Bob Dylan Live: Cardiff International Arena 18th June 2004

On Thursday 17^th June 2004 I made my way down to South Wales in order to see Bob Dylan play at the CIA the following night. I had decided that it would be better to drive down the day before and stay at my parents’ flat in Penarth, a pleasant seaside town just to the west of Cardiff and where I had lived for the first six years of my life before rolling up and down the length and breadth of the land due to the work my dad was involved in. Driving down on Thursday evening would ensure avoiding any possible Friday jams on the roads, especially the M25 and upper part of the M4 which could be bastards to deal with if things weren’t looking pretty. It turned out to be a good decision because even taking into account the detour I had to make to my parents’ house in Harpenden in order to pick up the keys to their flat, it still only took me around 3 ½ hours to get to Cardiff.

So much was it a good decision that the only thing I really had to think about on the way down was whether or not I should visit my old friend Rik Dixon whom I hadn’t seen in about three years, possibly four, and who lived in an attic flat in Penarth which he shared with his long term partner Hazel. For quite a long time I sat there behind the wheel of my Nissan weighing up the pros and cons, trying to figure out if it would be a good idea or not to climb those stairs up to Rik’s place, and the further I made my way down the road the more I felt like it would be a good thing to do. On in the background for the duration of the journey was Bob’s far from perfect but still quite likeable Under The Red Sky from 1991, where for me the best songs on it were the title track, Unbelievable, Born In Time, God Knows and, coming in a distant fifth, Cat’s In The Well.

Back at my parents’ flat after returning from Rik’s in the early hours I drew the curtains and slipped into bed for some well earned shut eye. Pretty much the next thing I knew it was 11.15 in the morning and now of course I had a Bob show to look forward to in a few hours time and really, what on earth could be better than that? Since the day was bright and sunny it left me with plenty of time to get myself in shape for the evening ahead, so after a late morning coffee I drove into Cardiff in order to collect my ticket for the show from the box office at the CIA. I could have waited and just picked it up in the evening but for peace of mind I wanted to get it there and then so that there were no potential uncertainties left on the horizon in any way whatsoever. As anticipated there was no problem in picking it up, I mean why would there be, and what struck me as I turned around to go was that there was already a small queue of people forming for the show that evening. Shit, I knew I was keen but I really didn’t think I was that keen. It seemed pretty clear to me that if they just went off to enjoy the really rather pleasant Cardiff weather and then came back four or five hours later, they would still be at the front of the queue. Fanatics I guess is what you might call them!

I spent an enjoyable couple of hours wandering around the centre of Cardiff and picking up a few things along the way, including a new pair of trousers and shoes from Next. I also got myself a DVD copy of the film Masked and Anonymous from HMV, a film which just so happened to have Bob in it, playing the son of a South or Central American dictator, I’m not quite sure, maybe Bob wasn’t either. After that I drove back to the flat in Penarth where I laid low for a couple of hours because I was feeling quite knackered. It was just a question of lying on the sofa and having a couple of cups of tea as I tried to recover from the night before and my visit to Rik’s. The simple fact of the matter was that I was no longer used to staying up until 4 or 5 in the morning listening to Rik’s endless speculations all spouted in a haze of dope smoke. The warm sea breeze blowing in through the open patio door and the sound of seagulls flying high in the faint blue sky led me into a world of half-dreams, visions which I would never be able to articulate or even attempt to, but which were extremely pleasant nevertheless.

Just after five o’clock I was in the car and once again heading back into town for the show because I reckoned if I got to the CIA by around 5.30 I would be able to get a decent place in the queue and thus be in line for a prime position standing not too far from the stage once I got inside the arena. By the time I had parked up and arrived at the CIA the queue for the show stretched around the side of the building but although there were a reasonable amount people it still wasn’t too long. Apart from the hardcore fans I had seen at midday, I would have thought virtually everyone else had only joined it in the last 45 minutes or so, punters more or less like myself in other words. It must have been a bit of a killer for Bob to come on stage night after night and often be confronted with the same bunch of faces right at the front of the crowd taring back up at him. That was just the price he had to pay for the being the number one focus of attention in the eyes of those people, and by now there was very little he could do about it other than disappear and never be seen again, but of course if he did that he wouldn’t be able to carry on with his Never Ending Tour!

It felt good standing there in the new pair of shoes I’d bought from Next whilst taking frequent sips from my bottle of chilled mineral water, enjoying the sensation of it sliding down the back of my throat. Breathing in and breathing out, nice and slow, pulling down deep into my lungs the fresh air of an early evening in June in the middle of Cardiff. From past experience I knew I had at least an hour or so of waiting outside the arena ahead of me before the doors of the CIA would be opened to allow us all inside. Then after that there would probably be a further wait of around one and a half hours in what would be increasingly excitable conditions whilst bit by bit the arena filled up, with both the temperature and the noise levels steadily rising. For the moment I was happy to stand there and not talk to anyone, quietly going over in my mind what Bob’s set list might be whilst recalling the set lists which had so far been posted online from his most recent concerts.

This show in Cardiff was the first of a six week early summer European tour which would occupy Bob until the end of July, and as a matter of fact it had only been a week since he had finished an American tour with a show at a festival in Tennessee. Whilst it was conceivable the pack might be shuffled around a bit when it came to set list content, it was unlikely. One of the great misconceptions often made by people who attended occasional Bob shows was that each night the audience had no idea what to expect in terms of the songs Bob was going to play. The reality however was that seasoned Bob concert goers knew exactly what he was going to play each night at certain points of the set, almost to the point where they had become crushingly predictable, being so set in stone it would have taken a Hurricane to move them. In the main there were just a handful of places at most in any Bob set where the content might be open to genuine speculation and naturally enough those were the parts I ruminated on.

The sun came out from behind the clouds to give a burst of early evening warmth for which I was grateful because it was cooler than what I had anticipated whilst waiting in line, and so was suffering from a slight miscalculation as to what the correct clothes were that I should have worn. No matter, all would change once I was inside the CIA and in the middle of the crowd in front of the stage, because there things would soon get hot and sticky. For the moment I just stood facing the western sun with my eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the rays coursing through me, heating up my body which had been feeling the chill. Sometimes it really was incredible to think about that enormous ball of fire over 90 million miles away, converting countless billions of tons of hydrogen into helium every single second and releasing the burn off as energy to keep us all alive. 

On top of such mildly cosmological ruminations, I was also warmed up by the fact another Bob show was now just a couple of hours away. Yes, show number 22 for me would soon be rolling into town, during which I would no doubt bathe in the radiance of different kind of star. Even though I had been up until past 5 am at Rik’s I was feeling pretty good after what had only been a few hours sleep. My adrenalin was flowing so that I felt a glow from the extremely pleasant feeling of knowing I would soon be seeing Bob again, warmth rising up in blissful waves from the region of my stomach. It felt like it was a gut reaction or a form of blessing from down on high, for which I could only fold my hands at my heart, bend my head to the four directions and offer my deepest thanks. For an ordinary fan like me such experiences were always going to be worth the wait and at that precise moment in time it was difficult to see how I would ever tire of them.   

The doors to the CIA opened at 6.45 which was a little earlier than I had expected but nevertheless most welcome. Suddenly Welsh security people were scurrying around and making themselves look busy, talking into their mobile phones with a gravity which made you think there must be a killer on the loose or that they had suddenly been charged with looking after a nuclear bomb. Stern warnings were given to people in the queue that no photographs were to be taken in any shape or form whatsoever once inside the arena. If this rule was transgressed people ran the risk of having their equipment confiscated and never returned, all of which was at the express request of the artist. Needless to say they would also be pulled out of the crowd and kicked out of the arena as well. That was Bob for you, there was no getting away from the fact he could be most mightily touchy when it came to what he saw as invasion of his privacy, something which extended to whatever stage he was performing on in any country throughout the world.

Once inside the CIA and after going for a quick but very necessary leak because of all the mineral water I had been sipping, I was able to take my place in amongst the small but rapidly growing cluster of people who were standing on the floor of the arena directly in front of the stage. Show time would not be until 8.15 so I now prepared myself for about 90 minutes of standing in the crowd, knowing conditions would only get tougher as the temperatures rose and excitement levels increased the closer it got to show time. As the floor filled up it would also mean less in the way of space to comfortably move about in and to ease those inevitable points of pressure on the body which resulted from having to stand up for so long. Well, that was just the way it was and there was no reason for me to think this time it would be any different. It was the price which had to be paid when it came to seeing Bob up close and personal, even though in whatever situation I saw him, he always managed in some kind of mystical way to keep his distance.

Standing on the floor of the CIA I got into a conversation with two Bob fans who like me had driven down from London for the show. They really knew their stuff as far as Bob was concerned and it was clear they had each seen him on many occasions in the past and would continue to do so in future times to come. One of them had just come back from the bar and in the process of getting a couple of beers he had also checked out the merchandise stall to see what was on sale. He gave us a detailed inventory of all that was on offer, products this time ranging from Bob Dylan sofa throws to a Bob Dylan sheriff’s badge, one of which he had bought for only 10 quid. He cradled it in his hand like the precious object it was, and I have to say it really did look rather like a five star special, so special that I made a note to possibly get one for myself once the show was over if the queue wasn’t too long.

As we stood there talking all things Bob, I spotted on one of the amplifiers the Oscar which he had won in 2001 for his song Things Have Changed and which had appeared on the soundtrack to the film The Wonder Boys starring Michael Douglas. The last time I had noticed it had been back in July 2001 when Bob had played a one off concert in the grounds of Stirling Castle on a Scottish summer’s evening in the middle of July. That had been a simply tremendous show on a wet and wild day, with the hills of the Highlands seeming to be just a flick of a red eye away and a hip flask full of finest Bushmills Irish whiskey in my pocket, which by the end of the evening was almost completely empty. One of the guys next to me in Cardiff told me that a couple of years ago, when Bob had been playing some US shows, his Oscar would get paraded in front of the audience before being placed on one of the amps on stage. This must have been quite a funny thing to witness and something which only would have happened if Bob had issued specific instructions for it to be done, that’s for sure, that’s for certain.

The minutes were ticking by and the Cardiff International Arena was now rapidly filling up, with the noise level of the crowd having risen substantially in the process. From where I was standing, which was pretty much right in the middle of the floor and close to the front, it was impossible to see across to the sides of the hall where I imagined the bars were doing pretty good business. A nice cold beer in a plastic glass would, under the circumstances, have been very welcome indeed, but I was happy to forego it in order to maintain my position which if forsaken at this point would never, ever be reclaimed, of that I was 100% convinced. On the stage preparations were coming along nicely with everyone efficiently going about their business, tuning the guitars which stood in racks to the side, turning on the switches of the amplifiers and getting everything else in position.

It was the same faces as usual who were up there such as the young Oriental guy who had been part of Bob’s road crew for as long as I could remember, and the huge guy with the beard and the pony tail who always made the announcement of introduction just before Bob and the boys came on stage. There was the high possibility that this had been his job for the best part of the last 30 years, pretty much since Bob had seriously got back on the road again at the end of the 80s. Not a bad way of making a living it had to be said, introducing Bob Dylan night after night in countless cities across the globe where he played to packed houses of adoring fans. The stage had no unnecessary decoration apart from possibly that Oscar of course, everything else there had a practical purpose, all were instruments to be used for the job at hand which was soon to be done. To the right of the stage stood Bob’s electric piano which he would be positioned behind for the whole show, thumping down on the keys, blending in perfectly with his voice, and of course placed on the rest of the stage were many guitars both acoustic and electric plus the basses and the drums, all of which would be played by the boys in his band.

When the clouds of Nagchampa began to roll over the heads of the first rows of the crowd we all knew that it was close to show time. The incense blended in with the combined scent of tobacco and marijuana which had been steadily accumulating for the last 40 minutes or so, despite the fact that obviously the CIA was a non-smoking arena. Everyone was now talking more and more loudly and there were one or two demands from those waiting in the crowd for Bob to show his presence. Suddenly someone hit the lights, a massive cheer went up, then with typical understatement the huge guy with the beard and the pony tail introduced Bob and the boys, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan!” as they stepped from out of the shadows and onto the stage in front of what was now an arena packed with Welsh fans. Bob was back in Cardiff! For me at least, what made the CIA such a great venue to see him was I could get as close as it was possible to get to him when I was standing on the floor near to the front of the arena, although it meant I had to be there early enough to make it happen, long before the place had filled up. But that was just the price to be paid, the one which wasn’t on my ticket.

Seemed like the CIA temporarily went crazy over the sight of Bob dressed in his black suit and Stetson hat as he made his way across the stage with that strange bopping walk of his to the electric piano whilst making no eye contact whatsoever with his audience. For fans like me, the only appropriate thing to do under the circumstances was to stand there with arms outstretched and waving in the air, big smiles on our faces, all of us shouting at the tops of our voices. This was the moment we had been waiting for and no matter how many times we had seen it before there was something truly unbeatable about it, something you could almost never get enough of if truth be told. From a wildly different perspective I was pretty sure that at 63 years old Bob Dylan might have felt the same thing as well, stepping once more into a chamber of adulation, all of which was directed at him.

Bob was behind his electric piano to the right of the stage with that Oscar for Things Have Changed standing proud on the amp behind him. He had an almost sideways view of the action which allowed him to keep his eye on both the crowd and the band at the same time. New guitarist Stu Kimball who, since the last shows I had seen 2003, had replaced the bluesy Freddy Koella, stood immediately to the left of Bob. On the far left stood the tall, long-haired multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell who had now been with Bob since 1997 and who Bob sometimes seemingly ignored for the whole show, thus creating a rather disconcerting spectacle in the process. In the middle of the stage towards the back, so that he was standing just in front of the drums, was bassist Tony Garnier who had now been playing with Bob continuously since the end of the 80s and was de facto band leader. Finally on the drums was another relative new boy George Recile, sporting a black beret and who had now been Bob’s drummer for the last 12 months or so, being permanent replacement for Dave Kemper, the ex-Jerry Garcia Band member who had left Bob’s employ under something of a dark cloud in 2001.

It was not until the chorus of the first song that I realised it was indeed Seeing the Real You at Last from Bob’s 1984 album Empire Burlesque, a work which had been derided by critics at the time and which has not necessarily improved much with age either. The main problem with Empire Burlesque was not so much the songs on it but the way it was produced by Arthur Baker, someone who’d made a bunch of hit dance and rap records at the time with groups such as New Order and Afrika Bambaataa. Needless to say Seeing the Real You at Last now sounded radically different to what it had on the album, much better, and as it progressed I listened closely to Bob’s intonation of the words whilst he crouched over his electric piano, and came to the conclusion that it was all rather impressive. Next to me was a small woman who must have been in her late 50s and who had brought along with her a little stool on which she was now standing, thus enabling her to gain enough extra height in order to see Bob in action. She had lost track of her husband in the crowd earlier on but now that the show had started she really didn’t seem to care because her eyes were transfixed on what was happening on the stage, where of course she was now seeing the real Bob at last.

As was usual when the song was over Bob did little in the way of acknowledging the cheers of the crowd, merely sauntered out from behind his piano to confer with the members of his band towards the back of centre stage and right in front of the drums, behind which George Recile sat looking on expressionless. It might have been the case that Bob was giving instructions on what song was to be played next, or maybe he was pointing out some things with the opening number which he had not been happy with. All this was par for the course, there were often these mini conferences which took place at various points in the show, where all the band members huddled around Bob with the possible exception of Larry who didn’t always get invited. What was for certain was that it was extremely unlikely that Bob would talk to the crowd in any way whatsoever, apart from a few seconds at some point when he might introduce his fellow performers. Similarly it was also rare for Bob to look at the crowd at all, apart from when he and his band lined up to stand together in The Formation at the end of the show, so as to take in the cheering and applause of the audience.

It’s All Over Now Baby Blue was next up from his mid 60s album Bringing It All Back Home  the first of Bob’s Golden Trilogy continuing through Highway 61 Revisited and ending with Blonde on Blonde. I had heard Bob sing this song numerous times over the years, usually at this position in the set as well. This time around the lines were delivered by Bob with precision, both well placed and relaxed, one of those versions of Baby Blue you got lost in whilst thinking nice thoughts, secure in the knowledge that all ends would be tied up and in between you could immerse yourself in an electric country soundscape which would see the song through to a more than satisfactory conclusion.

Straight after this we were into what has become rather familiar Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum territory from his 2001 album Love and Theft. Now there is no doubt that for many fans Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum is not going to be up there as one of their favourite latter day Bob songs, and I guess to a certain extent and under certain circumstances I might be included in this category as well. All the same there are occasions when Bob and the boys can deliver a wicked version of Tweedle and it just so happened that in Cardiff we got one which landed smack between the eyes as they conjured up with ease a rolling landscape of trees blowing on the dusty plains with visions straight outta Tweeter and the Monkey Man following along in their wake. The performance most definitely benefited from some really neat electric guitar interplay between Larry and Stu, whilst Bob looked on with considerable approval from the side of the stage crouched behind his electric piano. It really was excellent, good enough to have me standing in the middle of the crowd with my eyes closed, seeing an inexhaustible inner sun clear as a bell pulsating right before me. Standing there as Larry and Stu delivered one quality riff and solo after another, well and truly putting this Love and Theft opener through its paces in front of a Welsh crowd which simply went wild for it.

Next up was Just Like a Woman and there was no doubt that as far as a great many people in the crowd were concerned this was the highlight of the set so far, if for no other reason than it is of course a fully certified classic from Blonde on Blonde. For me though, I think I was still recovering from that awesome Tweedle to fully appreciate it, thinking that it was really little more than run of the mill Bob, although run of the mill Bob is still pretty certain to knock anyone else right out of the park. It was generating an immense reaction merely by being played at all, offering a little bit of room for Bob to take his foot off the pedal possibly, because this particular Woman was nothing to get too excited about. 

Much better followed however with another Blonde on Blonde cut in the shape of Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine, a nice crisp version which again featured excellent guitar work and George Recile pulling out the stops on the drums in an understated but intricate kind of way that I thought was really quite incredible. Throughout this song Bob’s eyes were firmly fixed on Stu Kimball who as the new guitarist was obviously on probation, Bob still clearly undecided as to whether he was ultimately going to be able to cut the mustard. Think it is safe to say that on this occasion Bob was satisfied with the results because Stu was rather good and Bob gave no indication that he thought otherwise as well.

What was for me a rather tired version of Girl from the North Country came next which in a similar vein to Just Like a Woman went down extremely well but as far as I was concerned left me feeling a bit cold. Bob played it overly sentimental this time around but maybe the ecstatic cheers from the crowd in the CIA were enough to fool him into thinking he was getting it right in its current incarnation. Fact of the matter is that it is simply unbeatable when just played solo with only him and acoustic guitar, going back to basics would have been by far the best option in other words, but that was never going to happen in a million years because the days of Bob ever playing anything completely solo on his own were well and truly over, even more so if it involved plucking on some strings.

Song number seven turned out to be another ultra heavy Cold Irons Bound which Bob has been playing in pretty much the same way for the last four years or so now and which is a million miles away from the recorded version found on Time Out of Mind, the album saw which him reinstated in the popular consciousness by way of the reviews it received from the critics. A slight echo was discernible on Bob’s vocals throughout Irons whilst the sounds coming out of Larry and Stu’s guitars were strong enough to punch anyone in the crowd 5 miles up the road and to the outer edges of Tremorfa. It was a powerful, pummelling version and again I stood there in the middle of the crowd with my eyes closed in order to fully soak up the incomparable life giving electric energy which was so effortlessly being produced. Bob was clearly into it as well. Listening to him deliver the words as he crouched over his electric piano made me realise just how very few grandfathers of his age would have ever contemplated doing something like what he was doing. Magical stuff, medicinal even, punching enough force into me to the point that when I opened my eyes after it was over, everything appeared colourful and fresh as if emerging from a fabulous dream, albeit an extremely loud one.

A surprise came next in the form of If Dogs Run Free from Bob’s early 70s New Morning, an underrated album which, although it occupies a semi-obscure place in the Bob canon, has Bob playing a lot of piano along with some great stuff on it like Sign On The Window and Went To See The Gypsy. This version of Dogs was as good if not better than the other versions I have heard Bob play of it since becoming a fairly regular song in the set list from around the year 2000.

In harmony with the cosmic sea
True love needs no company
It can cure the soul, it can make it whole
If dogs run free

Straight after Dogs came a rocking Highway 61 Revisited and once again I have to admit it was time to close my eyes in the middle of the crowd as I floated there disembodied within my own space, feeding off a power saturated in a high volume chug that I only wished would never stop. Stu and Larry exchanged some fierce Fender interplay between them, whilst Bob stood there to the side rocking away behind his electric piano, encouraging the two of them to push the boundaries on Highway as far as they could go, far on up the road, highway even, and right across the border.

As the show progressed the noise level inside the arena markedly increased, there was no doubt that the crowd was a very receptive one and it was almost certain that in the bars along the sides and to the back of the main floor area business would have been ticking over very nicely. It was not that difficult to see why Bob always seemed to make sure he included a date in Cardiff whenever he hit the UK for a prolonged period of time. He just seemed to be really into it, and it was heart warming to witness what was his admittedly barely discernable appreciation of the Welsh Celtic roar. Without fail after every song there was a sea of arms outstretched in the air accompanied by mighty cheers, so it really would have been very difficult for anyone to remain completely indifferent when receiving such a positive reception each and every time they came to town.

A rare Shooting Star from Bob’s critically well received 1989 album Oh Mercy followed next, which was definitely one for the collectors who were at the show that evening, but it was not in my opinion one of his best efforts of the night, sounding more than a little rusty and I was glad when he dispensed with it so that we could get back to business again with another great take of Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again. It is a long song and the live versions that Bob sometimes plays of it make it even longer, stretching things out to over 10 minutes, allowing one to stand back and inhabit the landscapes found within the indefinably wide and generous borders of what is in my opinion one of the best cuts on Blonde on Blonde.

The next song however soon made me forget all about a more than adequate Mobile because it was a stupendous take of Honest with Me from Love and Theft, and which was very possibly the best number of the whole damn show. It was watertight as Bob delivered his best vocal performance of the night by far, sweat dripping down the sides of his face which bore an expression of no mean intensity. Needless to say I stood there yet again with my eyes closed drinking in the radiance, whilst the sound of Bob and the boys filled the arena with an indescribable federal glory of messengers riding over the plains bearing some incredible news. The life giving sun was shining on my back, colouring the landscape in the deep shades of terrestrial Yankee trails running through some of the most mystical canyons which you are ever likely to find yourself in. Funny thing is that Honest with Me is a song which no one gets particularly excited about when they see it appear on his current set lists, but it just so happens that Bob and the boys play it at such an awesomely high level of quality that it is naturally elevated to the point of being head and shoulders above everything else standing either side of it, and at the CIA it was simply incredible to the point of being quite magnificent.

When I opened my eyes again towards the end of Honest with Me I focused on Bob, saw this twisted up kind of figure crouching over his piano to the side of the stage wearing his Stetson hat and with wild streams of sweat dripping from his brow. I thought there was no way in hell he would be doing all of this unless he was deeply in love with it, looking 200 years old one minute then barely 20 years old the next: he was the ultimate shape shifter, the Original Song and Dance Man from the Land of the Star Spangled Banner. If you were going to play music then this was the way to do it. The version of Honest with Me had in fact been so damn good that an It Ain’t Me Babe which followed passed me by in a bit of a blur because I was still in recovery mode from what I had just witnessed. The main set then finished with Summer Days which of course was good enough, fast enough and loud enough to more than ensure that when Bob and the boys lined up at the front of the stage for The Formation they were greeted with wild cheers and howls of approval from the thousands of people packed into the arena. I was right there in amongst them, letting whatever sounds which came from the back of my throat fly right out of me, my arms waving in the air whilst Bob and the boys stood there expressionless as they stared at the crowd before one by one leaving the stage.

As far as the encore was concerned there was little in the way of surprises with the three songs performed being the same as what had been played for each encore in virtually every Bob show on the Never Ending Tour throughout the whole of 2003 and 2004. This was of course the point where those who knew a thing or two about what to expect from this current series of shows would no doubt hope Bob would suddenly change his way of thinking and shake up the pack a bit. There was really no chance of that happening however so the show in Cardiff was no exception in that what we got were the entirely predictable Cat’s in the Well, Like a Rolling Stone and All Along the Watchtower all served up in that order, just like they had been on every night so far of 2004. To include the latter two was quite understandable, they were without doubt two of Bob’s most famous songs and he was still able to deliver them with an energy and power that ensured they actually got better over the years and hardly ever sounded worn out or tired, which of course was something of an awesome achievement in itself.

Cat’s in the Well however was another matter, because in the ultimate analysis it was, at best, a fair to middling song that was to be found at the end of Under the Red Sky, his 1991 album which was poorly received by the critics and then saw him enter an extended period of hibernation so far as releasing any new original material was concerned. A few years ago I was happy to hear it, but now I felt it was time for Bob to put Cat’s in the Well to bed for a while, a good long while maybe, although at the moment there was fat chance of that ever happening. As first song in the encore this Cat’s in the Well in Cardiff was really no different to all the other Cat’s I had heard Bob perform down through the years. The noise of the electric guitars was enjoyable enough, possibly inspired even, but I did feel the verses and chorus were plain fare as far as the pen of Bob was concerned, the nursery rhyme tinged landscape they painted being rather flat. Funny thing is he actually played far better versions of it back in the early 90s and which might just go to show that in the long run Cat’s is never really going to stand a chance of ageing that well.

Like a Rolling Stone was as welcome as it was inevitable, being the only song at the moment which is seemingly always played without fail by Bob and the boys. It has now got to the point where the circumstances are going to have to be pretty exceptional for it to ever be omitted from the set list, probably something like a Hurricane was needed to kick it out the park, but never in a billion years was that ever gonna happen. It was a less rocking version of Stone this time around, with Larry seated behind a steel guitar and Bob of course on the electric piano, but when the point came for the bright lights from the stage to be shone out over everyone, the packed crowd went absolutely wild, even if some of the rock had indeed been taken out of this particular Stone by way of there being no Fender guitar union to bring a bit of an axe to it.

Nevertheless it all blended nicely into the final song of the night, All Along the Watchtower, during which Larry remained behind the steel and the band duly produced a truly stunning version of this hard, dark and deeply prophetic song of Bob’s from his late 60s John Wesley Harding. It is a number which these days is generally remembered more from being covered by Jimi Hendrix, but in my opinion Bob had been blasting the Hendrix Watchtower out of the water for many, many years now. This particular Watchtower was no exception and could only leave the listener filled with images of the storm to come, where missed signposts by a lonely crossroads on the highway would surely come back to bite once we came to fully understand the message its singer was trying to deliver us.

The end of this three song encore signalled the end of what was a 17 song set. Naturally the crowd cheered like crazy for more but there was absolutely nothing doing in that department, something which came as no surprise to me. There was simply no chance of Bob and the boys coming back on, he was almost certainly already out of the building and on his way to a possible ayurvedic rubdown on the back seat of his tour bus. Or maybe just a nice big bourbon on the rocks. It had been a variable set ranging from exceptional takes of Honest with Me, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Cold Irons Bound, Highway 61 Revisited, and All Along the Watchtower to more or less asleep at the wheel renditions of Girl from the North Country, Just Like a Woman, Shooting Star and Cat’s in the Well. Then there was all the rest lurking between the poles and within the shadows, overall though it had been awesome, simply awesome to see Bob again!

Since I was in the middle of the crowd and pretty close to the front, it took me quite a while to make my way out of the arena. There were a great many people who were not bothering to move that quickly to the exits, preferring to linger and chat about the show they had just witnessed whilst taking in the last echoes of what was an incredible buzz. That was fine by me, I was a little disorientated from the ear ringing I was experiencing myself, and on top of that my body felt like it had really been put through the mincer after five hours or so of standing upright, the last two of those being right in the middle of a packed and sweaty crowd in front of a wall of hard, pounding noise pumped out by Bob and the boys. All of it after a very late session the night  before at Cannabis Rik’s, where it had felt at times like I was in the presence of a fakir, but dues had now been paid and the feeling of just reward and purification that I had tasted was very sweet.

There was a considerable amount of congestion around the exit doors because right beside them were the merchandise stalls, in front of which an awful lot of people were now gathered, hungry to buy something as a memento or just simply to the add to their collections. I did make a half-hearted attempt to position myself in order to get my hands on a Bob Dylan sheriff’s badge, but I gave up after I saw there was not going to be any chance of getting served for at least another 20 minutes. The badge would just have to wait for another time, well, Sunday in fact, which of course was when I would be seeing Bob again at The Fleadh in London’s Finsbury Park and where I would be not on my own but with Ronan Dale, otherwise known as the Wizard. Once outside the CIA and in the fresh air of a pleasant evening in the middle of June, I weighed up the possibilities of picking up a takeaway curry on my way back to the flat in Penarth and decided that it would indeed be a good thing to do.

Setlist Cardiff International Arena 18th June 2004 –

Seeing the Real You at Last
It’s All Over Now Baby Blue
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
Just Like a Woman
Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine
Girl from the North Country
Cold Irons Bound
If Dogs Run Free
Highway 61 Revisited
Shooting Star
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
Honest with Me
It Ain’t Me Babe
Summer Days
Cat’s in the Well
Like a Rolling Stone
All Along the Watchtower

Bob Dylan Live: Gettin’ My Tickets & Bein’ Burglarized

Bob Dylan Live: The Fleadh, Finsbury Park, London, June 2004