CD-Rchive: Cardiff 2000

Plus Fountains of Wayne at the peak of Stacy's Mom mania

A few summers ago, I happened to be vacationing with my family in Cardiff, Wales, when a Bob Dylan show there was announced. It was the talk of the town—or at least, the talk of the record stores and coffeeshops I was frequenting. And sure, some of that talk was of the usual “He’s still alive?” variety. But still, it was fun to eavesdrop in town that day as word spread.

Part of my excitement was that Cardiff looms fairly large in my Bob Dylan history. No, I’ve never seen him there before. I’d never even been there before that trip. But the old CD-R the randomizer drew today was big for me when I was first collecting Dylan bootlegs.

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If for you need a refresher on this series—can’t imagine why, it’s only been two full years since I did one—CD-Rchive was inspired by me finding my old Bob-boots CD-R collection in my mom’s house a few years back. When I first got into Dylan in high school and college, trading CD-Rs through the mail was how I acquired tapes. I (very) occasionally look back at one of them. More info here.

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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. In 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. My first 2000 show, no less. Some consider 2000 the greatest year of the Never Ending Tour. I’m one of them! Wild to imagine that 17-year-old me would be trading for this show and then, two decades later, I’d be shouting it out in Rolling Stone:

You called the year 2000 the best year of the Never Ending Tour. Why?
It’s the year I’m most jealous I didn’t see. I wasn’t a fan by then yet. I think I was at end of middle school. And I think that that band, Tony Garnier, of course, and Larry [Campbell], Charlie [Sexton], [David] Kemper, and Bob are just firing on all cylinders. There’s the amazing acoustic sets. They’re doing “Country Pie” electric. They’re doing all these amazing bluegrass gospel covers by the Stanley Brothers. It’s just these beautiful shows, crazy sets.

Some of the first bootlegs I would’ve gotten were rips of the Crystal Cat from fall of 2000. I remember printing out the art for Münster, and Portsmouth, and Cardiff, and just listening to these over and over again.

And now a few months further on I’m revisiting Cardiff 2000 again. Not just the show, but the bootleg itself, this particular CD-R.

So we return to the CD-Rchive series’ regular categories almost as ancient as those Mesopotamian scrolls:

Might you find this hidden behind the counter in a record store? (aka: Does this come from a "real" bootleg some label released?)

Yes! I never purchased a bootleg, but I know that, in the 2000s, Crystal Cat was the company. They had the best tapes (many exclusive to them) and quality packaging. I recently read Clinton Heylin’s book Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry. It describes this constant tension between the top-tier bootleg manufacturers—the ones paying attention to sound quality, presentation, artwork, and (since the book mostly covers the vinyl era) pressing quality—and the many ripoff merchants, which would just copy another bootlegger’s product wholesale and sell it for a buck less.

Published in 1995, the book predates Crystal Cat, but they clearly fell into the former category. They’re still around, I gather, for people who still get their Dylan recordings the old-school way.

Artwork report

As I mentioned, Crystal Cat tended to have more “professional” covers than the usual MS Paint jobs. Though, honestly, on this one a ticket stub seems a little halfassed. The booklet is good though. I only printed out the front and back covers at the time (I’m guessing I first put this in a jewel case before I got some many I had to switch to the paper CD sleeves), but found more of it online:

That one Woodstock-era shot seems kinda random (a nod to him playing “Country Pie” at this show?), but other than that, nice-looking package.

“Professional-looking artwork” not your bag though? I get it; I love the more amateur fan-made art myself. I found a few jankier alternative cover options you could print out for your 2000s-era CD wallet:

Hard to beat that middle one

Would this CD-R have been an in-demand trade?

I think any show from this Fall 2000 European tour would have been—it’s one of his best tours ever. Four shows made it onto Expecting Rain’s fan-voted “Top 100 Bob Dylan Concerts” list a few years ago. Cardiff wasn’t one of the four, but any of them coulda been.

You've only got two blank CDs left on your spindle - should you use them on this? (aka: so is this thing any good or what?)

You know the answer by now: Of course! It kicks off with “Hallelujah, I’m Ready to Go,” one of my favorite of the bluegrass-gospel-harmonies covers, then straight into a beautiful “My Back Pages.” Don’t think that can be topped? The third track is one of the best “Desolation Row”s of the Never Ending Tour. Even the second half, which gets a little more greatest-hits-y, features committed vocal performances in front of an amazing band. And it sounds as good as a soundboard!

2000-09-23, Cardiff International Centre Arena, Cardiff, England

After the jump, for paid subscribers, a Bonus Boot of a brilliant power-pop band unfairly tagged a one-hit wonder…