Most unnerving was watching him just stand there — not even moving his lips — while his voice snapped out his familiar lyric in a cadence never imagined by poets or jazzmen, rappers or auctioneers. I determined he was using a phone mike like the girls have been using, a very thin one because I couldn't see it. Maybe he planned to dance around a bit. That would be good, I thought. It would go with the music.
It was then that I noticed the fifth member of the band, whose back was to me. He was just another musician in a black top coat and a black hat, playing an old electric piano. He turned to get something from an altar behind him, and by the time he returned to the keyboard — in fact, before the first tweet of his goofy harmonica, the entire room seemed to figure out at once that this was Bob Dylan. Huh.
Several people lit their Bics, then put them out because their wives made them.
He played electric piano all night, and he played it like a guitar player, which is to say roughly, like he was strumming, or drumming. As the night wore on, so did his ability to keep time. Suddenly his sloppy signature appeared. It was Bob all along and had been from the beginning. The man cannot keep time.
He never once picked up a guitar, never took a break, never spoke a word, barked for two hours, systematically destroying every beautiful melody he ever wrote, spitting out lyrics like bad pizza in a voice with a range from Moe the Bartender to Krusty the Clown.
Classic after classic papered over with wallpaper rock against which he splattered his lyric in the manner of Miles Davis or Ornette Coleman, then clockwork guitar solos laid down their cliches in well metered doses, with certain licks so good they made their way into every song. Big big tumble down finish to a blop--same ending every time. Might as well end them all with "Shave and a Haircut, Five Cents."
By the end of it I felt licked myself, because the songs never varied: they were either fast or slow, happy or sad. It was one big loop of remixed readymades constructed of 12-bar blues progressions, the same mind-numbingly dumb foundations that have informed so much bad music, the kind of stuff some elders trail in their meteoric descent to the cheap bins.
Come on, Bob. Not Bob. You've still got time, Bob, the tour's not half over! Bob Dylan invented reinventing yourself, whereas Madonna just gave it a name.
Article comments
1 - Antfreeze
Wow! Dude, Great review. I may have been sitting right next to you in DeKalb. I was in section 212, Dylans back to us, 200 ft. away. And if I could write, I would've written something very much like this review. Dylan has said he had an epiphany a while back that allowed him to continue touring and playing every night. I suspect it was re-arranging everything so he won't get bored with playing it, and the audience can still say they heard him do some of his classics. About halfway through a song, you'd finally recognize a word he's singing and look over at your buddy with a quizzical look and go, "That's Highway 61???!" The keyboard playing was crappy, that little off-beat hammer thing he does always seeming to leave the band lost for a minute. Although Bob seemed to be having a pretty good time, juking around a bit. Now please turn off the lights when you leave my head.
2 - Eric Olsen
excellent Curt, great job, very glad to see you back, thanks!
3 - wtanderson
well put and true.
dylan's been so sloppy
(songwriting the last 37,
playing, always) and
mean spirited for years,
(probably the fraud guilt)
i'm always surprised anyone rarely comments
upon it.
(believe me i went through my dylan phase,
on my 20 year songwriting journey.)
ask yourself,
why doesn't this guy ever smile?