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Dylan didn't put on a good show?
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Me oh my...I was front row centre, literally. You couldn't have had better seats in the whole Metro Centre (19,000 seats). Everything was primed for a wonderful evening..the opening notes of a song from Love and Theft rumbled through the arena, and everybody went nuts.
The very second Dylan opened his mouth the whole place went dead silent. Nobody could hear a thing he was "singing" and once the crowd noise died down everybody thought it was bad acoustics. After a while you just got to realizing that Dylan's nasal growl was simply indecipherable...as were many of the song renditions. Because he has reworked so many of his older songs, almost none were recognizable...and of course since we couldn't hear the words, we were lost. After the concert, on the way out, everybody was comparing notes about the songs... "I think the first one in the encore was Lonesome Hobo", "No, I think it was Down Along the Cove...I thought I heard the word Cove in there."
It was a great show for the music alone...those songs sound AMAZING and the band is the best he has eer had. I used to collect lots of his bootlegs and I had never, ever heard a show that sounded that good. It was Dylan himself that was horrendously disappointing. He stood in a corner and groaned. I'd pay to see the band do instrumentals, but at $65 a pop, I wouldn't pay to see the man himself again.
Disclaimer: I worship at the gates of Dylan's musical and poetic estate. Idolize the things he has done and said and written...my admiration for him simply wasn't enough to overcome his performance. I'm glad I went, just to say I saw him, but he has passed his performing prime by 20 years.
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I really couldnt agree with you more Grooveless. I saw the man last year in concert for the first (and likely only) time, and it was truely an experience. His band really is amazing, they are so technically and creatively sound, but they're so good that they make him sound BAD, not good. I too was dead front row, I waited 8 hours in the scorching sun to be there.
The man has no voice left, he really does sound quite hideous at the best of times, but everyone knows that. I later got a bootleg of the show I saw from a guy off the internet, and man, I cant listen to it. It sounds soooo bad. Not the quality, but him. He just has his own way of doing things, and most of them conform to absolutely no laws of music. This at times can be a virtue, but most of the time it sounds quite bad. For instance, his going up an octave at the end of each line in this whiny voice (I cringe every time I hear it) "...how does it feeEEEEEEEL...".
I also cant say I have a whole lot of respect for his like you said unrecognizable renditions of his classics. I mean, playing "Dont think Twice, Its alright" in the same fashion as everything off Love and Theft, is to me just wrong. I suppose they're his songs and he can do whatever he wants with them, and it keeps it interesting for him after all these years, but I'd much rather hear a song they way he originally wrote it. Oh and he didnt even pick up his guitar, all keyboard.
After all this, you'd think I hate the man or something. I dont, idolize him and have the utmost respect for alot of what he has done, I just dont think he puts on a good show these days. But man, I am honestly so happy I went, because he is my hero, and just to say that I saw Dylan in concert is pretty special.
