London/Shepherd's Bush (23-Nov-03)

I love this dvd because of my own warped reasons

It's close up...most important

Bob clunks on the piano

I think he gets fidgety during Dear Landlord. Bob starts playing with his own face, hair, and then goes over to Tony and says something. He's keeping the beat with his hands. Then he goes to that guitarist (who plays bent over a lot) and taps him keeping that beat. Nothing like letting everyone know the music isn't what it should be...

In the next song he does it to the rhythm section...

and the again in the next song, but with a chuckle... he doesn't seem to be angry about it, which is nice.

Lastly I like this dvd because Bob is bopping around a lot.

Wait... he throws his harmonica out into the audience...nice.

How come the best guitar players on the NET never stick around while the average players hang around forever? Two years of G.E Smith, five years of J.J Jackson. Roughly three years for Charlie Sexton, four years and counting for Stu Kimball and that other guy, you know the one whose playing is as memorable as his name. Which brings us to Freddy Koella and D306.su?
Koella’s tenure on the NET was a short one and again this is a shame as although his style may have divided fan’s opinions, this seemed to have less to do with his actual guitar playing than the fact that he was unlucky enough to not be Charlie Sexton. Despite this I would place him into the former category of great NET guitar players and D306.su documents his playing and stage presence nicely. Of course it doesn’t hurt that the October/November 2003 leg carried on the tradition of great winter tours (1991, 1992, 1999, 2000, 2002). But what of the disc in question?
D306.su. provides a more or less complete, minus a few cuts here and there – most frustratingly during Koella’s excellent Like A Rolling Stone solo - recording. The picture quality is very clear and while it focuses mainly on Dylan there is intermittent panning of the whole band. Thanks to Freddy’s position next to Dylan we also get to witness a lot of the man in question. Despite the su. the sound quality is still a little muddy with Dylan’s vocals buried in the mix, especially when compared to D318 su. sparkling audio, although it is never less than listenable. Oh and on my copy at least the menu was working.
The actual performance starts in a strong bluesy vein with versions of Cold Iron’s Bound, Down Along The Cove and It Takes A lot To Laugh… all along with Under The Red Sky and Positively 4th Street highlighting strong vocals from Bob and Freddy’s ‘unique style; a mixture of Sexton’s melodic, metallic style and Dylan’s ‘random’ style of playing with an added rockabilly twang.
There is also a rare version of Quinn The Eskimo featuring the line ‘…heard a 1000 cat’s meow’ perhaps showing Bob’s liking for the number 1000 preceding as it does Thunder On The Mountain’s, ‘sucked the milk out of a 1000 nows’. But avoiding the numerology in Dylan’s work and sticking to the gig D306.su loses its way a little there after with poor versions of Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues and Most Likely… both suffering with Bob’s voice simply not up to carrying the songs melodies. In fact it is the blues tunes that convince the most throughout the evening, songs like Million Miles with its extemporised ‘Did so many things I never did intend to do – but I did ‘em anyway’ aside, and Tombstone Blues both impressing while songs like Tough Mama and Dear Landlord although looking good on the set list, in my opinion just don’t work.
All in all a good disc, worth having. Although if pushed I would go for D318.su certainly that would be the disc I would watch if I wanted to sample this great tour. Thanks to 11 Dollar Bills for sending me this.