From: prezdudely@gmail.com   
      
   On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 5:36:01 PM UTC-4, Christopher Rollason wrote:   
   > BOB DYLAN AT THE GRAND REX: PARIS, 11 OCTOBER 2022    
   >    
   > The splendid decor of the Grand Rex venue in Paris, with its gothic and   
   arabesque adornments recalling an Edgar Allan Poe interior, provided a fitting   
   setting on 11 October 2022 for the first of three Parisian shows on the   
   European leg of Bob Dylan’s    
   Rough and Rowdy Ways tour - named after his most recent album from 2020 and   
   scheduled to stretch from 2021 to 2024. This gig was actually my first   
   opportunity to sample this tour, and before reviewing the concert as such I   
   would like to make some general    
   comments on the setlist, which has scarcely changed since the tour began.    
   >    
   > The setlist is appended to this review as it was on 11 October, though my   
   comments here will concern the entire tour so far. It is far from being   
   arbitrary: indeed, it has obviously been very consciously constructed. It   
   features nine (originally eight)    
   of the ‘new’ album’s ten tracks, the only one left out being ‘Murder   
   Most Foul’, the sixteen-minute epic about the Kennedy assassination,   
   presumably on grounds of length. These nine songs are complemented by seven   
   (briefly six) older Dylan    
   songs and one cover version (briefly two and later changed). The two classes   
   of song (from the ‘new’ album/not from it) are carefully interspersed so   
   that no more than two of the Rough and Rowdy Ways songs or two of the   
   ‘old’ songs are performed    
   sequentially: alternance rules, and the message is surely that the old   
   complements the new and vice versa. There have been very few changes since the   
   tour began. Over time so far, we have had ‘Early Roman Kings’ from   
   2012’s Tempest edged out by the    
   new album’s ‘Crossing the Rubicon’; the Sinatra cover ‘Melancholy   
   Mood’ substituted by ‘That Old Black Magic’ from the same stable; and,   
   very briefly in California, for three shows, ‘Every Grain of Sand’   
   surprisingly replaced as closing    
   number by a cover of the Grateful Dead’s ‘Friend of the Devil’. For the   
   rest, the keyword is continuity: the setlist is a work of art.    
   >    
   > The selection of ‘old’ songs might have appeared eccentric to some. This   
   is no greatest hits selection, far from it – as commentators have inevitably   
   observed, no ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, no ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. Nor   
   is any particular    
   album privileged, with the only two songs from the same album – ‘Watching   
   the River Flow’ and ‘When I Paint My Masterpiece’ – being from a   
   compilation (More Bob Dylan Greatest Hits, 1971). Of the remaining Dylan   
   compositions retained, the    
   oldest is ‘Most Likely You Go Away (and I’ll Go Mine)’ (from Blonde on   
   Blonde, 1966); the best-known ‘I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight’ (from John   
   Wesley Harding, 1967); the most controversial ‘Gotta Serve Somebody’, from   
   Dylan’s religious    
   period (Slow Train Coming, 1979); and the best ‘Every Grain of Sand’, also   
   from that period (Shot of Love, 1981), but on a whole other poetic level. This   
   leaves the particular case of ‘To Be Alone With You’, from Dylan’s   
   ‘country period’ (   
   Nashville Skyline, 1969), rewritten to the point where it comes over as   
   virtually a different and more complex song. Virtually all the ‘old’ songs   
   have undergone, to a greater or lesser degree, lyric changes which are not   
   necessarily improvements,    
   the outstanding and fortunate exception being an effectively unchanged   
   ‘Every Grain of Sand’.    
   >    
   > To return to Paris, it is gratifying to signal that the collective   
   atmosphere in the packed-to-capacity concert hall was extremely warm,   
   convivial and sympathetic to a Dylan who was visibly in a good mood and   
   obviously relishing the songs. His delivery    
   tended to separate the songs’ lines and phrases into fragments, a technique   
   which may be related to his age but which has the virtue of capturing phrases   
   for reflection. This technique arguably did not take too well in his delivery   
   on the opener, ‘   
   Watching the River Flow’, where the phrases seemed more like bleeding   
   chunks, but was better integrated in the immediately following numbers and   
   allowed some precious deliveries of key phrases like ‘The city of God is   
   there on the hill’ (‘False    
   Prophet’) or the Shakespearean ‘winter of my discontent’ (‘My Own   
   Version of You’). At the end, ‘Every Grain of Sand’ - in itself one of   
   the best songs he has ever written - was performed with a declamatory energy   
   that provided a remarkable    
   culmination to the evening. The song which received the strongest ovation of   
   recognition was the familiar ‘I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight’, but ‘new’   
   numbers including ‘I Contain Multitudes’ and ‘Key West’ were also   
   greeted with strong    
   applause, indicating that those present also knew and valued the recent   
   material and saw Dylan as no museum-piece.    
   >    
   > As the evening unfolded, the musicians’ performance was invariably superb,   
   and Bob Dylan’s, though variable, at its best plumbed uncanny depths. After   
   ‘Every Grain of Sand’, sections of the public cried out for an encore –   
   a wish not granted,    
   but nonetheless it was clear that artist and audience had enjoyed the   
   spectacle to a similar degree. The Grand Rex had witnessed a fine and moving   
   evening, and of which – for time passes – we, Bob Dylan’s audience, may   
   not see the like again.    
   >    
   > **    
   >    
   > SETLIST (same for all this tour so far; songs from Rough and Rowdy Ways   
   (2020) in italics)    
   >    
   > Watching the River Flow (More Bob Dylan Greatest Hits, 1971)    
   > Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine) (Blonde on Blonde, 1966)    
   > I Contain Multitudes    
   > False Prophet    
   > When I Paint My Masterpiece (More Bob Dylan Greatest Hits, 1971)    
   > Black Rider    
   > My Own Version of You    
   > I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (John Wesley Harding, 1967)    
   > Crossing the Rubicon    
   > To Be Alone With You (Nashville Skyline, 1969; rewritten)    
   > Key West (Philosopher Pirate)    
   > Gotta Serve Somebody (Slow Train Coming, 1979)    
   > I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You    
   > That Old Black Magic (Fallen Angels, 2016; Sinatra cover)    
   > Mother of Muses    
   > Goodbye Jimmy Reed    
   > Every Grain of Sand (Shot of Love, 1981)   
      
   thank you, Dr Rollason, for your contribution   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)