Friday, October 24, 2008
ain't no use jivin'/ain't no use jokin'/everything is broken
i've been groovin' to dylan's 3 worst albums lately. idk.
Friday, October 10, 2008
fools rush in where angels fear to tread
i know, i never posted the post-dylan blurb. the truth is i had written a lengthy essay on the plane ride about the experience and then i lost my notebook! i'm hoping i still have it around somewhere, and i'll find it one day. suffice it to say, the concert was better than i hoped it would be. i guess that's just me being pessimistic, i prepared myself for the worst. and the truth is dylan can be pretty bad on occasion. but he was one fire. highlights were an emotionally touching "the times they are a-changin'" (i got all choked up), an incendiary "it's alright, ma (i'm only bleeding)" and the most inspired performance of the night, "highway 61 revisited". dylan was fun and free, dancing with his knees as he played his keyboards and leaned in to croak into his microphone while the band was sloppy and perfect.
i didn't know exactly why i was going to see him, i just knew it was something i had to. but now i know why i had to go, as i am not the same anymore. it was like i took part in a ritual. sure, there were some people who didn't like what was going on, including two guys right behind me and kirk who were mocking his singing and muttering to each other how they wanted to walk out. but most of the affluent, well-dressed santa barbara audience were the educated (by which i mean, well-versed in dylanology), the fervent, the devoted, the dylanheads. i don't even know another person as knowledgeable about dylan as myself, so to be among several thousand others was exhilirating. but the real thrill was to finally experience dylan in his true element; i felt like i had never experienced his music before. like all my music-listening, my last.fm scrobbling, my live dylan bootleg mixtape making, my esoteric dylan essay composing, had only been homework, preparation for the real deal.
and what did i experience? his irreverence towards his own legend (beginning with the concert's spoken introduction). towards his own work, even. it wasn't so much his genius, though i would say that was present as well, as i saw an adventurer explore new territory with his musical cohorts. there was a carelessness and looseness to his and his band's playing that wasn't even there four years ago, when he tore up his catalog with freddy koella and larry campbell. the result of was that the songs were given true freedom, they were allowed to breath, allowed to meander, allowed to go wherever whimsy would take them. and although an element of this has surely been in all of his live work, from the early '60s until the most recent years of the neverending tour, it struck me in a new way to be there in the audience, experiencing the music as it unfolded, realizing how the music was unfolding at the same instant as dylan himself, as the band members themselves.
in his recordings i've found dylan the pioneer, dylan the iconoclast, dylan the inimitable, dylan the incorrigible. but the dylan i saw that night was more of an indiana jones character. drawn by the past, yet irreverent towards it. going where others fear to tread, face to face with disaster, always with a cheeky, cavalier grin. i know where i have to go.
i didn't know exactly why i was going to see him, i just knew it was something i had to. but now i know why i had to go, as i am not the same anymore. it was like i took part in a ritual. sure, there were some people who didn't like what was going on, including two guys right behind me and kirk who were mocking his singing and muttering to each other how they wanted to walk out. but most of the affluent, well-dressed santa barbara audience were the educated (by which i mean, well-versed in dylanology), the fervent, the devoted, the dylanheads. i don't even know another person as knowledgeable about dylan as myself, so to be among several thousand others was exhilirating. but the real thrill was to finally experience dylan in his true element; i felt like i had never experienced his music before. like all my music-listening, my last.fm scrobbling, my live dylan bootleg mixtape making, my esoteric dylan essay composing, had only been homework, preparation for the real deal.
and what did i experience? his irreverence towards his own legend (beginning with the concert's spoken introduction). towards his own work, even. it wasn't so much his genius, though i would say that was present as well, as i saw an adventurer explore new territory with his musical cohorts. there was a carelessness and looseness to his and his band's playing that wasn't even there four years ago, when he tore up his catalog with freddy koella and larry campbell. the result of was that the songs were given true freedom, they were allowed to breath, allowed to meander, allowed to go wherever whimsy would take them. and although an element of this has surely been in all of his live work, from the early '60s until the most recent years of the neverending tour, it struck me in a new way to be there in the audience, experiencing the music as it unfolded, realizing how the music was unfolding at the same instant as dylan himself, as the band members themselves.
in his recordings i've found dylan the pioneer, dylan the iconoclast, dylan the inimitable, dylan the incorrigible. but the dylan i saw that night was more of an indiana jones character. drawn by the past, yet irreverent towards it. going where others fear to tread, face to face with disaster, always with a cheeky, cavalier grin. i know where i have to go.
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