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2025
27 February 2025
- Meeting 243
Apparently, somewhere in the night sky high above The Red Bull,
seven planets were perfectly aligned tonight in a very rare event
known as a ‘planetary parade’. No one down below at the pub noticed
this spectacle at all because we were too busy enjoying another
night of Bobchat. The happy Dylan folks gathered in the upstairs
room were Steve, Carrie, Tim, Sue, Barry, Dawn, Bill, Richard,
Andrew, Craig, Nancy, Ally, Effric, Jill, Ben, Kitty, Rhonda,
Armando, Allen and John. After Carrie had superbly got everyone’s
attention with her leopard-skin pillbox bell, the evening got
underway with a look back at 2024 followed by Allen overviewing the
‘Drawn Blank’ book. The Deep Dive covered the year 1970 (including
New Morning) before Steve, the lone False Prophet tonight, performed
a great set including a blistering version of the Bob co-written
song ‘Waggon Wheel’. Armando introduced a fully researched
presentation on the movie ‘A Complete Unknown’ including how it has
influenced trends and activities with much discussion about the
film. Richard took us on another magical mystery tour of mentalism,
there was a Video Nasty, a tribute to the late Garth Hudson and we
invoked the Set List Fairy in readiness for the new tour. Sounds mad
doesn’t it? Not really, just another great night of Bobchat at The
Red Bull! JRS
24 April 2025
- Meeting 244
Although Bob had closed
the curtains on the first leg of his 2025 World Wide Tour just forty
eight hours ago, the doors of the Red Bull were definitely open wide
tonight to greet another meeting of The Cambridge Bob Dylan Society.
The Bobchatters in attendance were Carrie, Steve, Jonathan, Barry,
Dawn, Tim, Sue, Chris, John N, Richard, Rhonda, Armando, Allen and
John S. After Carrie had called us to attention with some perfect
percussion we had a reminder of how the year had proceeded so far in
a Rough & Rowdy Way with video being shown on the big screen.
Jonathan delighted us with a reading of poetry from Bob’s
collaboration with the photographer Barry Feinstein under the guise
of ‘the lost manuscript’ and our ‘Deep Dive’ concentrated on the
year 1971 with film from Bangladesh and a focus on the songs from
Greatest Hits Volume 2 together with Dylan’s protest song ‘George
Jackson’. The False Prophets performed the first of their sets,
including a superb rendition of ‘Just Like A Woman’ and after the
break the ‘video nasty’ had Bob doing a walk through to the song
‘Duquesne Whistle’. Richard’s magic was quite unpredictably
unpredictable and in their second set Jonathan played mandolin to
Steve’s guitar for a perfect ‘When I Paint My Masterpiece’.
Armando’s feature was very eclectically quirky and took us down many
avenues including to the street where Syd Barrett of the band ‘Pink
Floyd’ once lived, which caused quite a debate relating to the
psychedelic age of the 60s and beyond. Tonight saw the return of the
old TCBDS favourite ‘the raffle’ which was won, for the second time
in a row by Barry (he can't help it if he’s lucky) and after some
more Bobchat, including whether or not that tribute to The Pope was
actually written by Bob or AI (probably the latter) the evening
concluded with ‘Series of Dreams’. All in all a proper Dylan do at
The Red Bull! JRS
3 July 2025
- Meeting 245
Surviving the heat of a
post-industrial summer evening, the happy people who attended
tonight’s Bobchat meeting at The Red Bull were Steve, Carrie,
Jonathan, Tim, Sue, Barry, Helena, Tom, Chris, John, Allen, Richard,
Rhonda, Armando and John S. Carrie kicked off the evening with the
sound of her bell before we launched into the ‘Something’s Been
Happening Here’ feature, which turned out to be somewhat
controversial as Dylan’s duet with Barbra Streisand singing ‘The
Very Thought of You’ was played to a very mixed response before a
film of Dylan performing Ricky Nelson’s ‘Garden Party’ in concert
from May 2025 was received more kindly. Allen gave a blow by blow
account of his somewhat amazing pre-exhibition day at The Halcyon
Gallery in London when he was privy to a considerable number of
Dylan art works which will probably never be seen by the general
public. The ‘Deep Dive’ centred on the albums from 1972 with
particular focus on the ‘Pat Garret & Billy The Kid’ soundtrack with
some music from the 1972 ‘Dylan’ album also being played. The False
Prophets first set continued the ‘Pat Garret’ theme with some great
performances of ‘Billy’ and ‘Knockin’. After the break Armando’s
‘Video Nasty’ was the monochrome murder film of ‘The Night They
Called It A Day’, and then Richard had us chasing the Ace in his
Tricky Dicky mode. The False Prophets went off-piste in their second
set which included Neil Young’s ‘Heart of Gold and Armando's ‘Quirky
Bit’ was a sensitive and thought-provoking presentation of the
‘TOOM’ song ‘Make You Feel My Love’ with filmed adaptations of the
song being shown. ‘Up Around The Bend’ had us talking about the AI
review of the new non-album ‘God's Own Country’, Bob’s talk over to
MGK’s news album was shown and the raffle prize went to Chris. Of
course the evening had to end with a ‘Series Of Dreams’ before we
all left The Red Bull after being thoroughly entertained by Bob and
all his wonderful works. JRS
Next meeting
Thursday August 28, The Red Bull, Newnham
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