I wrote about my personal history with the Cardiff 2000 show last spring. If you’ll excuse me quoting myself so I don’t have to rewrite the same story, we’ll start with a bit from that:
My memory was this Cardiff 2000 recording was one of the first Dylan shows I acquired, and I actually logged into my old Yahoo email address and confirmed that to be true. On July 7, 2004, just a few months after I first caught the Bob-bug, someone named Dan Verbin offered the Cardiff tape on something called DylanWeeds (thanks Dan! thanks DylanWeeds!). I was 17 years old. My email to him read:
“I'd love a copy if you've got any left and I'll reweed it the moment I get it. I'm new to JamWeeds, but I've been involved in DylanWeeds, so I'm not completely a newbie. Thanks in advance!”
Reading that feels like deciphering some ancient Mesopotamian scroll. I don’t remember what half those terms mean (“I’ll reweed it”??), but I vaguely remember the system being you got a disc, burned a copy for yourself, then mailed it onward. There were “trees” and “vines” too—the difference between all of them escapes me now. But if you too were trading tapes or CDs online back in the day, I bet the terms will ring a bell. I see I attached my “trade list” of the live-Dylan recordings I had at the time:
So Cardiff was a welcome addition to that very short list.
Going into this series, I would have said Cardiff 2000 was an all-time great Dylan show. And I don’t exactly disagree with it now. But having now listened to the previous seven shows too [catch up on the full Europe 2000 series here], it strikes me that Cardiff isn’t particularly unusual. This show is great—but, then again, they’re all great. This was just the first one I heard.
A few things do make it stand out from the pack though. It features three tour debuts. My favorite is a wonderful “Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest,” where he’s fully committed to spinning out this narrative over his band’s sprightly acoustic backing. It builds to a passionate final couple verses, enhanced by an engaged and energetic crowd. One guy yells “Yeah!” when Bob sings that “One should not be where one does not belong”—I guess he agrees with the mantra? The crowd also spontaneously applauds when Frankie Lee dies of thirst, which seems harsh.
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Dylan was apparently as into the crowd as they were into him. Neil Dunlea, in his review for Boblinks, shared:
A bunch of overexcited fans caught Dylan's eye as he was romping his merry way through “Country Pie.” They made him burst into laughter spontaneously and you could see him doubling over as the band played on and a huge grin crossed his face. From that point on the show seemed to explode into life as Larry and Charlie sensed the rising energy levels of Bob. It was like a ripple of inspiration emanating from Bob in response to the crowd spreading like wildfire to the band and back to the crowd and Bob again in an ever more active oscillating loop.
People who went to a bunch of shows thought Cardiff was special too. Andrew Muir wrote about it in his book One More Night: Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour:
In stark contrast [to the night before], at the next show in Cardiff Dylan was fully engaged throughout and everybody agreed it was a splendid show; one of, if not the, best of the time. The overall consistency of the show was remarkable. There was a brilliant “Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest”: Dylan’s knowing voice, with no backing, drew us in until we were completely mesmerised. This is what ensures the NET remains an engrossing and exhilarating experience. Dylan, the great live experimenter performing one of his most loved songs with a completely different arrangement. All my disappointments at Dylan’s ‘coasting’ are made irrelevant by performances like these.
(Not everyone was so enraptured; a local newspaper’s review begins “Time has not been kind to Bob Dylan…” Harsh!)
The two other tour debuts, besides “Frankie Lee,” are almost as good. “Blind Willie McTell” is powerful and, I hate to say, puts the recent Outlaw performances to shame. It’s intense and focused and driven. The band surges behind him while he sells every line.
And the other tour debut reminds me of what I wrote yesterday about the old warhorses being great on this tour. Who, after four years of the Never Ending Rough and Rowdy Ways tour, gets that excited to hear “Watching the River Flow”? But it rules here! Listen to how he sings “his goose was really cooked.” He’s having a blast, and it sounds like the crowd was too.
Tomorrow: The most acclaimed show of the whole tour (paid subs only)…
PS. A couple fans sent in their memories of these shows…
S.L. wrote:
In 2000 I have been to all shows in Germany (Stuttgart, Oberhausen, Cologne, Hannover, Berlin, Dresden, Regensburg (all in May), Hamburg, Frankfurt and Münster (all in fall) and to all UK shows (except London) in fall (Aberdeen, Glasgow, Newcastle, Birmingham, Sheffield, Cardiff, Portsmouth (two shows). Out of these 18 shows Glasgow and the first show in Portsmouth were the best while the show in Cardiff was the best show I've ever seen in my Dylan career (out of 180 shows I've seen since 1991). On the other hand Sheffield, Portsmouth II and Hamburg were rather weak shows (by fall 2000 standards, of course). I should also mention the show in Cologne – the first part was disastrous (kind of ‘91 revisited) while the tide changed with Gates Of Eden.
Dave Ely wrote:
At the Cardiff show I sat next to a middle aged guy who had never seen Dylan but was a fan. I recall what he said to me. "This guys a legend. If we don't see him now he'll soon be gone''. By gone I think he meant touring no more. At that time it was not unreasonable to think Dylan tours might end. Funny how things turn out!
