Stockholm, Sweden (28-Mar-07)

DISCS (2) D756.su
SOUND A1 Crystal Cat cream.
IMAGE Compelling high quality film (see screenshots) from a perfect half-left raised position - clearly an excellent camera in very capable hands. Slow, easy, beautifully controlled movements all around the band give this one a very professional feel. Better yet, the few passages of spoilt or missing film have been made good with substitute footage patched in so cleverly that, unless it wasn’t in giveaway black and white, you wouldn’t even notice was there. After short fixes to Cat's In The Well and Don't Think Twice, most of LARS is reconstructed this way and the technique works a treat. Top class.
RUNNING TIME Disc One: 55:30, Disc Two (including Gothenburg bonus): 53:20. All songs audio complete with occasional video gaps in-filled as above.
PERFORMANCE After an 18 week winter break - his longest since 1988/9 - Bob arrived in Stockholm late in March 2007 to begin another touring year. The first date of his European Spring campaign (28 shows, ten countries, 40 days) on the 27th at Debaser Medis was played to just 700 lucky fans, with the set-list clearly a work-in-progress (second cut Not Dark Yet, for example, would not be heard again all year and Tears Of Rage no more until October). Then, next night at the 16,000-seat Globe Arena – the show we see here – it was more business as usual, though the try-out process continued, with this evening’s second slice of Country Pie the tour’s (indeed, 2007’s) last and both North Country Girl and Honest With Me subsequently filed under Incidentals: Just Now And Then.

The band also punch pretty consistently beneath their collective weight, with playing typified by caution, reserve, by studied deliberation, as if the down-time rust is not yet quite shelled away. Thus River Flow is restrained and tame, It’s Alright Ma devoid of the barb, of the fire that repeat performance will give it, Honest is delivered at a debilitating half-power while Summer Days is positively anaemic. And Modern Times Bob without his trademark Spanish hat - either the black or the white - reinforces the impression, tousled locks unkempt as ever, of rehearsal room informality over concert hall chic. (The bearded, flop-haired Donnie, meanwhile, looks a dead ringer - see second screenshot - for c'71 Eric Clapton.) But, bearing in mind that Silvio line about giving up and gaining, other songs feel the benefit. Thus Don't Think Twice is light, bouncy and gorgeous, Deal is perfectly suited to the night's reined-in mood (though my favourite soul to soul couplet is gone in favour of two of those grating "more frailers"!), North Country Girl makes it through intact, thanks mainly to some choice closing harp and Nettie Moore, understated and delicate, is (not for the first time - see D739.su, among others) a joy.

Then there’s Hard Rain, arguably his first great song (in Freewheelin’s liner notes he calls it "a desperate kind of song"), now nearly half a century old, though the ballad - Lord Randal - it re-works dates back to the time of Cromwell. And what we discover here anew in tonight’s simply orchestrated, no frills reading is that, like fine wine, like Paul Newman or the Statue of Liberty, it ages well, is a biter still, its naked truths stark now as ever they were. Taboo? No, but tremendous? Yes indeed. I saw a new-born baby* with wild wolves all around it. Where did such lines come from, to a Minnesota hayseed, fresh off the bus, then just 21? From God, surely, or whatever other word you care to lay on such ineffable mystery. LARS is less swaggering and acerbic than often but all the better for that. After starting out in third, tonight’s Thunder bird finally clicks into top and chugs home in good shape. And finally, after the song has served for so many years as one of D's encore bankers, what a nice touch by D756.su's author to close with a mellow right-profile Me Babe from Gothenburg (1 April), so contriving to leave us with a welcome brief reprise of guitar Bob to boot. A lovely sign-off from an extra special double DVD.
COMMENT When you first slot in Disc One, be prepared to do nothing more than sit back and listen for a while, for under the title page (as with D654.su from the same stable) there’s a sweet-sounding audio extra - in this case a complete eleven minute Des Row from Copenhagen (2 April), with further similar treats on the menu page that follows and both title and menu pages of Disc Two. I love such added value bonus surprises (check out D280.sse, D587.su, D623.su - that DVD’s only redeeming feature - and the D441 series for more of the same).
BIG THANKS Black Cat (Buda too)
STARS D756.su offers superb audio and video recordings of an enjoyable early 2007 performance. Five, of course.

*(named, presumably, Bob Dylan)

Another brilliant 07 show. I've been awaiting this since i first saw the It's Alright Ma on youtube. Every song is executed perfectly, The band play exceptionally, the setlist is brilliant, the crowd love it, fine camera work, an overwhelming crystal cat soundtrack to go with it. I think its very hard to say any song was better than another but for me, the absolute out standing was Girl From The North Country and the opening Cats in the Well.