Saw Dylan in 1998 at Birmingham NEC and each song was essentially played at an identical tempo, so as each one started the crowd would hold their breath and listen carefully until he mumbled the first line, when we would recognise the lyric and cheer. Most concerts, you recognise the song in the first few notes it starts with, this show it was 30 seconds to a minute into the song before anyone got it. Still, it was an experience to see him live.
I saw Dylan in Kilkenny in Ireland in 2007, I think it was, and he mostly played unfamiliar versions of some of his less famous songs. I remember for the encore he and his band did an unfamiliar version of Like a Rolling Stone, while the whole crowd sang along with something more similar to the original album version. It was fun, and pretty surreal. Not sure how Bob felt about it.
I was at the Nottinham gig too, and was also amongst the large crowd singing along with the busker.
I came down from Glasgow with my 20 year old son to see Dylan especially, and we couldn't be any less angry with his performance. The emotion in his voice, his piano playing, was all on top form. It's interesting what you say about the audience not being able to sing along to songs that have a different structure, and so we hang on to every nuance of his voice, because I can't remember ever being so attentive at a concert.
I remember reading a quote from Dylan years ago that he wrote and recorded songs only as a way to get out and sing them live, and as he largely recorded the songs as live as he could, they're only a snapshot of how he approached the song on that particular day. I would say there's a lot of artistry in that.
I saw the RAH show on Wednesday, third time I've seen him, and he was clearer and in better voice than he has been for years. It was a great show. It always amazes me how Dylan fans are surprised that he won't go through the motions. He's been doing his own thing since 1964. His whole career has been a 'fuck you' to the people who would put him in a box and make him perform like a trained chimp. Have these people not been paying *any* attention?!
Great read! Missed this tour sadly, but if anyone has earned the right to do what they want, it's Dylan. We should just be grateful he's still doing it
I’ve never made the pilgrimage or splashed the cash for Dylan for this precise reason. And if I can’t hear the words, or at the very least align them to a familiar tune, and his most familiar tunes are so indelibly scratched into both his records and our lives, then I figure I might as well stay at home and play the records.
But…it’s his right to do whatever he wants with his work. Just as it’s our right to choose whether or not to put our love for him to the test.
The closest I’ve come to something akin to this was seeing Bowie on his low-key tour, ie small venues, during his drum’n’bass mid-life crisis in the mid-90s.
Beginning brilliantly, he strolled onstage strumming an acoustic guitar to Quicksand, which caused us all to erupt in a frenzy of adoring disbelief. But then, as the show progressed, and the band appeared, and he went into, ahem, reworked versions of his back catalogue, something like bafflement, which quickly soured into dismay, set in as we struggled to name that tune. The absolute worst was V-2 Schneider, which I only got just as he was winding it up!
But, as with Bob, it was absolutely his right to fuck with his…ha-ha!
Saw Dylan in 1998 at Birmingham NEC and each song was essentially played at an identical tempo, so as each one started the crowd would hold their breath and listen carefully until he mumbled the first line, when we would recognise the lyric and cheer. Most concerts, you recognise the song in the first few notes it starts with, this show it was 30 seconds to a minute into the song before anyone got it. Still, it was an experience to see him live.
I saw Dylan in Kilkenny in Ireland in 2007, I think it was, and he mostly played unfamiliar versions of some of his less famous songs. I remember for the encore he and his band did an unfamiliar version of Like a Rolling Stone, while the whole crowd sang along with something more similar to the original album version. It was fun, and pretty surreal. Not sure how Bob felt about it.
I was at the Nottinham gig too, and was also amongst the large crowd singing along with the busker.
I came down from Glasgow with my 20 year old son to see Dylan especially, and we couldn't be any less angry with his performance. The emotion in his voice, his piano playing, was all on top form. It's interesting what you say about the audience not being able to sing along to songs that have a different structure, and so we hang on to every nuance of his voice, because I can't remember ever being so attentive at a concert.
I remember reading a quote from Dylan years ago that he wrote and recorded songs only as a way to get out and sing them live, and as he largely recorded the songs as live as he could, they're only a snapshot of how he approached the song on that particular day. I would say there's a lot of artistry in that.
And yeah, the busker was fantastic!
I saw the RAH show on Wednesday, third time I've seen him, and he was clearer and in better voice than he has been for years. It was a great show. It always amazes me how Dylan fans are surprised that he won't go through the motions. He's been doing his own thing since 1964. His whole career has been a 'fuck you' to the people who would put him in a box and make him perform like a trained chimp. Have these people not been paying *any* attention?!
Great read! Missed this tour sadly, but if anyone has earned the right to do what they want, it's Dylan. We should just be grateful he's still doing it
I’ve never made the pilgrimage or splashed the cash for Dylan for this precise reason. And if I can’t hear the words, or at the very least align them to a familiar tune, and his most familiar tunes are so indelibly scratched into both his records and our lives, then I figure I might as well stay at home and play the records.
But…it’s his right to do whatever he wants with his work. Just as it’s our right to choose whether or not to put our love for him to the test.
The closest I’ve come to something akin to this was seeing Bowie on his low-key tour, ie small venues, during his drum’n’bass mid-life crisis in the mid-90s.
Beginning brilliantly, he strolled onstage strumming an acoustic guitar to Quicksand, which caused us all to erupt in a frenzy of adoring disbelief. But then, as the show progressed, and the band appeared, and he went into, ahem, reworked versions of his back catalogue, something like bafflement, which quickly soured into dismay, set in as we struggled to name that tune. The absolute worst was V-2 Schneider, which I only got just as he was winding it up!
But, as with Bob, it was absolutely his right to fuck with his…ha-ha!
“A car stopping at the lights nearby honked its horn, and it came in on time, and on the exact same note as the harmonica.” ❤️