I saw Bob Dylan

It came to pass, through friends and net acquaintances, that I possessed two tickets to see Bob Dylan at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.  If you know me then you know this is a wonderful thing.  Dylan's been in my life all my life.  My Dad was a giant fan as far back as I can remember, and I'm thinking that my earliest musical memories may well be Bob Dylan music.

I was born in 1963, the year of his second album, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan".

I have one of those flashbulb memories, me crying about something -- I think I was saying I wanted to see my mommy, as this was a time during which my parents were separated and passing me back and forth between them on a weekly basis or something.  I've always estimated that I must have been about three at the time of this memory, and I just now checked the discography and have verified that this is probably about right.  Anyway, the kernel of that memory is that I was standing in the hallway of our College Street apartment, looking up at a mobile dangling from the ceiling, thinking about 'Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again'.  I thought that song was about being stuck inside a mobile, not stuck inside of Mobile.

I'll refrain from recounting my life with Bob, though.

I know some people don't like him, and apparently they're not objectively wrong to feel that way.  I try to understand.  If a person is accustomed to the musical equivalent of the candies you get out of those quarter machines at the mall, I can see where his voice might startle.  If all your musical needs are satisfied at Sam Goody or via the local 'alternative music' FM franchise you're not going to be interested in actually listening to something.  You might find it boring to sit through complete sentences with complex descriptives if you're into Justin Timberlake or Janet Jackson.

And I'll even confess something:  I haven't been eagerly absorbing his productions since 'Slow Train Coming', some 25yrs ago.  I've dabbled, but nothing really caught me under my skin until this latest album.  It wasn't that I disliked the music, just that it didn't really do anything for me.

I really liked his recent film, though.  'Masked & Anonymous'  I'd recommend it, even to certain non-Dylan fans, but who knows?

Also, I remember the first time I ever heard him live, on 'At Budokan', decades ago.  I remember not liking it that his songs didn't sound the way I knew them.  I recently saw someone complaining about going to a Dylan concert and not even being able to identify the songs.

So, while I was happy to be able to be finally seeing Bob live, it was with some trepidation.  What if I didn't really like it?  What if it didn't really do anything for me?  What if he's really 'washed up', like someone elsewhere on vox recently said?

Well, as it turns out, those people are -- if, arguably, not objectively -- wrong.  It was a fantastically good concert, and I really enjoyed it.

Most of the audience, expectably, was my age and older.  There were some younger people, and I was pleased to see that some of them even seemed to be enjoying the show.  My daughter was very excited and pleased, and when I leaned over to her and said in her ear at one point "Oh, this is on the new album, huh?" she said "Yeah, this is one of my favourite songs."

It's true, you can't sing along with your favourite Dylan classics at the show.  He violently rearranges them all, usually making some faint reference to a certain musical hook, sometimes really playing up that hook with dramatic aplomb.  Sometimes I had to listen for several seconds before recognizing something, and sometimes I tried and failed miserably to sing along.

I really enjoyed that, actually.  It was the same songs, but with actual attention payed to them instead of just zombiing them out like an old pop star at Vegas.  The reworkings were vital and entertaining and worthy of the originals.

On the way out I heard one guy ask another guy why he hadn't sung any of his "old stuff".  This is funny, because out of the 16 songs he performed there were four from the current album and one from each of his two prior studio albums.  The other ten were "old stuff".  Granted, the guy who said that seemed either drunk or otherwise impaired.

A couple came in and sat down beside us right after the opening band, Kings of Leon, had finished up.  Berkeley and I agreed that this was probably a good strategy.  KoL seemed okay at first, a heavy guitar band, reasonably entertaining; but they grew old after a couple tunes, and their attempts at slower-and-ballady were pretty terrible.  Who knows?  Maybe it was just the sound setup.  Anyway, this couple came in, the guy pretty drunk.  He asked if KoL had already played, and I told him yes.  He looked instantly bummed.  They left after a few Dylan songs.  The couple on my other side also left about halfway through the Dylan set.

I think we were in a section of seats given to people who'd won them through radio station promotions.  They were good seats, though.

The audience really reacted positively when he broke out in "Masters of War", a masterpiece of rage which always makes me seethe and cry at the same time.  When he finished that song, when the applause died, someone shouted "Sing it again!"

"Simple Twist of Fate" brought cheers at the first few seconds.  I guess I don't know anyone who listens to Dylan, so I don't know what people like.  That's a good one, and I always want people who don't like Dylan to try sitting down and really listening to the "Blood on The Tracks" album.  Yeah, I know, I know.

The band was really good, with a strange versatility.  The music shifted from swing to more country to a weird kind of music I was trying to figure out.  It struck me that maybe Bob had developed a new kind of hard rock, as heavy as metal, that doesn't sound like any other hard rock at all.  It was bone-crunching, gut-churning hard.  I think that's part of it, too, part of what makes people not dig a Dylan concert.  This isn't your "Highway 61 Revisited" or "Blonde on Blonde" or "Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Volume 2" album that you've spent all those decades listening to while enjoying a cup of coffee, sitting in the shaft of sunlight through the window.  This is challenging and engaging music, not your old worn, comfortable cushions.

So, I don't know, I was shocked and a little pissed at the responses to the "Who is Bob Dylan" question I saw a few days ago.  I know I'm an old dude, and all that, and I know everyone's got their own musical tastes and aesthetics; but it's truly ignorant to refer to Bob Dylan as a boring washed out old 60s dude.  But you go ahead and enjoy your Clay Aiken and your Beyoncé and whatever modern fake punk band you're listening to.

Here's the set list for the show:

Tombstone Blues
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Rollin' And Tumblin'
Masters Of War
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
Just Like A Woman
Highway 61 Revisited
When The Deal Goes Down
Cold Irons Bound
Simple Twist Of Fate
Watching The River Flow
Workingman's Blues #2
Summer Days
(encore)
Thunder On The Mountain
Like A Rolling Stone
All Along The Watchtower