From "Bob Dylan delights the masses with local favourites/As he plays city-specific songs on tour, is Dylan finally a crowd-pleaser?" (London Times).
He's only ever played "Born in Chicago" twice in concert — October 6, 2023 and October 7, 2023. And he's only played "Johnny B. Goode" once in concert — October 4, 2023. As for "Kansas City," he played it on October 1, 2023, and he'd played it once before — on July 24, 1986 (also in Kansas).
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'Lockdown was: a very surrealistic time. Like being visited by another planet or by some mythical monster. But it was beneficial, too. It eliminated a lot of hassles and personal needs; it was good having no clock. I changed the door panels on an old ’56 Chevy, made some landscape paintings, wrote a song called “You Don’t Say.” I listened to Peggy Lee records. I reread “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” a few times over. What a story that is! I listened to The Mothers of Invention record “Freak Out!,” which I hadn’t heard in a long, long time. Frank Zappa was light years ahead of his time. If there’d been any opium laying around, I probably would have been down for a while.'
- Bob Dylan, WSJ, 2022
My favorite BD quote: “Shaman? I don’t know. I don’t like that scene.”
And yes, I still like my version of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" after my latest listen to it. Maybe not my best work, but it made me laugh.
Does this seem creepy or stalkerish to anyone else?
My last Bob concert was 10 years or so ago and he refused to be a jukebox. Fair enough. But he was completely unintelligible and his back up band was...ok. He's had better. First Bob show I saw was Bob and The Band tour in 1974 and then about 10 more shows after that over the next few decades. I love me some Bob but enough is enough.
Cultist.
Ann: Have you ever seen Dylan in concert? Are you going to see him on this tour?
Never saw the attraction, and never bought into the messaging. He's a sly one, our Bob.
"Ain’t it hard when you discover that.."
A roomie, a record collector, back in my college years explained to me the disappointment inherent in live versus studio recordings by noting that the live, single take, noisy background concert versions of songs were always going to have more problems than the well-produced studio efforts produced under fairly strict control that had multiple takes and heavy editing. Then he added, "And of course most concerts are performed by guys that are completely stoned or drunk out of their minds." Ah, the 70s, when music was recorded on vinyl for listening to, and enjoyed at concerts as drunk or stoned as the bands.
Kansas City is Lieber and Stoller? Amazing how many classic rocks songs weren't written by the artists, but by professional song-writers off in some city office.
The last live show I attended was Jimmy Spheeris. He was so drunk he didn't finish one friggin' song. The support band looked utterly disgusted and confused. I'm not forking out good money on a maybe performance.
Thus illustrating the downside of great fame, the insane press dissecting every move he makes while pretending it’s the appreciative fans who are “insane.” Do they still really not understand why he doesn’t talk to them?
I enjoyed the music of the late Leon Redbone (still do), and went to see him when he came to the Musicians Exchange in Ft. Lauderdale, not too long before it closed in the mid-90s.
Unexpectedly, Leon looked and sounded like he was strung out on something, slurring the lyrics badly and basically ignoring the audience.
My reaction was not "It was great".
I dare him to come here and do "Memphis, Tennessee." I'd pay to see that, and I'm not a yuge Dylan fan.
mikee mentions the altered states of many rockers while performing. That was not a universal tendency--I'm sure I couldn't have enjoyed the Jethro Tull live shows I saw as much if they had been as stoned as I was.
Blogger Heartless Aztec said...
My last Bob concert was 10 years or so ago and he refused to be a jukebox.
I might have been there. It took us into his second set for my old self and my wife's old self to get out of our lawn chairs and push our way down into the mosh pit, muddy and empty after the rambuctious Wilco left the stage (those wippersnapers!), to verify that crackling sound we were hearing actually came from Bob and wasn't just a bad mike. Then he seemed to breifly look our way, perhaps wondering who in this geriatric crowd would actually want to muddy their shoes for him. That was the best. Great concert, loved it.
Worst concert I ever saw was Kris Kristofferson. He forgot the lyrics to his own songs!
The best concert I saw was Boz Skaggs and it was free. Waited 40 years to see him. He was great!
. . . . I've maybe seen half a dozen concerts in Kansas City. At every one of them, the band played Kansas City. It's a thing.
Best Ever play to the crowd I've seen was Van (The Man) Morrison who performed the wonderful old Hoagy Carmichael tune "Georgia" to a sold out crowd at the out door amphitheatre in Alpharetta, Georgia as the sun set below the mountains in the middle distance behind the stage. The crowd en mass stood in respect to both the song and to the man.
Some of us, especially musicians, will go to a live show expecting the songs to differ a little from the records, because most professional recordings are made by piecing together individual takes. I purposely look and listen for those differences, curious about how the band or artist will address the song in a live setting. Some artists, like Five for Fighting or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers or Steve Miller Band often gave performances very close to their recorded originals. But that's rare. In the case of TP&H they often recorded their best known tracks "live" in the studio altogether, even if it took an unreasonable number of takes to get it record-perfect.
Been a fan since 64 when my older brother bought a 45 of his. Seen him a handful of times over the years - as recently as last year. Love that he does not play to the hopes of the audience. He just plays what matters to him and how he wants to at the moment. Good enough for me.
@Crack: Liked your version of RDW #12 & 35. Made me smile.
The thing about your Dylan quote is that it can be completely serious or a complete put on. Even odds on that, but funny either way.
I don’t think this is entirely new on Dylan’s part. I saw him at the University of Alabama in 1990. He opened with Hey Good Lookin’ by Alabama native Hank Williams. I thought this was Dylan’s way of connecting with the crowd without deigning to speak to us.
“Remember the 60s? Cream, Vanilla Fudge, Strawberry Alarm Clock… hi, I’m Bob Dylan, and we can now relive that magical time with Robco’s six album collection, “Remembering the 60s”
An audio compilation of all of these unique performances (i.e. stuff not from the Rough and Rowdy Ways album, not that there's anything wrong with it but enough already) would be awesome. And some of those Grateful Dead covers too.
My favorite concerts; Zappa(3), Joplin(2), Sly & Stone, Micheal Quatro.
Oh... Bananarama
Marginalia.
Born in Chicago was written by Nick Gravenites, not Mike Bloomfield.
I overdosed on Dylan way back in the 70s.
I would, however, loved to have seen Chuck Berry in concert.
He's always been a thematic guy, so perhaps this is theme element for his latest tour. He's doing it because it interests him, not because it makes the fans happy. He learned the power of antagonizing his fans when he first pulled out that electric guitar and the Newport Folk Festival.
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