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The concert could have gone downhill from here and it still would have been a successful show, but the stratospheric level was maintained with VISIONS OF JOHANNA, which was almost overwhelming to me after all that came before. I thought that Bob had already exceeded his masterpiece quota for the night, but this knocked it off the charts. Many of us were stunned by how well Bob sang this song, one of his very best, which appears only two or three times each tour. At one point Bob glanced over at Stu between lines, and Stu nodded at him as if to say, "You're doing great, boss. Keep it going and we'll follow you anywhere." Stu was on acoustic guitar, Tony on acoustic bass, and Don was playing electric mandolin. This performance was almost unreal in its brilliance, the best of all the Visions I've seen including the Park West show a few years back. When it came time for a solo, Bob nodded to Denny, who played an oblique but emotive solo that was perfect for the song. When Denny has time to stretch out, he is capable of some first-rate improvisation, developing ideas and twisting them into new shapes, and this solo was a fine example. Denny is such a cerebral player that you can sometimes almost sense the brain waves emanating from his forehead, but this solo was well-balanced between intellect and emotion. Near the end of the song, Don took a mandolin solo that had much more sustain than you expect from that instrument, and he may have been plugged into the same fuzzbox that he uses with the lap steel. Bob was hitting notes at the low and high ends of his current range, and phrasing with all the care that this song deserves. The band seemdawed, and so was the audience and this reviewer.
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