Philadelphia, PA (09-Nov-09)

Since the end of 2002, after Charlie Sexton left Bob's band and then Bob decided to play nearly all keyboard, a lot of the shows seemed to become predictable and a lot of the arrangements of the songs quite bland, although there are still odd shows which are worth seeking out and this is one of those shows.
The picture quality is as good as i've seen and the colours are crisp and clean. The audio is as good as any i've heard and is up there with the best Crystal Cat recordings.
The filmer does an excellent job and i dont think there is a blank screen in the whole show. From where she is filming, she gets a good sideview of Bob, which means, as Charlie does'nt stray far from Bob for most of the show, he gets a lot of screen time also and quite often he plays his guitar while kneeling in front of Bob.
I think the difference between Charlie and the other guitarists who have been in the band before he came back, is that Charlie seems relaxed playing with Bob and enjoy's himself, where the others seem like rabbits caught in the headlights and are scared stiff of Bob and of making a mistake. I am sure they are all competent musicians, but perhaps they need to try and relax and enjoy what they are doing, as surely there must be worse jobs around.
As for the performance it is pretty much all very good to excellent. The only real big let down for me, was the arrangement of Desolation Row.It did'nt start off too bad but just got worse as it went on, it is normally one of the highlights of most of Bob's concerts, but tonight he absolutely murdered it and just to make sure it was'nt going to rise from the dead, he threw in what a lot of people call up-singing, personally i call it crap, and by the end of of the song it sounded like he was singing a childrens nursery rhyme.
Highlights for me, were an excellent Tryin to get to heaven and Man in the long black coat, and the version of Ballad of a thin man would have been worth the price of the ticket on its own and has gone to the top of my list as the best arrangement of it that i've heard.
This is a great dvd to have, everything about it is 5 stars, picture, sound, authouring, and despite the awful Desolation Row,this performance is as good as you will get to a 5 star Bob show from this era of the N.E.T. So seek it out i'm sure you will enjoy it.
Thanks to everyone who played a part in putting this dvd together.