Sunrise, FL (01-Feb-02)

I rate this 5 because of the nice work done on the video and the perfect audio source. The video has a few combined sources with one coming from the right side which seems to be the clearest. The center view is not as clear but it is still enjoyable. Every year we see Bob having a slightly different approach to his performance and in 2002 his voice is very rough and ragged. However, it is definitely enjoyable. I doubt Bob wants to perform the same songs and do the same thing every tour so I really enjoy this 2002 tour. It also tends to be more laid back and the songs are not as melodic but they have a certain drive that stretches them further along the spectrum. Bob recreates the songs and alot of the times you might not recognize them if you only heard them from the original album but this is what makes Bob and his band great. I love different arrangements. It makes it really exciting. Now to the performance. It is great for this particular tour that takes the songs in different directions. The highlight for me is always It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding). I love the way he performs this song from 2002 and tonight it sounds really unique. High water was great too. Knockin on heavens door is truly beautiful on this one. The background singing "whooooo's" are just magic along with Bob's smooth singing on the chorus. To me, the performance on the second disc has more energy with bob continually getting into the performance as it goes along. I would tell anyone who enjoys this particular tour to go ahead and get this one.

DISCS (2) D178.su
SOUND As good as it gets.
IMAGE Two cameras are shooting tonight, though neither continuously. The better one is a long way back in the left-side balcony. The film it collects is fresh and clean (third screenshot, though much of it looks better than that) and its operator does a fine job throughout both in maintaining control and moving easily and all-inclusively round the band. Though the right-side rig is nearer, its footage (second screenshot, again not a very typical example) is less sharp and not always quite perfectly framed. Through to the end of Sugar Baby, the two films are edited together in impressive though unnecessarily tricksy style. The closing seven songs are then all one cam only (two from the right then five from the left) presumably due to one or other no longer filming. Obstruction problems: none. Coloration starts grey-green and muted but progressively strengthens. Overall standard is excellent - only absence of close-ups stops this one winning prizes.
RUNNING TIME Disc one: 61:45. Disc two: 55:30. Audio bonus: 5:55. As on D123, there are regular between-song cuts, but the only performance footage missing is the first 1:40 (one and a half verses) of first encore song Things Have Changed.
PERFORMANCE Second concert of 2002, another highly successful 100+ date year - a year that would end with Bob performing half of each show from behind an electric keyboard. This started early in October - and what was the very first song he delivered this way? A maybe statement-of-intent Solid Rock. No sign of a keyboard here in Sunrise, though (or, strangely, of Oscar). Just a man and his band on top form, doing what they do best and doing it well. It's new boy George's second gig and, perched behind his drumkit, taking it all in, he must be thinking he's landed in clover. There's a notable variation in pace and push as the set unfolds - thus Soldier's Grave, which starts tonight with some lovely harp, is much slower than usual and, as a result, stripped for once of its tacky veneer of cornball insincerity. Me Babe is featherlight and fine and the haunting acoustic/electric hybrid Heaven's Door finer still. Between times, D leans into LD Blues, Tangled, Summer Days and a scorching Honest With Me with enough grit to belie his sixty years. Larry's mandolin part in Ramona is exquisite. Indeed, his contribution throughout, though proffered with typical self-effacing understatement, is immense. The electric slide he plays on LD Blues is his seventh different instrument in the show's first eight numbers (and this not including fiddle, not played tonight). As if that wasn't enough, he then in John Brown reprises the cittern first used in It's Alright Ma, but now capoed at the 12th fret, giving him precious little neck to work with but a lute-like sound for more variety still. Bob may choose to call his present band his best - but he's a conveniently short memory!
COMMENT (1) Listen out, in Wind, for a minor lyric variation. (2) After each harp-break, D slips the harp in his trouser pocket. So when did his trick of flinging it on the floor (as seen on D034.su, D685 and elsewhere) first creep in?
THANKS DB + all concerned.
STARS What could make D178.su better? More close-ups, as noted above, and maybe a nine-verse Desolation Row. In truth, though, it's pretty darned good as it is. Don't miss it. Five.