Back home ! What a night... As promised, here is my review.
I was lucky enough to meet Isaac and to have a good chat with him about his trips. Very nice guy indeed !
Isaac as usual managed to get a seat at row #1 - I was only row #14, center stage. The view was very good anyway.
Mark stayed on stage for exactly 1 hour 13 minutes - the time is pretty tightly controlled ! No band introduction, almost no speech, straight to the point.
I decided to record the show in a poor manner - just using the voice memo app on my iphone and going stealth. The result is not that bad, please let me know if you are interested.
As people noticed in other show, some Dylan fans came late and disturbed the audience while seating. Not very nice, but we had to bear with it...
I really hoped "Why Aye Man" as an opener, as I never got a chance to see it live... But no, just like last year, the concert was kicked-off by "What It Is". However, the disappointement was quicly forgotten: this version was energetic as hell ! Mark was in top form, standing and even dancing, the flute did not take over the guitar as in the Simfy recordings, and we got quite a few powerful licks, reminiscent of the 2001/2002 versions...awsome ! Ian Thomas' druming was very energetic too, a little bit more than Dany's.
Then I was lucky to hear "Cleaning My Gun", which I could not hear last year. Quite a powerful version as well.
A good version of "Sailing to Philadelphia" followed; I got the impression in the end that Jim was out of sync and got a strange look by Mark, but maybe I got it all wrong...
"Hill Farmer's blues" was as gorgeous as always, very powerful outro solo.
"Privateering" was the highlight of the show, I had heard it before thanks to the recording that was posted, but hearing live was quite a treat. The song has really great potential.
Then we got into a section that I found a bit disappointing: Mark had a short speech to thank Bob for the invitation, and to say "we are going to do some new songs", leading me to think that we would get more than one... He said "I think we have done this one in Paris last time, I'm pretty sure"... Then the band played "Done with Bonaparte", a not-so-powerful version, in C key rather than D like last year, and I thought "why is he saying that ? DWB was played in almost every show last year, not only in Paris...". I got the explanation with the next song, which was "A Night In Summer Long Ago", which was the special feature of Paris show last year; this version was fine, but I couldn't help thinking that I would have prefered to get the new "Haul Away" song rather than the one I already got last year in the same venue... If the same songs are always played in the same venue, I will have to travel to hear some new ones !
Finally, third disappointement, "Song for Sony Liston": not only I dislike the song (dull and boring to me), but also it was played with Mark's new blue guitar, which sound was highly distorted. Not for my taste...
Luckily, the end of the concert was terrific again: a fantastic Marbletown, which I'm quite sure was extented compared to 2010, with a lot of interaction between Mark and John, the audience was thrilled. After it was over my heart beat increased: will we get Speedway ? will we rock ? Yeees ! When I heard the familiar intro I was really happy. During the song the "run of bulls" (as copyrighted by Isaac) started, and people rushed off to the stage. I chose to say where I was, the view and sound were excellent anyway....
Speedway's finale was breathtaking, highly energetic, not too fluty, very good version ! After this the crowed begged for some more. The band pretended to have a meeting to decide on what to play... I was really hoping for "Brothers in Arms", but we got "So Far Away" instead; oh well... it was well played, people were cheering, very good atmosphere ! We tried hard to get the band back on stage, but they would not listen - Mr Bob can't wait !
Talking about Mr Bob - I had read and heard plenty of horrors about him. Just before the show Isaac was telling me that Bob would be dull, boring, loud to death, with no voice, and that I would not stand it more than 5 songs. I told him "well, I don't want to die as an idiot... I would not have come just for Bob, but now that I'm here and that I have paid for it anyway, I will give it a try". So, expecting the worse, I was a first pleasantly surprised. True, the guy has no voice anymore, I challenge anybody to understand a single word of what he is singing... but the band is nice, the energy level good, they seem to enjoy themselves, so, at the beginning I did not use the ear plugs I had just bought, and enjoyed the show. After a while, though, I thought something was missing. Not only Mark did not come on stage for a song together, which I think was a shame, but also, I got the impression to get the same song over and over, and my ears started to suffer. I left one or two songs before the end, to avoid the mess, with no remorse.
Indeed a good show, albeit with only one new song from Mark... great mood, great energy, so nice to see him moving around just like in Alchemy time... short show but good overview of his solo career... As of Bob, well, I knew next to nothing about his music before tonight, I'm glad to have discovered him, although the level of excitement was nowhere near what Mark generates; well, at least for me, the Dylan fans in the room seemed so much more motivated and cheering that we were as MK fans, there were all standing from beginning to the end...
I still don't see the point of a Knopfler / Dylan concert if there is no interaction between the two. I would have prefered by far getting 3 hours of MK ! Well, next time...
