New York, NY (19-Nov-01)

DISCS (2) D190.su
SOUND Excellent, full-bodied audience recording.
IMAGE The screenshots tell the tale. Tonight’s camera is in the right-side balcony and the film it collects is bright and colourful though far from sharp. Its view, wholly unobstructed, is across the front of the stage, giving a half-left profile of D with Charlie and Kemper behind. Apart from three isolated dizzy spells, handling is rock steady throughout, though aim is occasionally a shade higher than ideal. Though there are no good close-ups, or anything like, this is a fine example of a band video i.e. one that spends lots of time pulled back just enough to showcase the unit in action rather than any one individual. A diligent, accomplished and ultimately highly successful effort.
RUNNING TIME Disc one: 72:35. Disc two: 75:00. Complete show.
PERFORMANCE A month ago I saw and thoroughly enjoyed D188.su, the Philadelphia gig that immediately preceded this one and I can’t give a better recommendation than to say that D190.su is every bit as good. Indeed, the two set-lists are almost the same and Bob does his stuff with equal, blithe assurance on each occasion. Here in MSG he’s sporting his Mark Twain look again (see D595.su review) - baggy white suit, shaggy grey head - and a hundred years on from his illustrious forebear he too stands at the pinnacle of the pre-eminent form of popular culture of his day, if not a Man of Letters exactly, then a Man of Music beyond doubt. It’s Bob’s first appearance in New York since the material and mental devastation of 9/11, a wound then just ten weeks old. And in the midst of introducing the band he breaks off to pay his own understated but sincere tribute to his spiritual home:

Most of the songs we're playin' tonight were written here and those that weren't were recorded here, so no one has to ask me how I feel about this town.

He then goes on to introduce Larry as a “multi-instrumentalist” and Kemper, more revealingly, as “the only drummer who's better than no drummer at all”. When, towards the close of the show, he sings Blowin’ - first heard forty years back on a stage just a few miles from this one, and asking in 1962 the same enduring questions - How many times? How many deaths? - as haunt every mind now that saw those twin towers fall, it struck me that here was where this concert ought to end. But then, as he led the band through a storming valedictory Watchtower, visceral and uplifting, I realised, not for the first time, that maybe Bob knows best after all.
HIGHLIGHTS The opening seven cuts are all superb, though even the coarse braying vocal of LD Blues entirely befits that song’s rough-hewn rugged cast. Of the six from then new album L&T, my pick would be the soberly delivered and particularly well-filmed Sugar Baby. Even author Ace weighs in here with a tasteful patch to finish it up (and look out during RDW for his whole box of Cineman tricks in one).
COMMENT (1) D contributes fine harp in Me Babe, JLAW and Don’t Think Twice. He starts that first break with his back to the hall and you wonder if he’s going into Eric Clapton/Miles Davis shun-the-people mode. In fact, he’s just playing to that section of the crowd seated in back of stage and band, this being merely the first of repeated acknowledgements they receive from him through the course of the show. (2) For an engaging eye-witness account from a performer, writer and longtime fan who attended this gig, visit peterstonebrown.com and look under Writings.
THANKS Black Cat
STARS Five, of course.