Entertainment For Lively Minds
Bo2b
Posted by Ben Milne on 10 December 2008 - 3:42pm.
Bob Dylan's coming to the O2 in April 2009. As someone who admires a lot of the music, without ever having worshipped at the shrine, I'm thinking of going to see him for the first time. But I'm aware that Dylan's gigs have a reputation for somewhat variable quality - so I need to know from you all, Dylanologists, concert veterans, members of the Word massive and gentlemen of a certain age, is he worth £47.50 of my English pounds?
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He isn't
worth £4.75 these days, IMO, unless you want a side-on view of Dylan murdering (sorry, re-working) all your favourites.
Well...
...he could be really good. He could be very average. He could be awful. I'd recommend that you get hold of some recent live recordings so that you don't sit in the 02 going, "This is singing? I paid for this?" Then, if that doesn't put you off, I'd go. I've seen him six times since 1991, and each time he's been better than the last time. I last went with my teenage daughter in 2007 - with the get out clause that, even if it was awful, she could tell her grandchildren she saw Bob Dylan live (we take this stuff for granted: one day, people will tell their kids that yes, they were alive at the same time as Bob Dylan. Mark my words).
She loved it, by the way.
There's tons of stuff out there to sample. I mean, how do you feel about this, for example?
Cheers!
Ta Lucas, great version of a great track.
I'm going to see him in...
Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin.
So, I suppose, my answer is "yes".
I'm in!
Wow! Liked that a LOT! Bought tickets for Sheffield at the weekend after deciding I really ought to see him before it's too late. Am rather looking forward to it after that, thanks Lucas.
I would argue with the
idea that he can be good, bad or average. I mean, when exactly was he last very good live? Sometime before the never-ending tour started, I would say.
I really think he holds his audience in contempt:
- Just because he's playing keyboards these days, that's no reason to only appear in profile;
- He virtually ignores the audience. How about a little acknowledgement of the ticket-buyers between songs, Bob?;
- And most of all, the songs are unrecognisable. This could be because his voice is shot, or he's bored singing LARS for the 2000th time, but if that's the case then don't sing it. Your audience is loyal enough (for reasons which escape me) that they wouldn't mind you digging into your back catalogue for songs that you can still do justice to.
I last went to see him at Brixton a few years ago. It was awful. I vowed then, never again
When was he last very good live?
As far as I'm concerned, April 2007. November 2003 before that. I disagree with everything in your post, Johan. But, as is being discussed at great length in another thread, these things are subjective.
Not really subjective, Lucas
"Rapport" and "Dylan gig" are not expressions commonly found in the same sentence. Or universe. As the good burgher of Corinna-Corinna-free Corunna put it, "When he plays he has his back to the audience. He comes on, doesn't bother to say hello and then he doesn't even play any songs anyone knows. That's why we're not bringing him."
Forty-seven quid, eh? Good heavens, you could buy 43% of a boxset of material not originally considered fit for release for that.
Just go!
Take the chance. Bob is of a "certain age" and like the Stones, may not be up to the physical rigours of global tours for too much longer...
Poor/average or brilliant (as he was at Brixton on the Modern Times dates) it's still an experience. I've seen him when he was really off colour but never dampens the legend for me...
edit - Just seen Johan's comments and couldn't disagree more!
Stones
The point about the likes of the Stones and Neil Young is that they are still playing gigs which bear comparison with those they played 20 or 30 years ago. Indeed, I've seen recent reviews of the Stones which say that there has never been a better time to see them. And I would agree with that.
Can anyone but the most loyal fan really say that about any Dylan gig in the last 20 years? I'm afraid that Dylan live now, for whatever reason, is a very pale imitation of what he was at his peak.
Doing a Dan Penn
Someone whose performing powers have so evidently abandoned him - and Dylan must be as aware of his striking decline as anybody - ought to drag a stool up to the front of the stage between songs, swig some bourbon, and tell some stories - to make up for what's so evidently not happening when he sings. After all, he does present that rather arch radio show, doesn't he? So presumably he has it in him. But no. He can't be arsed even to say "good evening".
In my experience
Dylan has never played with his back to the audience. He usually says something along the lines of "Thanks everybody" towards the end. He talked to the audience quite a bit in 1993. I don't think that he has the contempt for his audience that some are suggesting. If he did, he'd stop.
I'm not about to say that Dylan is the greatest live performer out there. He's no Springsteen. But, to be fair, he's clearly not interested in nor capable of trying to be. To say, as someone did, that he is now a pale imitation of what he once was is completely at odds with everything Dylan has ever stood for: he's never been remotely interested in imitating himself, repeating himself or pretending that his mid 1960s persona is a peak that he's interested in recapturing. Unlike, say, The Rolling Stones, he has acknowledged the aging process and uses what he's got. I mean, his voice was shot to hell on "Love & Theft" but I don't remember any critics complaining. For what it's worth, his singing in London in April 2007 was among the most precise and articulate of any performer I've ever heard. Anyway, I hope anyone that goes to see him next April has a good time. I reckon if you liked Modern Times and/or the above clip of Blind Willie McTell - from the last show that I attended - then you probably won't be disappointed.
In mine
I saw him first in 1978 and then in 1999. The second experience was miserable. He sang on the same two notes throughout the entire show (he'd nearly finished "Visions of Johanna" before I - a former massive Dylan nut - even recognised it). Having been positively perky at Earls Court, by '99 he didn't say a single word to the audience, not a "thank you", not even a "good night", despite the ecstatic reception that the first half of the set received (presumably for him being a Living Legend; it couldn't have been in response to what was coming out of his mouth). But by the second half each song - or rather each repetition of the Monosong - was met with just a smattering of polite applause. The burlesque emperor had no clothes.
So, this summer, when he was playing just 20 minutes away from where I live, with tickets at only 30 euros a pop, I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to show as much interest in him as he'd shown in me. I stopped in and watched telly.
This is what Bob Dylan live probably still sounds like in all our heads:
And this is what Bob Dylan actually sounds like in 2008:
I don't know about Ben, but I'd certainly think twice about shelling out nearly fifty pounds for an evening of that.
(*Before anyone says "Yeah, but 34 years have gone by between those two shows", listen to Bruce Springsteen doing "Thunder Road" or "Sandy" from the Born to Run tour and then from the Magic tour - 33 years on - and get back to me.)
Agreed
That is exactly the point I was trying to make. Young, Springsteen and the Stones sound just as good (or even better) now as they did then, whereas Dylan ...
How anyone can say he was brilliant at Brixton is beyond me. What exactly was brilliant? His singing - nope. His playing - nope. His songs - not as they were sung that night. His stage presence - ha ha.
Well.....
The night I saw him, he was positively invigorating (London Calling)...sure the voice has gone but that's not really a concern for me. I, and from what I saw and listened to on the way out and back on the tube, the vast majority of everyone around me enjoyed it too. Sure, he sounds different, he's nearly 70. Springsteen sounds different (vocally but has the same band, playing the same songs as they did 35 years ago), Jagger's voice is also shot (Monkey Man on the 40 Licks tour was James Brown-esque in backing singers covering the main vocal line). Dylan is just different, not better, not worse.
If the artist wishes to re-interpret his own material, surely that his/her perogative? Springsteen did it brilliantly in reworking Atlantic City and Open All Night on the Seeger Sessions dates...Dylan has been doing that for years. A quick listen to the Rolling Thunder Live CD is Dylan changing some of his better known songs, mostly for the better.
Whilst Dylan live is still very much a "gig" experience, the Stones live are now like an moving exhibit from the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Almost identical set lists throughout a global tour with same chords being hit time after time after time....it's a machine, click track heaven but stuck in 1981 at the same time. If you saw the Stones on the Tattoo You tour, you've seen the Stones on every single tour since then too. Not for me I'm afraid. A little spontaneity and variation never goes amiss...
I've a lot of time for Neil Young but in my experience, blows very much hot and cold exactly in the same manner as Dylan.
An aside
I thought the reduction in VAT was designed to bring prices down.
Not worked in the case of concert tickets yet, but the fall in sterling has not helped.
Actually,
compared to Waits, Young, Cohen etc this is cheap! But I suppose those three can charge a premium as they're not over here much, unlike Dylan.
Five years ago
My son, who was 16 at the time, said he wanted to go and see Bob Dylan. I said "OK, if you insist but I promise you he won't be very good." So we went. We left before the encores. On the way to the car he said "you were right".
That's Bob Dylan in the last thirty years. Dylan obsessives find ways of finding something remarkable in his shows - he's playing the piano, he's not playing the piano, he played this song that he's never played before, oo, look at his hat - while the unconverted are amazed that anyone can get money out of the public for a performance so shoddy.
Meanwhile people in the middle, like my son and, I would guess, the average Word reader, savour that peculiar kind of disappointment that comes from having their very low expectations just about met.
Child cruelty
It's a wonder the authorities were not alerted.
I took my teenage daughter to work with me once and she had the closet seat to the stage for...East 17, and she met them afterwards. We never speak of it now.
Harrumppff....
... "shoddy", "when.....was he last very good ", "ignores the audience", "performing powers have so evidently abandoned him", "can't be arsed even to say "good evening" ", "he doesn't even play any songs anyone knows".
I know there is no point in arguing with these comments as it'll be pointless.
So, Roll on May 2009 ! ! !