Category Archives: Music

I never thought I would see Bob Dylan in concert. He’s too old. He seldom tours Texas. Tickets would be too hard to get or too expensive to afford. These were my rationalizations. Then, somehow, despite not getting Austin City Limits Festival tickets for the third year in a row, and one in which Bob was closing the event, the stars aligned, I hit refresh at the right time, and I was afforded the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Bob Dylan play a relatively intimate show at Stubb’s in Austin.

I’d only heard the stories, read the books and interviews, and, of course, heard the songs. I even spent a semester in college studying the man, the lyrics, and the myths…for credit! After that much buildup, the concert experience was a little surreal. Considering his age (66), his immense catalog, and his indelible and pervasive effect on American culture, the legend loomed larger than the music on this night.

I was more than annoyed with the college kid in front of me with the bushy mane that couldn’t stand still. Sure, you should enjoy Bob’s music and dance for every song, but not when you’re in my line of sight. Eventually, my prayers were answered, and he somehow danced off to one side. Then my twelve-rows-back, standing room only spot provided me one of the best visual and auditory experiences I’ve ever had at a concert.

I recognized half of the songs from his set, but, even then, they were nearly unrecognizable.This is not to say that they were bad – far from it. Bob’s current vocal stylization may be described as spoken-word-country-staccato-rap. A rapid delivery with a dry voice at the beginning of each phrase somehow winds its way to the denouement everyone in the crowd is expecting, except no one knows, really, how or when he’ll get from Tangled Up in… to the closing tag of that chorus, to the point that you think the old man might run out of breath, but, instead, he flashes a quick grin to the audience, then looks knowingly at his phenomenal band, and finishes, in a rhythm that’s all his own, surprising everyone who’s already finished the lyric for him (as if he forgot!) with Blue!

Possibly the highlight of my concert going career was the closer, the encore, the song I hoped to hear, but didn’t want to hope too much for fear of major depression setting in should the dream not come true. After reading Jimi Hendrix’s biography and watching some of his performance at Woodstock, I was thrilled when Bob decided to close with All Along the Watchtower, which, after Bob heard Jimi’s take, began to prefer and to play that version. The version from this concert, however, was somewhere in between the original, Jimi’s take, and Bob’s current sound. And even though the words and rhythms were all Dylans’s brand-new creations, the song was as powerful in it’s nebulousness as it was in it’s timelessness.

I attended the show with my brother-in-law, a good guitarist. As an average drummer myself, I turned to my bro-in-law during the middle of the show and after more than a few delectable drum fills, and promptly told him I was going to cut my hands off. There are musicians that, when seen and heard and felt, make you feel as if all of your hard work is for naught. He felt the same way about Dylan’s lead guitarist. I rationalized that these guys were much older than us, and we still have time to get better. The music was stellar.

As for Dylan, even though he didn’t do much, I couldn’t help but stare. He barely said three words the entire night, aside from introducing the band at one point. He just played music. Course, he’s just a song and dance man, right? It was hard to fathom that someone so elusive and talented and close to me at that moment in time has had such an impact on American music and culture.

Dylan’s the epicenter of a still-radiating cultural earthquake. He meant so much to so many early on in his career, but he was never afraid to go his own way, to be an artist. Maybe all artists, in order to maintain integrity, have to be salmon-driven, fighting the stream to create something new, only to die after having done so, then to do it all over again. He not busy being born is busy dying.

And Dylan, the cultural chameleon that keeps reminding us of what we look like, is always busy being born.

——-

The Set List

Bob Dylan (Sept. 15, 2007, Stubb’s)

1. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

2. It Ain’t Me Babe

3. Watching the River Flow

4. You’re A Big Girl Now

5. The Levee’s Gonna Break

6. Spirit on the Water

7. Cry Awhile

8. Tangled Up in Blue

9. Workingman’s Blues #2

10. Honest With Me

11. Beyond the Horizon

12. Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine

13. Nettie Moore

14. Summer Days

15. Ballad of a Thin Man

16. Thunder on the Mountain

17. All Along The Watchtower