BOB DYLAN - LIVE At the London Palladium 23/10/2022 - Flaggin Down The Double Es

Last Night in London

2022-10-23, London Palladium, London, England

Ray Padgett

Oct 24

SAVE

As I did at the earlier Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour shows I saw (Milwaukee, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans), some quick next-morning thoughts on last night’s show. With — bonus — an early recording! I’ll do it again after tonight’s show.

• The more things stay the same, the more they change. Last night’s show had the same setlist as the last one I saw in New Orleans back in March (minus one non-Bob song). Same band and stage arrangement. Same Bob too. But for all that similarity, it felt quite different.

  
  For one, it’s a slower, more meditative performance now — and it wasn’t exactly a punk show before! Most of the uptempo songs have been paced down. “False Prophet” in particular has lost most of the bite I loved so much in New Orleans. What works better though, is the near-solo piano openings to several songs: “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight,” “To Be Alone with You,” and “Gotta Serve Somebody.” Hearing these, you could envision what it might be like for Bob to hit the road solo, just him and the ivories taking his piano-man routine from town to town. I’d go.  

  Take a listen to all three songs’ piano openings from last night’ show, before the band kicks in (thanks to Brian for getting me a tape so fast!):

  LISTEN NOW · 1:57

  LISTEN NOW · 0:51

  LISTEN NOW · 0:59

• Those are some things that changed since the spring, but here are some things that almost changed…but didn’t:

  • Guitarist Bob Britt. At the London show two nights earlier, he was nowhere to be seen onstage. I assumed illness (Covid?), but the rumor circulating last night, which I can’t verify, was that he had to fly back to the U.S. for some corporate gig. Gotta be more to the story though; I find it unlikely Dylan just lets his band members leave whenever they want now.

  • The tour’s opening show in Oslo saw two changes that didn’t stick. Most notably, “When I Paint My Masterpiece” was played as a trio with the two Bobs and Donnie Herron on violin. The other band members left the stage. The arrangement showed potential, but didn’t really land. Dylan must not have thought so either, as it was gone by night two. You can hear it here.

  • Also gone: Dylan playing guitar. He’d opened most shows on the most recent U.S. tour with a few minutes of instrumental guitar on “Watching the River Flow,” but dumped it after the first night in Europe. Too bad. It didn’t sound great on bootlegs, admittedly, but I’m sure Bob strumming away was fun to see live.

• Dylan opened at least one show recently with a short instrumental snippet of “Oh Susannah.” You can hear it here. Whatever he played last night didn’t sound like “Oh Susannah” to me, but it did sound like more than ambient noodling. Can anyone ID it?...