Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Dylan then...
He was introduced with,
"Ladies and gentlemen... the voice of the 60s counterculture... the grandfather of the folk movement... in the 70s he disappeared into drug-induced oblivion... he found Jesus... was written off in the 80s as a has-been... and now he's making some of the best music of his career. Ladies and gentlemen, Columbia recording artist BOB DYLAN!"
I could have lived without that.
Still, it’s Bob Dylan. Right there! After a few songs I was still wondering when it would sink in, I seemed strangely unmoved, it was like watching it on television. Then I realised that that was the problem, it WAS like watching it on television, or perhaps spying on a rehearsal. Dylan was seated at a piano, pointing away from the audience. I wasn't expecting a, "Hello London! Are you ready to rock?" but he made no indication that he even knew there was an audience. It’s a problem with a lot of music, especially white music, that the performer expects worship and there is none of the call and response dialogue that is more common in the Black tradition. So you don’t feel a part of it, and start to become a bit... bored. The band were highly proficient, if you like that sort of thing, bar room blues I guess, one ponderous guitar lick after another. None of it was bad, just little of it was that good. He acknowledged the audience in the encore, cheers Bob, and played a powerful “Like a Rolling Stone”, and then was gone. I know that he's Dylan, and has earned the right to do whatever he wants, but that doesn't mean I have to be impressed by it. I just wonder why he’s still doing it. If he only wants the adulation he feels he’s entitled to, why play at all? The “Bobcats” will still come and cheer him if he stands alone on the stage. If he wants to share his music, then shaaaare Bob, make me want to listen to you.
|
He was introduced with,
"Ladies and gentlemen... the voice of the 60s counterculture... the grandfather of the folk movement... in the 70s he disappeared into drug-induced oblivion... he found Jesus... was written off in the 80s as a has-been... and now he's making some of the best music of his career. Ladies and gentlemen, Columbia recording artist BOB DYLAN!"
I could have lived without that.
Still, it’s Bob Dylan. Right there! After a few songs I was still wondering when it would sink in, I seemed strangely unmoved, it was like watching it on television. Then I realised that that was the problem, it WAS like watching it on television, or perhaps spying on a rehearsal. Dylan was seated at a piano, pointing away from the audience. I wasn't expecting a, "Hello London! Are you ready to rock?" but he made no indication that he even knew there was an audience. It’s a problem with a lot of music, especially white music, that the performer expects worship and there is none of the call and response dialogue that is more common in the Black tradition. So you don’t feel a part of it, and start to become a bit... bored. The band were highly proficient, if you like that sort of thing, bar room blues I guess, one ponderous guitar lick after another. None of it was bad, just little of it was that good. He acknowledged the audience in the encore, cheers Bob, and played a powerful “Like a Rolling Stone”, and then was gone. I know that he's Dylan, and has earned the right to do whatever he wants, but that doesn't mean I have to be impressed by it. I just wonder why he’s still doing it. If he only wants the adulation he feels he’s entitled to, why play at all? The “Bobcats” will still come and cheer him if he stands alone on the stage. If he wants to share his music, then shaaaare Bob, make me want to listen to you.
|
