Bob Dylan Was Here

Between Kinsale and Bantry lies the small town of Clonakilty. We stopped for lunch at De Barra's and took a brief nostalgia trip. This bar and music venue will forever be associated with Noel Redding, Jimi Hendrix's bass player. Noel played with the Jimi Hendrix Experience from the band's inception in 1966 until 1969. In 1972 he retreated to Clonakilty in West Cork and remained there till his death - from a haemorrhage caused by cirrohsis of the liver - in 2003. Enlarge the pic to see the Noel Redding plaque in the doorway ...

Inside the pub, the guy in the checked shirt is talking about a Bob Dylan gig he went to in Cork on 16 June this year ...

Among the many photos on the pub wall, there's one of Bob with his arm round Noel (I'm guessing this may be the early 1980s?). The picture was taken not far from here. If you look closely you can spot Eric Clapton in the picture beneath it ...

We found another photo of Bob too, taken about twenty years later, just before Noel's death at the age of 57 ...

Of course that's David Bowie in the lower two pics. Apparently he was pretty much out of it when he signed the bottom photo, which is why it's largely indecipherable. Elsewhere there were photos too of Roy Harper, who lives nearby. I seem to remember that one of his albums was recorded live at De Barra's.

Reckless Eric

...I got a man with a slow hand/I got a lover with an easy touch/I found somebody who will spend some time/Not come and go in a heated rush Slow Hand THE POINTER SISTERS

The man variously called God, Slowhand, Del or Derek played Nottingham's Trent FM Arena last night. At 6.30 pm we spontaneously decided to go and see him. After all, it's not every day that the greatest blues-rock guitarist in the world performs just down the road. We'd only heard him live once before - guesting briefly at an early 1990s Bob Dylan gig at the Hammersmith Odeon (now Apollo). We managed to buy from the box office a couple of decent tickets for tiered seats half-way down the arena and to the left of the stage. It was pretty full, though there were some empty rows of seats near the back. (I believe it's more or less sold out for Dolly Parton in July.) It's a smaller space than many of the big concert stadia and all the better for it. I don't really like this kind of impersonal, unatmospheric aircraft hangar-like venue - though what choice have you got? The sound system was excellent and Clapton's pure, crystal-clear, unmistakable guitar licks soared sublimely heavenwards. Perhaps not as spiritual as Carlos Santana, but beautiful nonetheless. Clapton himself remained rather cool and inscrutable, except when Robert Randolph joined him on virtuoso pedal steel guitar in a blazing encore of Muddy Waters' Got My Mojo Working. The audience remained comatose throughout, but woke up near the end for the usual Clapton killer finale of Wonderful Tonight, Layla and Cocaine. And now it's Lou Reed to look forward to on Thursday. This live music obsession is becoming a drug...