Finally after all the waiting it happened. RMIT’s big move into show business has finally reached it’s peak. Bob Dylan was appearing in front of a decent sized crowd in the sports field where I work.
I got there early enough to see something of the support act, a woman belting out some jazz apparently influenced by ‘the Vietnamese Bob Dylan’. Between acts I moved as close to the front as I could and squeezed into a gap left by other people in the crowd heading off for food or drink. This left me about 6 rows from the front and with a great view. Where else could I get this close?
Dylan came on wearing a wide brimmed white hat and took up his place behind a small keyboard surrounded by a 5 piece band, 1 drummer and 4 guitarists. They played for just under two hours running through the vast back catalogue which included ‘A hard Rain’, ‘Highway 61’ and ‘All along the Watch Tower’ to name just a few. It looked like he was enjoying himself and I certainly was. From time to time he strapped on a guitar and came out to the front of the stage to join the rest of the band and occasionally he rasped into a harmonica.
And still the stupid press reports from China criticised him for submitting a playlist to be authorised by the Ministry of Culture and endlessly repeating the ‘protest song’ narrative. With a repertoire of over 800 hundred songs how many are in any way political? 10 maybe 15? No wonder the guy gets fed up with being asked about it. They are about women, just like almost every other pop song!!
It ended with ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ and ‘Forever Young’, two of my personal favourites with the crowd joining in, shouting out the chorus ‘How does it feel/how does it feel/to be on your own/no direction home/a complete unknown/like a rolling stone/. Well, to me it felt good all this way from home.
They say he’s lost his voice. They say he won’t engage with the crowd. They say you can’t recognise the songs. All true but to be there in the crowd taking part in rock history was a privilege.
I agree! I saw Dylan in Shanghai a few days before the VNM show. He was great and he seemed to be enjoying himself. He sounded better to me than the last time I saw in 2003, he seemed to engaged and I could recognize the songs
ReplyDeleteI really don't understand why all these people criticized him for the China shows. Maybe they are just jealous that can still put on a great concert at the age of 70!