Monday, November 21, 2011

Bob Dylan, Mark Knopfler Hammersmith Apollo
19th November




Compared to Dylan's appearance at the Feis earlier this year (see prior post) there were few moments of risk in evidence tonight, and the spare sound which made some songs particularly resonant (Simple Twist of Fate and Forgetful Heart), was absent. Dylan was energetic, but the music had little light or shade to my ears, except Things Have Changed, sung against a sinister toppling drumbeat, and a successfully claustrophic Ballad of a Thin Man barked out against an echo - the first time I've ever heard Bob play with special effects. I think my unreceptive mood was down to being three rows from the front, a very competitive space to be, instead of a little further back where I could have just enjoyed the spectacle. Knopfler was the one who blew me away, with a set both precise and improvisatory in places. Mark should release a live version of his set, he's winning fans with these shows.


Mark Knopfler

1 What It Is
2 Cleaning My Gun
3 Sailing To Philadelphia
4 Hill Farmer's Blue
5 Privateering
6 Sonny Liston
7 Haul Away
8 Marbletown
9 Brothers In Arms
10 Speedway At Nazareth
11 So Far Away


Bob Dylan

1 Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (With Knopfler)
2 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (With Knopfler)
3 Things Have Changed (With Knopfler)
4 Mississippi (With Knopfler)
5 Honest With Me
6 The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
7 Ballad Of Hollis Brown
8 Make You Feel My Love
9 Highway 61 Revisited
10 A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
11 Thunder On The Mountain
12 Ballad Of A Thin Man
13 All Along The Watchtower
14 Jolene
15 Like A Rolling Stone

Decide for yourself




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