This show is from 2002 when I went down the road in my home town to see Bob Dylan play another show at the now long defunct London Docklands Arena on May 12th when he was touring the UK on another leg of his Never Ending Tour. It was around nine months after his Love & Theft album which was released on September 11th 2001, and the show features a number of songs from it which I was hearing him perform live for the very first time.
So the first night with Bob down at the London Docklands Arena had been a good one but what would the second one hold in store? When I woke up the following morning I was pretty tired from the night before. The excitement of seeing Bob again, along with the mild stress of taking along Duncan “Dunc” Hutson, where all the usual thoughts manifest of whether or not a first timer to Bob is going to enjoy themselves or simply think the whole thing is a load of old bollox had taken their toll. The consequence of this was that I felt every inch of my 40 years of age when I finally hauled myself out of bed. The late night walk back to Canary Wharf through the rain the night before had also put me through my paces, as well as the drinking both during and after the concert by way of three plastic bottles of Carlsberg followed by a late night pint of very tasty Grolsch. So all in all my energy levels were not at their greatest.
It was therefore no surprise that I took it easy during the course of the morning in preparation for going into London later on to meet up with my old Bob concert going companion Marc Murphy down on the South Bank at 3 pm. We met outside the National Film Theatre and took a leisurely walk on the south side of the river towards the Tate Modern and the new Millennium Bridge. The whole area was full of people and a striking indication of how things had developed around there over the last few years. At the beginning of the 90s it would have been possible to have had relatively solitary walks, even at the weekends, but not anymore, people were now there in significant numbers and it was one of the busiest parts of town. Since we were both in no mood to rush things we soon stopped off for a coffee at a riverside cafe, sitting in a courtyard around the other side from the river and away from the constant stream of people walking on by. It was a nice quiet space on a Sunday afternoon in May, with the sun faintly shining through the clouds. I was grateful that Marc was blessed with a pretty chilled out disposition, as long as you stayed away from politics that is, and which did not demand we attempted anything more strenuous, because the simple fact of the matter was that I was feeling pretty shattered.
We talked about our trip to Stirling Castle, the last time when we had both seen Bob together, and now nearly a year ago. It had been a bit of a mammoth ride in the car up to Scotland, up one day and then down again the next, with plenty of Bob and Weld era Neil Young blasting out the stereo on the back seat of the car for hours and hours on end during the course of it. The whole of England passing on by so quickly, millions of lives being lived but only hinted at in our haste to make it up to Stirling in the shortest possible time. It had been a great show, no doubt about that, and it had been more than worth dragging ourselves all the way up to Scotland for what was Bob’s only concert of any significance in the UK for 2001. We had both hit the hipflask of Bushmills I taken with me pretty hard during that show and talking about it now brought back fond memories, of standing there in the castle grounds with Bob and the boys up on the stage and the wild summer Scottish mists rolling in from out of the hills, both of us enveloped in a warm and somewhat protective alcoholic haze from the prime cut whisky we were drinking.
Time was getting on a bit when we left the cafe and we still had to find somewhere to eat before the show. I decided it would be good for us to go to a Pizza Express in The Barbican which was open on Sundays and which overlooked London Wall, being located in a quieter part of that elevated maze-like complex, off the beaten track so to speak. It was nearly always pretty deserted and some of the architecture and buildings in that area of the City were simply stunning, whilst also being one of the oldest parts of London, no doubt still with Roman bones buried in the ground deep below. Centurions maybe, adding to a sense of mystery hovering around its back alleys and empty squares. Once we decided that was what we would do, it meant walking along the South Bank to the Millennium Bridge before we crossed the Thames, then through the back of St Paul’s and into the City, gradually shaking off the crowds.
As expected there were not many people around by the time we got to those elevated walkways of The Barbican and when we reached the Pizza Express there were more waitresses and waiters than customers, most of them hanging around the bar area looking rather bored. That suited us just fine, all we wanted was to fill our stomachs before the show with some reasonably good quality food, which was pretty much what we got, so no complaints there. After the rigours of the night before I decided not to drink alcohol, so whilst Marc had a beer and a cigarette I stuck to good old sparkling mineral water with plenty of ice and a slice of lemon. Bonnadietto no less, in one of those very tasteful Italian green glass bottles which almost softened the impact of the price, almost but not quite. The pizzas came and were quickly eaten by the both of us, then after Marc had smoked another fag we were ready to go. Time to walk on down to Bank station and then over London Bridge to get the Jubilee Line eastbound to Canary Wharf.
By the time we got off the tube it was coming up to 7pm and there were crowds of people at the station, all obviously going along to see Bob. We emerged into bright sunlight after going up a long escalator which felt like a piece of science fiction tunnelled deep beneath the ground through the art of making money. The skies had now cleared and it was a beautiful Sunday evening in May with the sun shimmering on the waters all around us and creating an effect of a myriad silver reflections of brilliance. People were sitting outside the bars drinking and eating before going along to the show. For some reason I thought of the bliss we all shared by way of living in a time of peace and how we rarely stood still to appreciate it. One day the cycle might roll along into something different and at that point we might all be oh so sad, oh so shaken, but not yet. No, not yet.
It was interesting walking back along the same route which I had come the night before, only then it had been in the opposite direction and with Dunc in the rain. This time the sun made everything seem different, more like a holiday resort in the middle of the big city, and there was even the taste of the sea in the air courtesy of the winds blowing in from old River Thames. We walked in front of a smart city hotel which had prime position over one of the harbour quays. People sat inside on large sofas looking out over the waters, enjoying their drinks whilst also staring at the steady stream of people who were walking on by, and some of them were no doubt in there before popping down the road to see Bob, just like the rest of us. All of Bob’s fans coming together; the rich, the simple with more down to earth tastes, the ones whose bellies were full of pizza, all of us off to see Bob fly the flag of ages gone and those yet to come.
We could see the London Docklands Arena from quite a distance and I realised this time we could go through all the old docks, under the preserved skeletons of cranes that stood like ancient rockets that would now never go anywhere. The skies had really opened up, they were a beautiful blue, making us feel fully alive whilst being warmed by the beams of a bright early evening sun. It would have been pleasant to stroll along and take our time, but we had more pressing things on our minds because the primary objective as far as I was concerned was simply to get inside the arena and lay claim to our seats. Stuff the glorious weather and any wispy thoughts about the big picture, it was time to see Bob again! By the side of the arena was a floating Chinese restaurant done out like a pagoda and full to rafters with people eating chow and having a drink before the show. Whilst it looked inviting I was glad I wasn’t with them because I don’t think I would have been able to enjoy a meal at this stage, all my thoughts would have been on getting out of there and into the arena instead of hanging around until a hot flannel was handed over to wipe my hands with.
On arrival at the arena the queue to get in was fortunately a swiftly moving affair and once inside things seemed to be slightly better organised than the night before which in all honesty couldn’t have been difficult because for the first show it had been the pits. The queues at the bars were not quite so horrendous and we had no problem buying a couple of what were supposed to be French frozen yogurts to take to our seats and eat them when we sat down. That was about as far as I was prepared to go in terms of indulgence this time around, apart from the obvious one of course, which was the fact that I was now well on my way to seeing my 18th Bob Dylan show in the space of 9 years! As opposed to the previous night this time the seats were on the main floor directly in front of the stage. They were also in row 21 which was by no means far from the front and when we reached them there was no doubt that our view was going to be a pretty good one. It was full on with no obstructions, and apart from the obvious dangers of giants suddenly appearing at the very last minute to take the seats in the row directly in front of us, things were looking very good indeed. We were more or less bang in the middle of the floor which meant the sound quality would be top notch as well, and I was already looking forward to the opportunity to once again hear Charlie Sexton’s guitar playing which, after his performance the night before on Summer Days and All Along the Watchtower, indicated to me his fingers were currently on fire in the hottest possible kind of way.
We had a fair bit of time to kill, a good half an hour in fact, and after eating our frozen yoghurts which as far as I could tell tasted of nothing whatsoever, it was time for us to take in the vibe and scene of yet another Bob Dylan concert. It was a fair bet that most of the people in the rows in front of us would range from the seriously to the very seriously committed Dylan fans and doubtless the vast majority of them would be far more knowledgeable about Bob than either me or Marc. Quite a few of them had that look of “seen it, done it a million times before” on their faces and I realised they might have even forgotten the fresh energy and excitement which comes when you have only seen Bob half a dozen times or so, when you are still completely caught up in the initial wondrous mystery of it all. Nevertheless they would probably not have missed the second London Docklands Arena show for anything in the world and no doubt would have done whatever it took to prevent a second show in a row non-attendance situation from ever coming along. That was just how they were, obsessive, tough, and I guess I was on the road to joining them, only in a less impressive and possibly more neurotic kinda way. All the same these were the faces of people doing some hard core mining as far as the world of seeing Bob Dylan play live was concerned, looking for nuggets other people hadn’t found before and being prepared to sift through all the silt of countless renditions of All Along The Watchtower, Like a Rolling Stone and Blowin’ in the Wind until they found the gold.
They looked like they were rather serious people, hungry beyond the point of being able to enjoy a good meal maybe, let alone a good joke. They had overdosed on Bob years before, and I wondered just how close I was to becoming one of them. Probably not that close at all in all honesty. I wasn’t one for clubs and joining things and really throughout the whole of my life I had been a bit of an outsider, someone slightly unknown, even to myself. I had never quite managed to get into anything far enough to come out the other end of it and be an expert on a subject truly once and for all. That certainly applied to where I stood in relation to Bob as well. There would probably be more than a few hundred people in the arena who would be able to wipe the floor with me when it came to reciting the tiniest details of his life, especially his recording history, both official and bootleg, and if I seriously wanted to join the club there would still be a lot of homework for me to do. But in the end, I just don’t think I could ever be that bothered. The Bob thing, whatever it is, well, at the end of the day did I really need it that badly so as to put it before everything else?
A few rows ahead of us I spotted the German guy who had been standing just behind me at Bob’s show in Portsmouth Guildhall in September 2000 which was now close to being 2 years ago. I remembered how he had complained incessantly about the heat because the Guildhall was such a small venue and we were crowded in like sardines. How he kept saying how good Dylan’s show had been in Frankfurt a few nights before, how very, very good jah jah and how hard he imagined it would have been for Bob to ever repeat it. Yeah, that guy had really got on my nerves! Now here he was again, in a jean jacket dyed green, a number of light silk scarves wrapped around his neck and a rucksack slung over his shoulder. He was on the road again, his own road, living out his dreams following Bob, and at the end of the day this time around, all I could do was wish him the best of British. He stared intently at the people in the rows around him as if expecting to see someone he knew, which was reasonable enough because he was clearly a seasoned campaigner who had probably engaged in countless thousands of deep and meaningful conversations about Bob with people over the years, but after a few minutes he just sat down in his seat without having waved to anyone and then began to read his Sunday paper. The Observer, or maybe it was The Independent. Might have been that he was another one like me, in fact there was probably a whole club of us, the outsiders who through some unknown calling nevertheless gravitated towards Bob.
At a certain point in proceedings that familiar smell of Nagchampa incense began to fill our nostrils as it rolled over the front rows of the crowd, having now been lit in the buckets at the back of the stage by the huge guy with the beard and the pony tail. Blowtorch in hand. There was a palpable rising of the energy levels of the crowd as the vast majority of people began to sense the time was soon about to descend upon us when once again the show began. I stood there staring straight ahead at the huge black curtain behind the stage with the Bob Dylan Eye of Integrity stamped into the middle of it. I hadn’t seen it properly the night before due to fact that our seats had been in a block on the right hand side of the arena. The Eye of Integrity was Bob’s unofficial logo, or at least it had been for the last few years, and there were various pieces of merchandise you could buy with it on, items such as t-shirts, hoodies, baseball caps, key rings, coffee mugs and other tempting stuff like that.
Despite the fact we all had seats no one was sitting in them because it was clear the whole show was going to be witnessed from a standing position if we wanted to have any chance of being able to see Bob and the boys. It only took a couple of people at the front to insist on standing up to mean that everyone else in seats on the floor had to do so as well, but it did not make that much difference to me, despite the fact I was still a little weary from my exertions the night before. To my companion Marc Murphy however, it was a source of some fair degree of annoyance and irritation, the fact that we were not able to sit down, which I guess for him was unfortunate. It indicated that Marc might well have been a little off his game because usually such things did not really bother him that much at all and he just took his medicine. At the end of the day there was nothing to be done about it however, so he would have roll with the punches without making too much more in the way of serious comment, unless that is, he wanted to suffer.
Suddenly there was a blast of Fanfare for the Common Man and the house lights were hit, plunging the London Docklands Arena into darkness. Over the PA came that most familiar and welcome announcement courtesy of the huge guy with the beard and the pony tail standing on the left hand side of the stage, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan!” A huge roar went up from the crowd and when I turned my head to look behind me I saw the place was packed to the rafters once again, just like the night before. Then I looked back at the stage and there was Bob and the boys walking purposefully to their guitars, completely ignoring the wild cheers of the crowd by way of making no eye contact whatsoever, and soon they were ready to launch into their first song.
This time Bob was wearing a black Stetson instead of the white Stetson hat he wore the night before and the most remarkable thing about it was that viewed face on it made him look like a cheese farmer instead of a cowboy riding in from off the mystical plains of the Wild West. The edges of the Stetson were just so damn sharp it took away for me any Texas Ranger or Idaho cattleman aura about him in one fell swoop. Suddenly in my mind I was traversing the flatlands of the Low Countries, trooping behind the ultimate peddler of Dutch cheese with all the thunder of an unforgiving Protestant in clogs blowing through his dyke roamed sails. It was weird, very weird indeed!
I Am The Man Thomas again opened the set which was a rarity due to the fact that it was basically a straight repetition of the opener from the night before instead of being another choice from Bob’s rotating pool of traditional covers. It was good, basically the same as the previous night, but for most of the song my attention was taken up with that black Stetson of his and how strange it looked. Edam, Gouda. To Ramona came next, another early Dylan song, occupying the slot which Times They Are a Changin’ had been in the previous night and this Another Side of Bob Dylan song was brilliant, dynamite in fact, blowing the deal wide open as to how good the rest of the show might turn out to be. In other words, Bob was at it again, picking up a piece of base metal and turning it into gold.
There then came the second repetition with It’s Alright Ma I’m Only Bleeding which was again at song number three. It was a much better version than the previous night, actually sounding like Bob was not desperate simply to get to the end of it before having even hardly begun. What stood out among other things was the excellent drumming of Jim Keltner who I hadn’t really noticed the first night due to most of my attention being on Bob and the boys doing their stuff at the front of the stage. From what I was now hearing him come up with, it was obvious Keltner was a top quality musician who Bob must have plucked from out of the Los Angeles heartlands by way of making him an offer he simply couldn’t refuse, in order to come and join him for a while on his Never Ending Tour. Marc was getting into it as well by this stage, standing next to me, shaking his leg and bopping along whilst repeating how the band looked like they were going to be “on form”. I could only stand there and agree with him, also shaking my leg to the beat, getting into the sound they were coming up with, because there was no doubt that Bob and the boys were once again cooking things up right in front of our eyes.
Just like the previous night a pretty sublime It’s All Over Now Baby Blue in its new incarnation occupied fourth slot in the main set, and it was followed by a beautiful version of If You See Her Say Hello from Bob’s mid 70s masterpiece of sadness Blood on the Tracks. Larry Campbell stood to the right of the stage playing the fiddle whilst Bob was in the middle delivering his words to the song with care and commitment, giving them the kind of intonation which pointed to a sense of infinite urban sadness. Talking of Larry Campbell it was quite noticeable to me throughout the whole of the show just how isolated he now appeared to be in the band. It hadn’t been so obvious the night before because I had been sitting in a row to the side of the stage, but now that we were looking straight on he seemed like a man who Bob had simply cut adrift. Whilst Bob talked constantly with Charlie Sexton and Tony Garnier, he barely gave him a second glance. Larry was a tall guy who stood completely on his own way to the left of the stage whilst Bob, Charlie and Tony occupied the rest of it and were often huddled together in conversation between songs whilst congregating in front of a studious Jim Keltner behind the drums.
It had become something of a constant rumour that Larry Campbell was always on the verge of quitting the Never Ending Tour and with situations like this on display in the London Docklands Arena it was easy to see why those rumours just kept on coming. Larry had been touring with Bob since early 1997, just before Bob had exploded back into serious critical rehabilitation with his Time Out of Mind album, a work which came up trumps for him. I didn’t know if all the concerts were now catching up with Larry, but there was no doubt that it was a source of concern to numerous Bob fans as to what his status was and for sure, there were definitely more than one or two members of the audience in the London Docklands Arena who would be picking up on what they were witnessing. Everyone knew that Bob had a reputation for being a bit ruthless with regard to those in his employment, hiring and firing at will, so it could very well be the case that he was now getting close to giving Larry the push. This would have been a pity because Larry always appeared to me like he was a really nice guy and of course it goes without saying he was a top quality multi-instrumentalist who more than adequately fleshed out Bob’s songs to the point of sometimes taking them to another level, not that Bob would probably see it that way.
Stuck Inside Of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again came next and it was good to hear this long, strange and rather wonderful song from his Blonde on Blonde album all over again. It has been one of my favourites since the early 90s when Bob had been playing it in a somewhat ridiculously elongated version virtually every show, sometimes stretching it out to well over 12 minutes. Now it was more refined, more under control, but he still gave it regular airings which suited me just fine because the whole structure of Mobile was comfortably inhabitable with one verse rolling along after another for a good 8 or 9 minutes at least, sometimes longer, Bob bathing us in an evanescent mid-60s glow from the hinterlands of a midnight Nashville all the while he was singing it.
Things calmed down considerably for the next song which was the first of the night from Love and Theft, the soft and gentle Moonlight. People in our section of the crowd began to sit down at this point and we did as well, but the folks in the rows right in front of us didn’t bother. This caused some distress to others around us who found that their polite requests for those in front of them to sit down were simply ignored. It meant that after a little while the people who were seated began angrily shouting at those who were still standing, barking out “You don’t understand what Bob’s about! Now will you please sit down!” All a bit pathetic really. As if they did understand what Bob was about and that what Bob wanted was for everyone to sit down, although absolutely no indication of that in any way whatsoever came from the man with the Stetson up on the stage. Guess it was just their pent up middle class wishful thinking cut through with some anger.
No, Bob was too busy standing there in his strange black hat singing his new song Moonlight to us whilst the shouting and bawling of those who wanted all the people in front of them to sit down did not make any difference to him at all. He was oblivious, even if he had known he would probably not have cared anyway, and the inevitable result was that during the course of the song virtually everyone got back up on their feet again. Maybe those people who had sat down were just tired and liked the idea of a little break, sitting with their feet up whilst still having the chance to get a good view of Bob, but that was simply not how things worked and it was something they would have to understand. Stamina was required to get through his shows, sacrifices had to be made and pleasure had to be well and truly earned.
Subterranean Homesick Blues came in at sixth slot in the set and it was pretty much the same as the rendition that Bob had given the night before which probably wasn’t quite the one I wanted. Still, it was great to hear it again, because you just never knew how long Subterranean Homesick Blues might be around for before being dropped from the set list by Bob for a couple more decades. It was followed right away by a hard hitting and very bluesy Cry A While which was Bob’s second song of the night from Love and Theft and a song which I have yet to fully get into, probably because I found it a bit hard going, like stepping into the ring with a boxer who wanted a fight. All the same, so far the two Love and Theft songs Bob had played were completely different from the ones on the first night which meant I was getting to hear a pretty good selection of his new stuff being performed over these two shows, which naturally enough was rather satisfying and one of the reasons why I had come down to the London Docklands Arena for two nights running in the first place.
These two plus the five from the night before saw me now up to seven songs from Love and Theft which from out of the twelve on the album wasn’t bad. Bob’s unpredictable song choice selection meant that conceivably one might end up not hearing any at all, although that was unlikely because this new material had been regularly performed by Bob since its release in September 2001, actually 9/11 if you want to specific. Clearly he was enjoying the opportunity to sing his new stuff and on top of that the Love and Theft songs lent themselves to being played live, sounding in fact that they had been written expressly for that purpose. It also confirmed to me, just in case it hadn’t yet sunk in, that the structure and content of these 2002 sets were markedly different from the sets he had played when I saw him five times at various places up and down the land in September and October 2000. No acoustic and electric set splits anymore, instead everything was all mixed in together.
Three acoustic songs now followed on from Cry A While, namely Mama You Been on My Mind, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and Forever Young. From the three I guess the best was the last one which used to be so solidly set in the encore section back in the 2000 shows. It was a similar part of the show to the night before when Bob and the boys had given us Visions of Johanna and Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright, but these were not of the same quality, with Bob at times bawling out the lines, not really seeming to display too much interest in bringing out the best in them. Might just have been the case Bob was feeling tired. There was no doubt I was finding this second night quite a bit tougher going than the first one, which might have had something to do with the fact I was having to spend the whole evening standing instead of sitting. Marc was still hanging on in there, in fact he was very impressed with what he was hearing so far and he would later say that he thought this show was particularly good, up there with the best ones he had been to. As for me I was becoming a little distracted by the physical discomfort I was experiencing from having to remain on my pegs all the time so at that stage I probably wasn’t giving those songs my full attention. Put simply I was dog tired, yesterday had caught up with me big time because it had ended up being a very late night after hitting the bars in Canary Wharf with Dunc after the show, before heading home for a late night Match of the Day and the remains of a bottle of red. All the same time there was no way I was going to sit down because I knew that if I languished in the shadow world of the seats I would immediately think I might be missing out on something. That was just how it was.
Summer Days brought me out of my internal ruminations because just like the night before it was staggeringly good, Charlie once again excelling on electric guitar with Bob in the middle encouraging him all the time to play faster, meaner and louder. It seemed to me that it was a slightly longer version than the previous night as well and like with all the best electric numbers which Bob plays loud, there comes a point where you just wish it would go on and on forever. It was so full-on by way of its delivery that it definitely brought a bit of energy back to me which at that stage of the show was pretty much exactly what I needed. Sugar Baby followed Summer Days which meant we had two Love and Theft numbers back to back and on this the album closer Bob’s singing was exceptional, his voice resonating throughout the whole of the London Docklands Arena, with every word ringing out crystal clear. It was a stunning face to the sun performance, one of the best received songs of the night, which may or not have given him some degree of satisfaction it was hard to tell, but not for me because there was no question it was a blinder.
A heavy hitting Wicked Messenger followed on from Sugar Baby, the Fender guitar union of Bob, Charlie and Larry sending us out onto those plains of black and white shadow riders hitting the trail at dawn. It had a metallic shimmer about it which sent shivers of deep satisfaction down my spine, again making me wish that it would never stop, because the sound and the energy were life giving and I wanted more, so much more. The main set closed with a brilliant Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35, the classic opener from Blonde on Blonde and the version this time was up there with the one from Stirling in July 2001. It was also up there with the best reinterpretations given of its album companion Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat over the last few years as well, which I guess was saying something because Bob’s new Pill-Box could at times be truly exceptional. Rainy Day was hot as hell in other words, stoning the whole damn arena. Then it was over, 15 songs just like the night before, with quite a shuffling of the pack as far as selections were concerned, not a bad bit of pack shuffling at that, in fact a pretty damn good one. It was now only left for Bob and the boys to line up for The Formation at the front of the stage in order to bask in the wild cheers of appreciation from a packed London Docklands Arena for the second night running. Needless to say, if Bob was deliriously happy about it all he didn’t show it in any way whatsoever, just turned his back and disappeared into the shadows with the boys, away from the crowd and still wearing his big black Stetson.
It was at this point that Marc Murphy bowed out for the evening. He had a long way to get home to Surrey from Docklands and since it was a Sunday it meant there would be work for him the next day, which in his case meant diving back into the world of chemical brokering. Seemed like he was getting to be a bit of an old timer because in days past he would have stayed until the very end of the show. Now, I guess I could have gone along with him, left early as well, especially since I was also pretty tired and had seen enough Bob encores to know exactly what was coming. However I also knew that it just wasn’t going to happen. I was there for the long haul and sure enough stayed rooted to the spot, looking ahead at the darkened stage and the Eye of Integrity backdrop whilst counting down the minutes until Bob and the boys reappeared from out of those shadows. In the meantime Marc shuffled along out of the row, there would be no more Bob for him that night, he was off and out of it, on his way back home.
Plenty of people were cheering and shouting at the tops of their voices, the levels of audience energy and participation were probably exactly equal to the night before, which meant they were pretty high. These London Docklands shows were going down well, no doubt about that, and judging by the numbers standing at the side of the stage, people who must have had VIP access, Bob Dylan coming to London was still regarded as something of a major event, a cultural one even. Quite rightly so, the integrity of the music was awesome and the level of musicianship on display quite impeccable. Bob to many people, including myself, was clearly a figure of deep and justifiable reverence, so it felt a privilege to be part of the thousands who had come to pay homage to him down on the Isle of Dogs.
Like A Rolling Stone kicked off the encore, with the bright lights shining out again from the stage over the audience. Once more I took the opportunity to cast around a glance at the crowd which stretched right to the very back of the arena, indicating that it was another sell out show for Bob in the capital. Honest With Me from Love and Theft followed Like A Rolling Stone, proving once again that it was a more than adequate replacement for Highway 61 Revisited sharing as it does the same groovy groan with the Fender guitar union of Bob, Larry and Charlie going right down the road on it for a full five or six minutes, seven or eight possibly, it was difficult to tell, but it doesn’t matter because from beginning to end it was quite simply excellent.
There is no getting away from the fact that I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I recognised the opening strains of Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door coming after Honest With Me because that meant there would be no Blowin’ In the Wind which the previous evening I’d had a bit of a hard time with. On top of that the version Bob and the boys delivered of Knockin’ was a really brilliant one, benefiting considerably from fully fledged backing vocals provided by Larry and Charlie, each of them flanking Bob at the front of the stage. It was pretty much song of the night in fact, well, with the possible exception of Sugar Baby which had been a stunner, Summer Days too, now that I come to think about it. All a bit of a surprise in an obvious but still extremely nice kind of way. I mean, who would have thought it? Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door coming along and knockin’ me for six?
Then it was a longer, better version of All Along the Watchtower than the night before to finish things off and finish things off it did quite nicely. Bob’s darkly prophetic visions emphatically delivered in the style of Hendrix only better, so that all we could see were the grains of sand slowly trickling down from that clock of the cosmos which indicated we were indeed fast running out of time. There was another prolonged bout of wild cheering from the ecstatic crowd after Bob and the boys had taken their bows by way of a final line up of The Formation before they left the stage, but again there was to be no second encore. That would have to wait for another day, another place further down the road on the Never Ending Tour.
So 19 songs were played on both nights, of which 12 of them were different from one evening to another. Not bad those stats, not bad at all, pretty damn impressive as a matter of fact. My overriding memory of the shows was their power, the music getting more muscular as the time went on and in an organic kind of way. A way that I felt was good for me, very good indeed, as I stood there with my eyes closed whilst taking in its mystical, luminous, life enriching electric noise.
It took me the best part of a week to recover from seeing those two Bob shows at the London Docklands Arena. Over the course of the following days I was amazed at how physically demanding they had been. Maybe I was tired because of other stuff, I just don’t know. Each night I went to bed and slept like a log, something to be valued as one gets older. A good old fashioned tiredness that was for sure, punching me into the purest lands of nod that you could ever imagine. The shows also made me go back to Love and Theft and hear it in a way I hadn’t heard before, to play it again and again, and to come to conclusion that next to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, New Morning, Blood on the Tracks, Desire, Shot of Love, Oh Mercyand Time Out of Mind it is one of Bob’s best albums. Yes, it really is that good!
Setlist Docklands Arena: May 12th 2002 –
I Am The Man Thomas
To Ramona
It’s Alright Ma I’m Only Bleeding
If You See Her Say Hello
Stuck Inside Of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
Moonlight
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Cry A While
Mama, You Been on My Mind
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Forever Young
Summer Days
Sugar Baby
Wicked Messenger
Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
Like A Rolling Stone
Honest With Me
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
All Along the Watchtower
TracelessTrails 
One thought on “Bob Dylan Live: Docklands Arena London 12th May 2002”