw me racing like hell when the going was good just to make up for lost time, thus making it difficult for me to fully enjoy Bob’s Time Out of Mind, the album I had selected to play on my car stereo. Definitely not the best way to conduct a long distance road journey, as it meant going far too fast in the clear patches and then slamming on the brakes when things slowed up again.
By the time I finally got to Huw’s it was 4.40 in the afternoon which under the circumstances was not too bad, taking a shade under four hours from Woodford in those conditions was actually pretty good, and I mentally patted myself on the back for it. Huw was already kitted out and ready to go, so after dumping my rucksack and saying a quick hello to Tracey I was back in the car to take us into town. Just like in Sheffield the day before it was beautiful weather, so good in fact that I was just wearing a pair of shorts, trainers and the Bob t-shirt which I had bought for 18 quid at the NEC. We were both full of excited anticipation during the ride into town and after parking up in the multi story car park just opposite the CIA we joined the people who were already there and queuing outside the doors of the arena. It was 5.15 which meant there would be a bit of waiting for us to get through, but that was entirely to be expected, all part of the experience as far as I was concerned and it was good for me to see that Huw got into the spirit of it, rather than thinking he had ended up with a nutter.
It was Huw’s first opportunity to see the kind of people who queue up well over two hours before a Bob show. There was nobody too mind blowing, just ordinary fans like me and as we stood there I gave him the low down on what I had so far seen of Bob in Birmingham and Sheffield. The usual rap in other words; Bob was brilliant this, Bob was brilliant that, Bob was going save the whole damn world. Guess I just couldn’t help it! I was grateful that Huw fully appreciated the fact that I believed a physical gesture had to be made in order for us to be in the best condition possible to receive the songs which Bob would play. A physical gesture in the form of having to stand around for a long time with no real chance of breaking off either to take a leak or to get any form of refreshment, not unless you wanted to go to the back of the queue that is, something which of course I most certainly didn’t. We just had to stay where we were in order not to lose our place and once we were inside the arena we would be standing again, only then it would be in the middle of the floor and in front of the stage, all of which would probably be under slightly more intense circumstances. Nevertheless I was firmly convinced that if we wanted to get the best out of Bob that night we had to get up close and personal, or as much as it was possible to be.
At a certain point there was a bit of panic in the queue when a rumour began to circulate that another queue had formed at an entrance on the other side of the CIA and that it was this queue which was going to be let in first. This was in keeping with what had happened at some of the other shows on the tour so far, where people at the back had been getting in before people at the front, who of course had been waiting for much, much longer! The general consensus of opinion was that Bob had ordered his management to get a few fresh faces at the front for him to look at instead of the same old fanatics every night. If that was the case then I guess it was fully understandable, otherwise wherever he went there they were; the same crew hanging off his every word and gesture, almost to the point where it might have got a bit disconcerting. But the reality was that it was impossible for him to get rid of them, any kind of obstacle which was put in their way was taken as some form of challenge that simply had to be overcome.
Nevertheless there was no doubt this unwelcome information caused a fair degree of anxiety on my part and I found it hard to concentrate on Huw whilst he talked to me in great detail about the Internet and the purchasing of illegal software for his iMac. The question for me was; did I want to risk blowing my cool in front of him and insist that we make a dash to join the other queue or should I just try to keep it together and stand firm where we were? In the end I decided it was better to stay in the queue we were already in, especially after some of the people who had first ran off in a total panic to see what was happening subsequently returned saying it was no big deal. Even if they were going to let a few others in first we were still going to be up there, right in the mix in front of the stage, I was convinced of that, so it was better if I just held my nerve.
It was 6.30 when the doors to the CIA were finally opened and after a brief delay due to some security mix up which involved a lot of bulky beefy Welsh bouncers shouting into their mobile phones, we were allowed inside. Just like at the NEC it was a case of trying to maintain a sense of dignity whilst half walking and half running across the wide open floor space in order to join the small crowd of people who were already congregated in front of the stage. Of course the security people rudely shouted at everyone not to run and of course it was a massive temptation to just completely ignore the shitheads and break out into a full on sprint. All the same me and Huw covered the ground in not too much time at all and we soon proudly claimed prime standing positions right in the centre of the floor, not too close to the front which might see us lose out on the power of the sound from the PA stacks suspended from the ceiling above our heads, but not too far away either. All we had to do now was stand there and wait for show time!
So we had made it. In 1986 we had seen James Taylor together at the Hammersmith Odeon, a singer who at the time had meant a hell of a lot to Huw and now we would soon be seeing Bob Dylan together in 2000 a full 14 years later, seeing someone who meant a hell of a lot to me. It was three years since Bob had last played the CIA in Cardiff and on that occasion he had been introduced to the crowd in Welsh just before he had bounded onto the stage with something approaching a smile on his face. Back then it had been a show performed in the first flush of success from the 1997 release of Time Out of Mind the album which sealed the deal for him, and I wondered what it would be like this time. All would soon be revealed, it was just a question of waiting, of finding a little bit more patience and not wishing for a second that there was any other place in the world I would rather have been than where I was, which at that precise moment in time was standing in front of the stage with a whole bunch of other people.
Huw was rather fascinated by the stage equipment, he said it looked so old, and I guess it was; old amps, racks of old guitars, like something from out of another time, another space, another mind. There were a hell of a lot of guitars in fact and it wasn’t long before the roadies were out there tuning them all up. I knew from the previous shows I’d seen that Bob and boys went through a complete change of instruments after almost every number they played so there was a lot of tuning up for them to do. The most noticeable people up there on the stage being once again the young Oriental guy and also the huge guy with the beard and pony tail. There was also the backdrop curtain behind the stage which reflected some of the lights and had the Bob Dylan Eye of Integrity emblazoned on it. It was something I meditated upon, thinking of all the times it had hung there behind Bob as he made his way around the world, playing shows in so many different places, doing his best to get the job done, despite the fact the job was never ending.
The great thing about seeing Bob in Cardiff for me and Huw was that we were going to have a completely unobstructed view of the stage, not unless that is, a couple of giants came along and stood in front of us. As the minutes slowly ticked on by our excitement grew and grew. For quite a while it seemed like the small crowd huddled around the front of the stage and to which we belonged were the only people in the arena but gradually it began to fill up. It had a 5,500 capacity after all and the show was a complete sell out, so at some point the temperature was bound to rise. The majority of space in the arena was taken up by the standing area on the floor, with there being only limited seating around the sides. It meant that if Bob was on form and the crowd were up for it, there would be a great atmosphere because the Welsh were pretty good at getting into the party spirit, especially when they were helped along by a little bit of alcohol and waccy baccy, both of which would be in the CIA in abundance.
We got talking for a while with a guy and his wife who had travelled up to Cardiff from Winchester in order to see the show. He was most intrigued when I ran the set list from Sheffield by him and broke the news that Bob had played Dignity the night before. Guess it was true to say he was both intrigued and disappointed because Dignity was one of his favourite later period Bob songs and now he knew the chances of him getting to hear it in Cardiff were decidedly slim. This was simply because it only made an appearance every once in a while on the Never Ending Tour and was almost never repeated two shows running. So he could forget it because as far as I could work out there was no chance Bob was going to play Dignity again anytime soon. Guess that was just your cut of the stack, the shape of your blade of grass when it came to hearing Bob play one of his rarer diamonds from out of his vast back catalogue.
The guy told us that he was due to see Bob in Cardiff, Portsmouth and Wembley and that he was also wondering whether or not to drive across to Europe to catch some of the Dutch and German shows as well. Earlier in the year he had followed Bob around on some of his US dates on the Never Ending Tour and now in Cardiff he was on his 36th Bob show. Both of us knew that was still not much compared to some of the real hardened Bob fans who had easily racked up hundreds of concerts over the years, but still, 36 Bob shows was nothing to be ashamed of. His wife was seeing Bob for the first time however, and the song she was hoping to hear was My Back Pages, her own particular favourite from way back in 1964 and the patchy Another Side of Bob Dylan album. I thought the chances of Bob playing that one were also going to be extremely remote but I didn’t like to tell her so. No point in raining on her parade and giving her a downer by way of some irrefutable tour statistics.
At a certain stage I looked around the arena in Cardiff and saw that the place was now quite full, and not long after that the familiar smell of incense came drifting over the heads of the people in the front rows of the crowd, wafting in clouds from the back of the stage. The guy who we had been talking to turned around, joked to us that it was probably lit up in order to keep the smell of the crowd away from Bob, which was actually quite funny, possibly not that far off the mark. I kind of favoured a more mystical interpretation myself, although if push came to shove I wouldn’t have been able to exactly put it into words without sounding like I was talking nonsense. But there was now a buzz in the air, that was for sure, a real sense of expectation, and things had definitely moved up a level. I was feeling it myself and my heart was beating fast.
It was getting close to show time all over again and with it came that wonderful certainty of knowing without a shadow of a doubt that Bob Dylan would very soon walk out, strap his guitar over his shoulder to sing his songs right in front of me and everyone else. My old friend Huw, who hadn’t smoked a spliff in years, said his ticker was grinning like a Cheshire cat and yet again we had a laugh together, which was great, because let’s face it the older you get the harder it is to allow yourself to be thrilled in the ways you used to be when you were so much younger. But Bob Dylan was a joy bringer who for me could cut across those boundaries and now, after a few hours of standing and waiting both inside and outside the Cardiff International Arena doing our penance, it felt like we were in a fit condition to receive whatever it was he was going to deliver us.
When the lights were hit a massive roar went up from the crowd and high excitement was suddenly breaking out in waves through the darkness. Things became accelerated, speeded up, as figures could be made out at the back of the stage, then seconds later they were walking forward and picking up their instruments which had been leaning against the amplifiers. At exactly the same time that familiar voice of the guy with the huge beard and the pony tail came over the PA to make the usual announcement, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan!”
The moment we had been patiently waiting for had arrived and seconds later Bob was right there in front of us with Larry, Charlie and Tony too, as they seamlessly launched the show with Hallelujah I’m Ready to Go, another traditional cover. With the incense smoke billowing from behind them, the misty red and blue stage lighting shone on their faces as the sound of the music sailed upwards and out into the packed arena. Hallelujah indeed! A different opener from Birmingham and Sheffield and I could tell almost immediately that Bob was also in a good mood. He actually looked like he might be happy. Maybe it was the Welsh crowd, their boundless enthusiasm which had given him a lift, maybe it was the Celtic vibe thing of being over on the west side of the British Isles, I just don’t know. Whatever it was he definitely had a half smile on his face and he was also making positive eye contact with those in the crowd right in front of him.
Good signs, great signs in fact, because it was more than well known Bob has played countless shows whilst hardly looking at people at all, band members included. He had done some crowd gazing in Birmingham too of course, but there had been something intimidating about him back then, as if he had been challenging everyone to bring something with them to the table if they wanted to share the same space as him. At the NEC he had been like a prowling lion marking out his territory, distinctly disappointed at what he saw, but now in Cardiff he appeared a lot more welcoming. Tony Garnier was smiling too, leaning on his stand up bass, wearing his trilby hat whilst forever watching Bob, trying to anticipate his next move, even when there wasn’t one. Larry, Charlie and Dave Kemper on the drums all looked pretty cool as well and more importantly they sounded like they were up for it and ready to rock the Welsh capital.
Song number two and Larry brought his fiddle out for what was a beautiful version of well, blow me down with a feather, My Back Pages! The wife of the guy who had been talking to us before the start of the show had her wishes fulfilled as this was the song she had wanted to hear Bob play above all others and who would have thought he was going to pull that one out of the bag? Not me, that was for sure! Sometimes life really is full of surprises, Bob the trickster was at it again. It was another change to the set list, and suddenly it seemed as if Times They Are a Changin’ had never existed in the number two slot, although it had only been the night before when it had sounded so fixed and permanent at that particular point of the show that it would have taken something like a Hurricane to shift it, another lesson then in the art of impermanence.
My Back Pages brought the house down by way of its surprise appearance and the volume level of the crowd, already markedly higher than the previous two shows, was a good match for the playing power of Bob and the boys on stage. From where Huw and I were standing each time a song ended we were awash in a sea of outstretched arms reaching upwards and madly waving in warm Welsh abandon. Thousands of arms stretching out and reaching towards the roof. It was a blissful feeling for me to do the same, to shout and cheer at the top of my voice. Good exercise, good therapy you might call it, and something to be thoroughly recommended for anyone wishing to let off a bit of steam.
If My Back Pages was a good song to play second in the set, the third was an absolute killer, an ultra powerful and beyond words rendition of the epic Desolation Row from Highway 61 Revisited, the album which lay slap bang in the middle of Bob’s mid 60s Golden Trilogy. The current version Bob plays of this song is without doubt the best I have heard him do, primarily because Dave Kemper on the drums keeps it rocking along with plenty of decent kick on the snare which means that Bob gets to finish it in under ten minutes. Previously I had only heard him play either wholly acoustic or semi acoustic versions with no drums and the difference is a big one. Desolation Row is of course a great favourite, with all the serious Dylan fans waiting to hear him deliver those stream of consciousness words that he plucked out of his who knows what was that hat such a long time ago. This time around the place simply went wild; my arms were up in the air again and big sounds were coming out from the back of my throat. It felt like there was really not that much I needed in life to keep me happy when I was able to stand there and witness what Bob was giving us, well not exactly giving because we had all paid rather a lot of money for our tickets of course, but all the same it felt like a form of giving.
Bob was definitely much more animated than the previous two shows in Birmingham and Sheffield. It seemed like he had recognised some people in the crowd and he was playing to them throughout, toying with them, striking all those classic poses which make him so mesmerising to look at. Huw was staring at him intently, often when I turned to see how much he was enjoying the show we would just crack up laughing if our eyes happened to meet. Bob was such a compelling performer – a kind of cross between a medieval minstrel, Charlie Chaplin, mystic poet, civil war soldier and a parsnip faced Casanova with hunches – so there was plenty for Huw to concentrate his keen attention on. Sweat was already dripping from Bob’s head and face onto his shoulders as he punched holes into those classic creations of his by way their deliverance. It was entertainment of the highest order and things had barely even begun.
Somehow Bob managed to follow Desolation Row with a song which generated just as much excitement and appreciation from the crowd, a crystal clear Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest. Suddenly we were in John Wesley Harding territory and pretty amazing it was too, especially considering how rarely over the course of the last 30 years or so since he wrote it Bob has actually performed this bent out of shape Bible shaded ballad of false redemption. As if he had been blasted by paradox, Bob looked kind of beautiful singing this one and gave us an awesome performance.
Judas pointed down the road
And said, “Eternity !”
“Eternity ?” said Frankie Lee,
With a voice as cold as ice.
“That’s right,” said Judas Priest, “Eternity,
Though you might call it “Paradise”
Yes, paradise, indeed. There was Bob on the stage right in front of us, now playing better than he has ever played in my opinion, after 40 years of an unsurpassable career with the last 10 years of it being almost constantly on the road by way of his Never Ending Tour. What a sight, what a sound!
Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest meant that so far the first four songs of the set had been totally different from Sheffield and the NEC. Things got back to normal with the fifth however which was the ever present Tangled Up in Blue and where it seemed like it was going to take something like another Hurricane to ever dislodge it from this particular part of the set. It was a hard, powerful, tummy kicking version and only just remained within the bounds of the acoustic part of the show so close it was to blowing away many a would be electric performance. In almost no time at all the acoustic section of the main set was brought to an end with Searching for a Soldiers Grave which has seemed to have successfully muscled its way into that position in the set, almost now a permanent feature and therefore the second repetition from the previous night in Sheffield.
There was always something not so quietly symbolic about watching Bob plug in for the electric half of the show. After all it had been Bob plugging in which had caused such controversy all those years ago in the 60s, whilst at the same time playing a big part in changing the face of modern music. A finger picking Country Pie only seemed to be a warm up for the song which followed, a rare outing for the sublime Blind Willie McTell a major work from Bob’s Infidels recording sessions and probably the most notorious example of a classic creation of his which was inexplicably left off the final cut of the album. It was funny Bob should chose to play this one because it was one of the songs which Huw particularly liked and I still remembered how knocked out he had been when I had played the original acoustic version to him as found on The Bootleg Tapes Vols 1 –3 a few years previously. More mass ecstasy erupted from the Welsh crowd when the song was over, bringing to an end what was new song number five when compared with the sets played in Birmingham and Sheffield. There was now no doubt that Bob was giving a considerable shuffle to the pack in regard to this set list for Cardiff and it made me begin to wonder just how many more new numbers we were going to get that evening.
Another song different from the two previous shows came next with an absolutely brilliant Tombstone Blues. This Highway 61 Revisited number has never been one of my favourite Bob songs but this version was just fantastic, no other word for it. Bob, Larry and Charlie on electric guitars just made a one hell of a racket; powerful, energised, forever moving in the right direction, it simply blew away all that dared to stand in its path. It seemed to be the case that as the years went by Bob was just getting louder and louder in his playing and clearly enjoying every minute of it. How did he do it? Most guys his age were grandfathers heading for retirement, but Bob in stark contrast was in the lands of his own glory, bathing in the light of the sun of his genius, washing his ears out in it night after night and taking it all over the world whilst also getting paid in spades. All the time turning the volume control up just a little bit more. It was flabbergasting and I was speechless! Best I could do was just stand there raising my arms in the air, looking high up above the speaker stacks which were hanging there suspended from the arena ceiling, like instruments of the prophet, letting the sound flow out, washing over everyone as we all bathed in its transcendence.
Tryin’ to Get Heaven which followed Tombstone Blues now sounded a lot more rounded than the first time I heard this particular version of it in Birmingham only a few days ago. Bluesy, lazy, kind of heavenly, this time Bob and the boys were spot on with their new rendition and it felt like he had found his groove so that even greater versions were soon bound to come. Cold Irons Bound was as hard hitting as in the two previous shows, mental almost in its metallic brutality, and after that the main set ended with yet another incredible take of Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat, something which I was fast becoming addicted to, forged as it was in this particular incarnation which has Bob, Larry and Charlie lined up on the stage in another Fender guitar union that takes no prisoners.
Before we knew it Bob and the boys were stood in The Formation staring into the wildly cheering Welsh crowd, taking in their adulation whilst remaining expressionless and then one by one they left the stage. The crowd was going mad, there was just no other word for it and quite right too because the show so far had been a complete and utter stunner. Everyone knew it wouldn’t be long before Bob and the boys would be back for the encore, but that didn’t stop all of us from shouting at the tops of our voices to get them on stage as soon as humanly possible. It was just simply great to stand there on the floor, bathe in the darkness with all the wild appreciation going on around us, knowing that Bob and the boys would indeed soon re-appear right there in front of us and start up all over again.
Sure enough they didn’t let us down, they had no intention of letting us down, and when they were back they launched straight into Things Have Changed. Still yet to deliver the definitive live version I felt, but I guess there were a few shows to go in order for Bob to get that one sorted, in fact as many shows as he wanted. Like a Rolling Stone which followed was possibly the best version I had yet heard Bob play, it was up there, right up there with Sheffield, out the other side and into a luminous kingdom which can only be reached by following his awesome Fender guitar union as it pumps out the noise at very high volume to leave everyone for dead. Bob fed off it in a big way, taking energy from the mass sing-along delivered by the crowd, which of course was illuminated in full by the bright lights shining out from above the stage and onto his audience. They then proceeded to go right into a right beautiful version of Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright which put folks straight into a kinda Freewheelin’ early 60s bliss and with good reason, as it was a version so unbelievably awesome it was hard to see how it could get much better. Now it seemed like we were all in those oh so remote valleys of the clouds territory, a place where only a chosen few ever get to go, but Bob was our guide and he was taking us there by the hand by way of this incredible performance.
There was a Welsh guy in front of me howling with joy, making some strange and wonderful shapes in the air with his arms and hands as if in communication with hidden powers, or powers which only he could see. Whatever his cosmology was I couldn’t understand it, but that really didn’t matter in the least because he was like a Sufi dancer in a trance, coming from out of the depths of the Taff, that Welsh river which wound its way down the valleys and into Cardiff Bay. Bob was bringing such reactions out in people, it was as if we were witnessing the fulfilment of a potential which is always there, but the fiendish trick for anyone was how to master it and bring it out into the light of day. This little guy looked like he was releasing birds of peace into the sky, releasing them to fly in every direction. It made me feel kind of religious, that religious feeling which makes you think of the sacred, not the kind which makes you want to spout hard headed dogma whilst closing your ears to the real truth which lay somewhere in the great beyond.
By the time we got to Watching the River Flow we were up to the eighth different song after the Birmingham and Sheffield shows and it was a great ramblin’ rollin’ version, paving the way for the final three of the night which were in the same order as what they had been for Sheffield; Forever Young, Highway 61 Revisited and Blowin’ In the Wind. The crowd sang their hearts out to Forever Young and Blowin’ whilst Highway 61 sandwiched between them was a final chance for Bob and the boys to rock everyone out of the arena, themselves included, by way of lining up yet again in that centre stage Fender guitar union. All I really remember about it was standing there next to Huw right in the middle of the mix and rocking back on my heels a little bit, having a great big smile on my face as Bob Dylan – Mystery Tramp, Bread Crumb Sinner – came out of the mists with his mystical bag of healing potions and cured us yet again of all possible ills.
After a second Formation, during which Bob stood there in line with the boys staring out into the audience, arms at his side, shaking the last beads of sweat from out of his hair, it was the end of another night’s work well and truly done. There was the final image of Bob turning his back, walking off stage for the last time that evening and we then knew the show was over. Or at least I did! Bob virtually never played a set beyond 19 songs and we had now reached that threshold. My back was stiff, my armpits were soaking wet, my feet were fizzing, the whole of my body felt like it had been through the grinder. My new Bob Dylan t shirt already stank of sweat, my ears were ringing to the point where they felt like they had been thoroughly boxed, boxed, and then boxed again just for good measure. None of these things mattered in the slightest however, in fact I would have been disappointed if it had turned out any other way. We had been given a glimpse of the promised land and those sights simply do not come cheap, never had done and never will. Huw and I had been there in Cardiff when Bob Dylan came to town in September 2000, where he played a set which had included for starters an extremely rare performance of Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest and from that point on we had simply never looked back.
It took a hell of a long time for us to get out of the multi story car park opposite the CIA. I sat there cursing the Welsh for not having a built in procedure to cope with hundreds of cars all trying to get out at the same time after seeing a show, but I guess there could be no procedure other than sitting there and having a bit of patience. After a good 25 minutes of frustration we were finally out and heading down to Cardiff Bay to find a place to eat. The Japanese restaurant which Huw wanted to take me to had already shut for the night and virtually the only place open was a Harry Ramsden’s Fish & Chips. Since neither of us particularly wanted to tackle a plate of the fried stuff I readily agreed with Huw when he suggested we just go back to his place and cook up some pasta. It sounded more than a good idea to me.
Tracey was just about going to bed when we got back to Penarth and soon enough it was just me and Huw in the kitchen where I sat at the table whilst he got the food together. A very fine meal it was too, tasty pasta with a bit of everything chucked in, all washed down with a glass of fresh fruit juice which gave me a much needed hit of pure vitamin C. We ate our food in Huw’s study right at the top of his house, an attic room with a fine view of Cardiff Bay, with the lights of the city shining out into the night below us. Naturally enough we went over the finer points of the show we had just witnessed, which in my opinion was one of the best I had so far seen Bob and the boys deliver.
Huw had a picture of Bob from the early 70s which he began to frame in order for it to take pride of place on one of the walls in his room. Whilst he was doing that it was great to open the roof window and breathe in the fresh Welsh night air, staring out over the waters of the bay with the capital beyond. It was also great to pour myself a large Jack Daniels on the rocks which I quietly sipped whilst Huw put on a tape by a guy called Nathan Shelley which he himself had also played on by way of providing backing vocals and a bit of acoustic guitar. The music sounded good, there was no doubt the guy was talented and that the partnership with Huw worked, but whether it would translate into anything more than how it currently sounded was another matter.
The funny thing was that Nathan Shelley turned out to be the son of Burke Shelley, bass guitarist, lead vocalist and overall main man of Budgie, a group from so far back in my own personal history I had almost forgot they had existed. Once the father and son connection had been pointed out to me by Huw, I remembered that at one point in my life I had been a very big Budgie fan. It was when I had lived in Plymouth in the early to mid 70s, and where I had been the proud owner of their In for the Kill album which had enjoyed moderate chart success, produced as it was by Roy Thomas Baker who was soon to find far greater fame as the producer of Queen. How about Sheer Heart Attack, A Night at the Opera and A Day At The Races anyone? I also remembered staring in awe at the Roger Dean cover art for Budgie’s 1973 album Never Turn Your Back on a Friend when it was in the racks of my local HMV store in Plymouth and which at the time had cost £3.25, an almost astronomical amount back then if you happened to be a 13 year old whose only source of income besides a bit of pocket was a Sunday morning paper round. Plymouth was full of record shops in those days; HMV, Virgin, Pete Russell’s Hot Record Store and numerous second hand record stalls located in and around Plymouth Market which became a place of pilgrimage for a whole bunch of us who travelled in from the eastern suburb of Plymstock every Saturday morning.
Guess all that would have been around the time Bob had released his Planet Waves album on Island Records as opposed to Columbia, just when his career was going through a relatively quiet period before he bounced back with the stone cold classic that was Blood on the Tracks. But of course I was oblivious to all that, being more into groups like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Emerson Lake and Palmer and of course Budgie! Huw went on to tell me that Burke Shelley was now a born again Christian but that Budgie were still going strong, in fact they were working on a new album. They were big in some parts of the United States apparently, having quite a considerable following, especially after being cited as an influence on metal megastars Metallica, and I’ve got admit that I had a real soft spot for them back in the time when I was a fag smoking teenager totally into rock and prog.
In for the Kill had been at the top of my make believe record charts for a good few weeks before I had traded my copy as part of a deal in our small but very busy record swap circle in Plymstock. Possibly swapped it for something by Greenslade – Time and Tide, Spyglass Guest or even Bedside Manners are Extra, another album which had a cover with some amazing Roger Dean artwork. After a while I failed to keep up with Budgie, although I know they followed In for the Kill with Bandoiler in 1975, an album which contained a track by the name of Napoleon Bona Parts 1 & 2, something which as young teenagers we all thought to be both very funny and extremely clever without exactly knowing the reason why.
By around 1 o’clock in the morning I was ready to crash out for the night, it had been a long old couple of days on the road following Bob around the country and there was still more to come. The Jack Daniels had done its job, just a stiff one was all that I needed to send me into the land of nod, inner sun shining brightly in the darkness. Huw could see I was done for the day so he left me up there in his study room with a nice, comfortable made up bed and in which I proceeded to have a great night’s sleep, with half an eye on the Welsh stars shining through the open window. Talking of stars I guess it was possible that Bob might have been holed up for the night in a hotel in Cardiff down across the bay, but if not he would be on his tour bus, probably back in England by now and already heading to the next place down the line on his Never Ending Tour.
Setlist Cardiff International Arena 23rd September 2000 –
Hallelujah I’m Ready to Go
My Back Pages
Desolation Row
Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
Tangled Up in Blue
Searching for a Soldiers Grave
Country Pie
Blind Willie McTell
Tombstone Blues
Trying to Get Heaven
Cold Irons Bound
Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat
Things Have Changed
Like a Rolling Stone
Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright
Watching the River Flow
Forever Young
Highway 61 Revisited
Blowin’ In the Wind
TracelessTrails 