This one is a write up of the third of three shows I saw Bob play back in 2003. Whilst the first two were run of the mill arena shows, one in Birmingham and one in Sheffield, this one was always going to be special – a return to the legendary Hammersmith Apollo in West London. Sure enough, Bob didn’t disappoint, pulling some stone cold nuggets from out the bag, including a song which he hadn’t played in 26 years. Nice one!
So it was now a case of two down one to go as far as my three Bob shows for 2003 were concerned. There was a whole two days in between the NEC show which I had taken Khangla Metok to on the Friday and the Hammersmith Apollo show on the Monday. That was a long weekend to get through in other words, a very long weekend indeed when I knew that Bob was in town and playing places like the Shepherds Bush Empire which would no doubt be packed to the rafters and full of adoring fans. This time I was going to see Bob with Dunc Hutson one of my partners in crime at Wisdom Books, the small distribution company specialising in books on Buddhism, which I helped run as well as being co-director of, not that such a thing added up to anything more than a hill of beans. Dunc had come to see Bob with me once before, the first of the two London Docklands Arena shows in May 2002, and at the time he had been suitably impressed with what he had witnessed. He must have because when I told him a couple of months ago that Bob would be back in London in November, he jumped at the chance to come along with me and see him again. Therefore on the Monday I finished early at Wisdom and arranged to meet Dunc at my place in the late afternoon in order for him to park his car before we took the tube down to Hammersmith from Woodford.
On the ride into town I recounted to Dunc in some considerable detail the serious stress I had been under a few nights before in regard to seeing Bob in Birmingham, when a fog from hell had suddenly descended upon me and Metok from out of nowhere, to maroon us on the grid locked streets of Solihull in rush hour time as we tried to get to the show. I told Dunc how close I had been to throwing in the whole lousy dog headed deal and which had left me cursing the gods, nearly ending up on Desolation Row. Reflecting on the experience, as I inevitably had done over the weekend, it seemed to me as if a higher force far greater than what I could have ever imagined was trying through concocted circumstance to tell me that enough was enough as far as Bob was concerned and that it was time for me to let him go. Time to call it a day, ease off the pedal and do something a bit more useful with my life, although exactly what that might have been I really didn’t know, simply had no idea. Besides, it was only 21 times which I had seen him in the last 10 years, hardly a bank buster within the great scheme of things and not really that excessive at all when compared to many others out there. In fact those sad eyed badlands which I had been forced to drive through within the outer environs of Birmingham on Friday night felt like they were fading away the closer I got to Hammersmith. Now I was back and ready for more, back and fighting, up for another Bob show, already reaching deep down inside me to tap those feelings of immense excitement which only the prospect of seeing Bob Dylan play live can generate.
We had a smooth ride across the great city of London on the tube and when we got off I was rather surprised to find that the whole area around Hammersmith tube station had been completely re-developed from I was last in that part of town. Then again, when I thought about it, I realised it had been over 10 years ago since Bob had played there, 1993 in fact, which was the first time I had ever seen him. Back then I had gone to four Bob shows in a row, pretty much one night after another Monday to Friday with a single break on the Wednesday, but only because on that day Bob was resting. For those shows in 1993 I had originally booked tickets for just the first two but they had been so brilliant, so unbelievable, that I was knocked out by them and went down on the next two nights he was playing as well, paying over the odds to the tout lizards in order to get myself in through the doors in order to see him again. Even though it had seen me burn through the bread like there was no tomorrow and run myself ragged by way of still going into work every day, it had without a shadow of a doubt been worth it. So anyway, on one level 10 years was quite a long time since last being down there, but then again on another it was absolutely nothing when one considered the Earth has been spinning round the sun for over 4 billion years and the sun in turn circling our galactic centre for even longer than that.
Ten years ago when going to shows at the Hammersmith Apollo you had to use exits from the tube which were a pretty long way from the venue and you needed to walk quite some distance next to very busy and somewhat unpleasant West London roads before you eventually got to the building. Now in the gleaming 21st century things had changed and there was an exit more or less right outside the venue, something which was infinitely more civilised because there was only one road to cross before you were there. Dunc and I had originally planned to go and have a drink before the show, but when we looked at the queue which had already formed around the Apollo we thought it would be better to join it right away. I have to admit I was most mightily relieved that Dunc was happy to forego a pre-show pint in a pub because I really don’t think I would have enjoyed it. Not when I would have been standing there sipping whilst knowing that increasing numbers of people outside would have been getting one step ahead of us in regard to going to see Bob that evening. Better to just jump right in, play the waiting game in the queue, make the sacrifice and then reap the dividends later by way of getting a good space on the floor of the venue.
The tickets we had were for standing in the stalls, not seated up in the circle, which meant it was simply going to be a case of first come first served as far as getting in a good position to see Bob was concerned. Thrown in for good measure there would also be a lot of push and shove plus the potential for gate crashers, which was what it was often like in the middle of an excited crowd of people who happened to be Bob Dylan fans. All the same, standing in the stalls was better for me any day of the week because I far preferred mixing it with the mob and taking my chances on the floor rather than being stuck on a seat somewhere up in the gods. Down on the floor as close to the stage as possible was where all the action was in terms of being able to witness another performance by the Mystery Tramp, Ragged Clown, Bread Crumb Sinner, the Original Song and Dance Man from the Land of the Star Spangled Banner.
Dunc had been fine about standing in the stalls when I’d bought the tickets and he also didn’t mind standing outside the Apollo on a dark November evening for what would easily be the best part of an hour. The crucial thing to bear in mind as far as I was concerned was that joining the queue early meant we would be reasonably assured of a good position when the doors opened and it was time to go inside. Since the whole point of the evening was to see Bob and not spend all our time in a smoky Hammersmith boozer, it seemed to me our decision was a sensible one for which we were to be congratulated. As if to confirm this, Dunc told me he’d had a pretty heavy weekend drinks-wise anyway, so giving the pub a miss on a Monday night was really no big deal for him, just as it wasn’t for me, obviously.
Despite the fact it was late November it really wasn’t very cold at all and with a crowd of noisy excited fans surrounding us in the queue it felt even less so. Those freezing November nights we used to get 20 or 30 years ago, when it could be decidedly chilly if you stayed outside for too long, now seemed to be gone. To queue for an hour or so before going in to see Bob was not really much of a problem at all, if anything it was more like a pleasure, being easy enough to pass the time observing the people around us. Since it was a London show it was interesting to see there were lots more younger faces around, very different to Sheffield where it had been almost exclusively old timers, and different to the NEC as well when the audience had been most decidedly Midlands based in the form of Brum. Directly front of us was a young guy who must have been his early 20s. Smoking rolled up cigarettes his face looked full of anticipation, and he was dressed like Bob from around the time of the famous Subterranean Homesick Blues promo shoot way back in the mid 60s. There was something cool about him, especially his mop of curly hair, and in my heart I could only wish him luck, because by immersing himself in all things Bob he was going to be giving himself a fine education, one of the best he was ever likely to have. Needless to say there were plenty of the usual folks in line as well, grey beards with serious faces no doubt used to the intensity of deep investigations into Bob and his works, some possibly at a level where I would have been stumped to know how to even partake of them.
There was no denying that I was hoping Hammersmith was going to be a pretty good show however, because it was taking place in what was a relatively small venue for Bob, and with that always came the chance he was going to pull something special out of the bag, nuggets from deep down inside the goldmine. It was all a mile away from the vibe of the Birmingham and Sheffield shows just a few nights ago, both of which had been arena affairs in the middle of the country and where there was most definitely a sense of things being little more than business as usual. This one was different and there was real excitement in the air, people knew that by standing in the stalls in a place like the Hammersmith Apollo it was a rare opportunity to get up close and personal, although it seemed to me that no matter what kind of place he played, Bob always managed in some mystical kind of way to keep out of reach, just like when I had seen him down in Portsmouth Guildhall back in September 2000. So near and yet so far. But for sure, there was the distinct possibility of some tasty rarities from his extensive and incredible back catalogue getting an airing at the Apollo and that was most definitely what people were expecting by way of the many conversations taking place in the queue around us.
After the doors finally opened we jostled past the security guards once our pockets had been given a tap and then we joined the rush onto the floor area of the stalls in the Hammersmith Apollo, getting as close to the front as possible. Dunc and I were lucky because we got to one of the few spaces on the floor where there was a railing to lean against, which meant things were going to be a whole lot easier on our legs the longer the evening went on. Otherwise I knew only too well from past experience that 3 or 4 hours whilst standing up in the middle of a hot and excitable crowd could sometimes be a pretty gruelling experience, sending you to places in your mind you didn’t necessarily want to go. Once we got settled we could stay there and take in the scene. It was the first time that I had been back to the Hammersmith Apollo since 1993 and I could see that it had undergone some quite extensive renovations. The new decor was dim and dark, lots of deep burgundy and black, a little bit like the Brixton Academy, with the whole place looking a lot smaller now that the seats had been taken out, which was strange because you might have expected the opposite. But that was fine by me, the smaller the better as far as the venue in which I was going to see Bob was concerned, up close and personal, although like I said, no matter how small the venue he played in, he would always somehow manage to keep his distance.
It was great to be standing on the floor of the Apollo looking across at the stage not too far away. Seeing the speaker stacks hanging down from the ceiling in front of it, all the guitars in racks on both sides, the drum kit, Bob’s electric piano, what I presumed to be a mixing desk, one or two technicians wandering around making a few tweaks before show time; all of it was a sight I would never tire of. Roadies such as the young Oriental guy were going from amp to amp and flicking them on before tuning the guitars, then there was the huge guy with the beard and the pony tail who would no doubt soon be making his announcement of introduction before the lights were hit and Bob came on to play for us. This was simply how it was, Bob Dylan and His Band on the road, cutting into the electric atmosphere on yet another night in yet another city, somewhere down the line on his Never Ending Tour. The floor space of the Apollo filled up rapidly and soon the temperature began to rise along with the noise level of the crowd, increasing in volume until it hit a pitch of quite considerable intensity. It was clear from where me and Dunc were standing that there were more than quite a lot of people packed onto the floor, faces full with sweet anticipation over the fact that Bob was about to rock the capital.
When the bunches of Nagchampa incense which had been placed in buckets at the back of the stage were lit with a blowtorch by the huge guy with the beard and the pony tail, and clouds of sweet fragrance billowed out over the front few rows of the crowd, I knew that it was getting very close to show time. After seeing Bob so many times and in a variety of locations up and down the land, this was when the excitement I was feeling never seemed to lessen and I wished it would always be that way, that it would last forever. The first two nights of this series of three Bob shows had been run of the mill in Sheffield and Birmingham, which of course was still artistic performance at an exceptionally high level, but this one in London felt like it was going to be different to the point of being very, very special.
Suddenly the lights were hit and a roar went up from the crowd as the huge guy with the beard and the pony tail announced over the PA “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan!” Shadows duly appeared from the back of the stage then stepped into the lights and drifting incense smoke, a moment of pure addiction for everyone as Bob jaunted over to the right hand side of the stage with his eyes fixed firmly in front of him, making no eye contact with the audience in any way whatsoever. Back in his zone. He got to his electric piano in a matter of seconds and, whilst striking a little bit of a Jerry Lee Lewis pose, was this time dressed in a way which gave off the air of an ageless pirate about him, proving once again how he could be the ultimate shape shifter at any given moment.
Well, whatever clothes Bob was decked in, he soon hit the ground running because the show got off to a tremendous start with a hard as nails, take no prisoners Drifter’s Escape from his late 60s album John Wesley Harding. It was good, it was very good, it was right on the edge, and it already felt like it was just the beginning of something memorable. Sure enough the first surprise of the night came second song in, a fantastic You Ain’t Going Nowhere which was a rumble out from The Basement Tapes no less, with every word sung clear as a bell and given the kinds of intonation which only Bob can make when it came to throwing key phrases into space so that they land straight up and stun you.
Things were really looking good in terms of hoping that this set was going to yield some collectors items and be rather handsome in terms of variety and content. Earlier on, back in the drudgery of another day at Wisdom Books, I’d read on the Net that Bob’s show at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire the night before had indeed featured many of his lesser known songs, or rather many of his songs which, for whatever reason, he chose not to play so often. The vast majority of the reviews for the show had been extremely favourable, tinged as they were with a mixture of wonder and relief that Bob had finally given the pack a bit of a shuffle when it came to what the set list was on this current leg of his Never Ending Tour.
The first real confirmation that we were in for an out of the ordinary show came with what followed both a perfectly serviceable Cry A While from Love and Theft and the Freewheelin’ classic Girl from the North Country. This was because song number five on the Hammersmith set list was a totally unbelievable, almost unprecedented Romance in Durango from Desire when Rolling Thunder had most definitely been in the air, being Bob’s almost great follow up to his indisputably great Blood On The Tracks from 1975. This song alone was more than enough to get any of the numerous heavy duty Bob fans in the crowd scrambling for their history books because anyone who was anyone knew right away that this was the first time they were hearing Bob play it in 26 years!!!
The roar of the crowd which greeted its arrival, once everyone had recognised what it was, indicated just how much people knew what the significance was of this moment. The reaction nearly blew the roof off the Apollo as we stood there in awe of Bob delivering an understandably rusty version of this sun drenched and tie dyed Tex-Mex classic of love as an ever revolving carousel from which it was hard to get off. There was even the slight possibility of a shadow of a smile crossing Bob’s face as well, although as far as that was concerned it was extremely hard to tell. However there was no doubt at all this moment served to confirm to a great many people in the audience why seeing Bob Dylan play live was always going to be such an incredible thing to do. It was just for the chance, no matter how remote, that you would be there when he pulls another Romance in Durango out of the bag, throwing it down in front of you like a brick of gold he has found from way up high in the mountains. Needless to say if the show had ended there and then, a hell of a lot of the people would have made their back home through the dark streets of London feeling completely satisfied that their work for the night was done.
Things did not stop there however because immediately after Romance In Durango came another John Wesley Harding number, this time in the form of the very obscure Dear Landlord which saw Bob hammering down on the keys like a phantom during the course of what was another very rarely performed song and which had the eyes of many people in the crowd almost popping out of their heads. After an amazing current tour staple in the form of a tidally elemental High Water drifting down from the creek of Love and Theft, Bob hit us again with another 100% gem in the form of Tough Mama, a song which I had last heard him play in 1997 by way of a brace; one in Cardiff and one at Wembley Arena.
This was from Planet Waves, an album of Bob’s which came out in the early 70s and at a time when he was in the process of leaving Columbia, his record label since 1961, and signing up with the tropically tinged Island, home to artists such as Free, John Martyn and last but by no means least, those incredible Trenchtown rockers Bob Marley and the Wailers. Planet Waves also showcased the talents of guitarist Robbie Robertson and the rest of The Band, all of whom had been with Bob at various points since the mid 60s, most notably I guess, on those Woodtsock recorded but somewhat sprawling The Basement Tapes. In my mind it was difficult to know which song Bob had played less in a live setting, Dear Landlord or Tough Mama, probably the former, but whichever one it might have been, it was deeply fascinating stuff for me to ponder whilst standing there down on the floor of the Hammersmith Apollo.
Love and Theft’s deft Floater came in next but on this occasion it felt like it was little more than a prelude to a most mightily dirty Million Miles from Time Out of Mind, Bob’s Daniel Lanois produced affair which brought him right back into the fold as far as serious critical rehabilitation was concerned. The deep, rumbling swamp voodoo bass of this particular Million Miles had the roof of the Apollo shaking and put it right up there with Can’t Wait from Birmingham a couple of nights before when the fog had nearly done my head in but not as much as Bob’s rendition of what was another Time Out of Mind certified solid gold creeper. Both of them prime examples of how Bob gives relatively recent material such a radical reinterpretation it is almost as if you are listening to a completely different song, one which also just so happens to be a million miles better than the original and which you simply can’t wait to hear him play again.
After this explosion of surprises came another sure fire nugget from Bob in the form of Jokerman from his early 80s mixed bag of an Infidels album. Produced by Mark Knopfler, head honcho of Dire Straits, it was Infidels which signalled Bob’s re-emergence from his heavy duty Christian phase which had begun to manifest with Slow Train Coming in 1979, continuing through to the patchy but sometimes brilliant Shot of Love in 1981, with 1980’s sub-par Saved sandwiched in the middle of them. Similar to Romance in Durango earlier on, there was a certain roughness to Bob’s rendition of Jokerman which was maybe understandable because again it was a song he had not played in quite a long time, although not as long as Durango which had been borderline ancient.
There was no doubt that Bob had not remembered all the words to it as well, not too surprising because Jokerman did have rather a lot of verses, but some of them were incredibly good ones which would have been great to hear him sing, not that this seemed to matter, because everyone was in raptures over simply hearing it at all. Make no mistake, Jokerman is a mystical song closely related to the movements of the earth, sun and moon whilst shone through the prism of Old Testament shadows somehow made magnificent with a dangerous cosmology cast upon a contemporary setting of America both starless and bible black; all in the face of a Judgment Day which is lurking round the corner. The final section of the set after Jokerman reverted back to type because there were to be no more major surprises, but I think it is fair to say we had all had more than enough of them by way of the complete and utter bolts from the blue Bob had already delivered that night. Honest With Me, Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and Summer Days finished off the main set, then Bob and the boys came back to give us his current standard encore of Cat’s in the Well, Like a Rolling Stone and All Along the Watchtower.
Each of these built upon the other to reach a truly powerful climax with a darkly prophetic storm riding Watchtower which had a reduced Fender guitar union of just Freddy and Larry, whilst Bob looked on from behind his electric piano with a distinct look of approval on his face. Then after all that was dun an’ dusted there was just a final sight of The Formation with Bob and the boys lined up once more with faces expressionless, standing right at the front of the stage and staring out into the audience. Wild cheers from the crowd filled the darkness of the Apollo but not for long because the stage was soon empty of performers and the house lights switched back on. What a night!!!
On the way back home on the tube I speculated on which was more preferable. Either a really tight incredible kick ass set of the songs we all know and love from Bob and the boys, or a show like the one I had just witnessed where completely unpredictable, rough round the edges deep cuts were pulled out of the bag. From the point of view of a collector there is no doubt that I would have to say the latter. All the same there is something really addictive about getting into those bog standard Bob sets as well, where it is all so much easier for the him and the boys to find a groove with a wall of sound where everything just comes together in a quietly transcendental kind of way which is really hard to describe but nevertheless tangible. It is much tougher to get that tightness and togetherness in a show like the one I had just seen at the Apollo, simply because the band aren’t familiar enough with the material, Bob possibly included. In retrospect, I guess I would take two normal run of the mills and one rare full of nuggets as a perfect ratio. Why? Well because Bob really likes those normal run of the mills and that rubs off, and where normal for Bob of course, is what most other performers will never get to in a million years.
Mind you, the appearance of such rarities at the Hammersmith Apollo did lead me to seriously consider on the way back home about whether or not I should go down to the Brixton Academy the following night for the final show in Bob’s series of 2003 dates around the capital. In other words bite the bullet and pay a tout lizard something like 100 bucks for the privilege of getting to see Bob again. This time I held back. Better to end this particular run of shows on a good one. Yeah, better to be wise sometimes and stay on the right side of the stars. A couple of days later I realised I had made the correct the decision when I checked Bob’s set list for the Academy on the Net, but that still didn’t stop me from feeling a little jealous of all the people down there whom he must have sent home glowing. Guess that’s the thing, it really is never ending!
Setlist London Hammersmith Apollo 24th November 2003 –
Drifter’s Escape
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Cry A While
Girl Of The North Country
Romance In Durango
Dear Landlord
High Water (For Charley Patton)
Tough Mama
Floater (Too Much To Ask)
Million Miles
Jokerman
Honest With Me
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
Summer Days
Cat’s In The Well
Like A Rolling Stone
All Along The Watchtower
TracelessTrails 