Munich, Germany (19-Jul-81)

DISCS (2) D636.su
SOUND Mostly fine and always enjoyable audience tape.
IMAGE A static, unobstructed left tiered-seats film giving a good, oblique view of the stage. Pleasingly well-preserved (much better than D593.su, for instance) and significantly more handsome than the screenshots (bottom one especially) suggest. Though the frame hardly varies throughout (principal exception being the sign-off Me Babe), stage and players are lit with a subtlety and variety that adds appreciably to viewing pleasure. Good enough, then, to be going on with? Ooh yes.
RUNNING TIME Disc one Munich starts halfway through verse two of LARS (the concert’s third song) and runs without further clips through to the end of Forever Young 38 and a half minutes later. There then follows a fine bonus solo One Too Many Mornings from (perhaps) East Rutherford ‘86. This runs 4:30 and can be individually accessed via the line of text at the foot of the menu screen. Disc Two (no bonuses) runs 67:30. Though all songs on D636.su except LARS are entire, four of the set-list’s original 27 - i.e. Saved (#1), I Believe In You (#2), Times (#12) and Heaven’s Door (#27) - went unrecorded. (In fact disc two opens with the last few strums of Times and its absence is a particular shame since, as D570 thrice confirms, it was, along with GNC and Forever Young, one of this tour’s bankers.) But more than enough here to please all the same.
PERFORMANCE I came to this DVD from having watched two shows (D109.su, D705.su) from 1987. It’s tempting when presented with such second-rate fare to make excuses, to tell yourself it’s not really so bad and that any D, surely, has to be better than none. But this terrific 1981 Munich performance rams home the stark truth of the matter, which is that, lame excuses aside, the extent of D's decline in the period '81-'87 is frightening. On these discs we see a committed performer fronting a well-schooled band, on top of his job, 100% word-perfect, offering night after night a demanding but exemplary 27/28* song set, with belief in his purpose shining from him like sunlight off diamonds. Come 1985, though, and he's telling Biograph interviewer Cameron Crowe that "Sometimes ... I get by on only 50% of what I got, sometimes even less..." And it would get worse before finally, thankfully, mercifully, against all odds, it got better.
HIGHLIGHTS You won’t see much of North Country Girl here because it’s played in near-darkness. But the audio catches beautifully, just as it was, the cascading piano that storms like the song’s snowflakes over an enchanted crowd. This Forever Young, too, reprises the lovely God’s-breath harmonica he used to grace that song with nightly. Slow Train, though missing a touch of its original whomp is still skin-tinglingly good. T Man and JLAW both stand proud whilst the perky Heart Of Mine, with D on organ, survives the test of time rather better than its arguably more heavyweight but overly-preachy set-list neighbours. And then there’s last and best. As noted above, this concert actually closed with Heaven’s Door, but that it’s missing here and we end instead with Me Babe is just fine, for it’s a typically charismatic standalone performance filmed in classic lone-D-in-spotlight style, with him all but lost in black screen as the camera pulls back but filling your ears the while with glorious ringing guitar and soaring vocal. Little big man indeed, and even a Goodnight! to finish. Whooh-HOOH!
THANKS JL, HW too.
STARS Forget sad '87 and try this beauty for size. Five big ones.

*Though might the fans who saw him at Blackbushe in 1978 give an astonishing 32 possibly have felt, three years on, short-changed? And, if so, (ungrateful beggars), I wonder how the present-day average of fifteen strikes them? No-one, though, surely, can seriously accuse Bob of not paying his dues in full, and then some?

Now this is why I collect DVDs. Just now and then one of them pops it's head above the mass and just shouts "watch me". (Not that I'd willingly give up any of the others,.. you're speaking about a guy who's proudly got #D518 on his shelves )
OK it's missing a couple of tracks, but what you get is more or less the complete concert, with no breaks other than disc one/two.
It has it's faults, colour's way over to the Red, the black is very black, all movement is followed by an afterimage/shadow, and the focus isn't that sharp at all. But what else do you expect from an '81 recording ? It's only near the end that you realise just how far from the stage our taper was, that he (why do always assume it's a He ?) was able to zoom in as close as he did is a wonder in itself, and a testament to the quality of his machine.
So what do you get ?. Full stage, all the band included for a change, and the picture is rock solid, no movement at all, makes it very easy to watch. And Bob himself ?, well maybe not one of his finest concerts, no real stand-out track, nothing that makes you hit the "back" button, but then there's nothing that'll make you hit the "skip" button either. Just a great '81 concert, the only question being ; Why is there such huge gaps in my '81 tape list ? That after watching this I want to go and fill them is reason enough to give it 5 stars.
Can't let the Sound Upgrade pass without comment, got an excellent source for the sound, and it's patched in perfectly. Quite often you get that feeling that somethings not just spot on, or the tape speeds up/slows down relative to the sound. But here, no. How it was done I don't know, visual clues are few and far apart, but somehow they managed it. (and it's always easier to tell when somethings not right..)
Found one of these early '80's video cameras last year, clearing out some cupboards to get some decorating done, (one of those houses where every new gadget is bought, used once, then stored away.)
Came in, filled, a small armoured suitcase, and the weight ! A "Real Man's" machine. I was offered it, and of course my first thought was "how great to film some of these concerts up here" but sanity prevailed. Only an idiot would even think they could get one of these into any concert hall. And as for setting it up to see/tape the stage ? Well I don't think I'd last beyond the band intros.
The price tickets were still in the box, suffice to say my last van didn't cost as much, - without allowing for inflation.
But our taper here, he not only got one of these machines, "Sorry Kids, Santa's only left an orange again this year, but look what Daddy bought Mummy for her Xmas", he then decided on the aparently kamikaze course of taking it into the hall, "If you loose that recorder, don't bother coming home", and managing that, sets it up to record the concert, all for us. Words fail me.
Just great. 5 Stars.