PHOTO FROM PADOVA
Thanks to one of our Austrian correspondents, here's a decent photograph of Dylan from his Padova concert. The picture is © Paolo Brillo 2010. Our correspondent also reports that recent concerts have felt like "real Bob Dylan", with better singing and far more of Bob standing centre stage and wanting to commune with his audiences. My question is: is there convincing aural evidence of this? (I'm not suggesting that the answer is no: I'm simply asking.) Would anyone like to suggest a particular song performance, preferably one available on YouTube?
posted by Michael Gray | 9:11 am
26 Comments:
Hi Michael,
I found this You Tube link for "Forever Young" from the June 19th Dornbirn show that I liked. Audio only but its pretty good quality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fs7omh6V2Y
There are others with video but sound not so good.
All the best,
Jonathan
I'm having trouble finding clips with decent audio.
I guess people in Japan have better hand-held devices.
The voice (as ever) isn't an issue for me, Dylan being fully engaged is all I look for.
Pat Ford
Not in a position to direct you to utube footage Michael but I can offer a brief report from the front line so to speak as just back from 3 gigs in Lyon, Nice and Marseille. I thoroughly enjoyed all three but a good deal of this was greatly contributed to by the visual experience. Right up front for all 3 and Bob is indeed much more engaging visually than has been the case for a number of years. Out front as much as he is behind the keyboard and plenty of arm swaying and gesturing-he's become quite the showman. The presence of Charlie helps too as he marauds the stage and I'm sure that Bob is reacting to his presencde as much as anything. A case of healthy competition bringing out the best in him perhaps? I bumped into the band before the Nice gig too and shook hands with Charlie which was an added bonus-had a quick chat about him producing a Lucinda Williams album called Essence which I'm very fond of-Tony played on it too.
Anyway, back to Bob. I'd describe his performances as hit and miss. Each of the 3 shows I attended started with quite a strong Pill Box Hat, slightly rearranged and with Bob putting in a strong vocal. Then things would inevitably slide as he came out front with the guitar for 2 songs-the Baby Blue/Baby tonight combination in Lyon proving very flat indeed. The vocal would be very croaky at this stage, the exception being a relatively strong This Wheel's on Fire from Nice in the second slot. After a crowd pleasing JLAW (not in same league as the wonderful Cork 2006 version I was lucky enough to be present for but an honourable effort nonetheless), the shows seemed to kick into gear around the 5th song with the likes of High Water (very tight), Blind Willie, Desolation Row (superb in Marseille), Cold Irons (particularly fierce in Nice, my favourite gig of the three), Honeest With Me (complete with bizarre Bob organ solo which the crowd eventually loved but I suspect the charm would be lost on an aural only playback). The vocals would vary but there's no way of getting around the fact that there is a lot of growling/croaking which can actually be effective in some cases and simply inappropriate in others. The highlight of the three gigs was a sublime Forgetful Heart in Marseille which was quite beautiful and was literally spine tingling from pretty much start to finish. The vocal proved too that he can sing tenderly and with genuine feeling when he wants. The crowd fell silent during it in huge admiration and it was wonderful to hear the arena erupt upon its conclusion to such a relatively new song. What Good Am I from Nice was also another example of him singing with care rather than barking out all the lyrics with venom. So, plenty of flaws combined with some really good stuff and a compelling visual spectacle. All in all, a really enjoyable few days and one that I will continue to enjoy reflecting upon for quite some time
Wonderful pic. I hope stew uses it as part of his cover for the show when it comes up. Cheers and thanks for publishing it in the first place. I would imagine that the snapper will get credit. Cheers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkFlobSOQnU&translated=1
Dear Michael,
Listen to What good am I? from Linz on June 12.
You can download the concert at Expecting Rain.
SJM
P.S. I appreciate your writings on Dylan.
http://www.dylannl.nl/
What good am I? from Linz can be heard here.
Hi Michael
Firstly your request for youtube videos couldn't come at a worst time. The lovely people of Sony have taken 99% of unauthorised Dylan footage of youtube. Hours and hours of Never Ending Tour video has disappeared, not to mention everything else. Shows from his current tour last a day or two and then are taken down. Awful stuff :(
Anyway I recently saw Bob in Bratislava, Slovakia.. It was categorically the best Dylan show i have ever seen. I am from ireland and my girlfriend is from Bratislava, so we were on a little trip, visiting family and seeing the countryside. We had been hiking in the Tatra mountains in sweltering heat for a few days,and were in high spirits when we arrived back to Bratislava. The tickets for the Bratislava gig were the most expensive of the tour, so we didn't have tickets, but we went to the venue anyway believing something good would happen. And sure enough, i managed to haggle the door staff to let us in for 40euro!!
All the other Dylan concerts i have seen were in Stadiums and Arenas. The venue in Bratislava was tiny and really intimate. It was seated and the first 5 or 6 rows seemed to be occupied by corporate people. As they had let in more people than there were seats, there was people sitting in the aisles. We managed to get right up front on one of the aisles.
Aside from the intimate setting, what made this special to me was Bob's conviction and involvement in the performance. I have stated many a time on this site, that i have a bit disheartened in the last few years with the deterioration of not only bobs vocal chords but his performance skills too, the nuance in his delivery has been absent. In bratislava it was the opposite. Sure there was that "bark"he has developed of late, but there was so much more genuine heart in the delivery, an eagerness to express himself and connect with the audience. Bob was out front with just the mic on a number of occasions. High Water, Ballad of a Thin Man and Forgetful Heart were performed this way and Bob was in the zone, and brought the audience with him. Shelter from the storm with its new arrangement was another stand out. At one point towards the end of the show the people seated in the aisles and in the further back rows surged to the stage. What a great moment, Bob was grinning like a cheshire cat.
Sorry for this long winded reply. But it was just such a great night. I have an mp3 version of the concert i would happily send it on to you, if you so wished.
Carl Finlay
Thank you all for these responses. Going to the youtube bit suggested in the fifth comment (it's Girl of the North Country from Barcelona) led me to a Joni Mitchell & Johnny Cash version from the late 1960s, which I hadn't known about, and that led me to Joni the folksinger from 1965 singing a John Phillips song, and from there to a 1998 slice of Joni talking about the Magdalene Laundries.
Ageing is a sad process, whether you see Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan or yourself. Yet last night on BBC4, we were lucky enough to catch the footage of Jackson Browne at this year's Glastonbury Festival - and apart from his playing a fine set with a fine band, what was striking was the shape he's in. He's 61, seven and a half years younger than Bob, and looking a whole generation younger. Or to put it another way, Jackson Browne is two years younger than me and his shape is 20 years younger.
At the same time, his wise and poignant songs, combined with the inevitable thoughts about the gap between when he was young and now, just make you think about how quickly life goes by. As Bob sings in the lovely 'Tears of Rage', life is brief.
Having been in Bratislava myself I can wholeheartly agree with everything Carl says about this wonderful concert.
So what did you think of the Girl of the North Country from Barcelona then, Michael?
after downloading a number of shows from this tour, it would seem the Linz, Austria show has been the best so far. Beautiful What Good am I and Not Dark Yet.
I'm not sure whether audio evidence is the best kind of evidence, as the live experience is often superior to the tapes that are left behind. But I was present at Athens, at the front row, and I thought Dylan's performance was as good or better than when I last saw him (1996). The singing was heartfelt and care was taken over the words. I remember seeing Dylan live in the nineties, being hugely impressed, and then being let down when listening again on the tapes. This does not mean, though, that the tapes are in some way a more accurate record and that one is under Bob's spell when in attendance. Field recordings are in their own way distorted facts.
Thanks for the suggestions. I wish I could be happier about having heard them - or in the case of the Dornbirn 'Forever Young' not heard, since Sony had already had it taken down before I got there.
Of course it's good to hear him bother to sing more than rasp, but it's a pretty rare song performance where the rasping is minimal. In fact 'What Good Am I' at Linz is the only instance quoted more than once.
Clearly he's taking far more care there than he bothers to take the rest of the time. But that just strongly suggests that either he could sing if he wanted to but he doesn't respect his audiences enough to try, or that while technically he could sing, the material and the act of public performance have both become so empty of meaning for him that he is genuinely incapable of the concentration required to sing. Perhaps both.
'Girl of the North Country' from Barcelona? Well, yes, it's nice to hear a small scattering of tenderly sung phrases - but basically he's just hamming it up. This is not an artistically sincere performance. 'What Good Am I?' may be an attempt at one - but it's only a partial success. I'm grateful for its quietness and for the higher percentage of his real presence, but there's still besmirched by frequent uprasping I suspect we're all trying to pretend we don't hear. To be specific, listen to the horrendous delivery of "while you silently die", where he switches with fatal haste from rasped "silently" to hushed "die": the hush is such an afterthought that it wobbles horribly, hammy as a poignant moment from Tony Bennett.
I know it's a different experience to be there, and I'm not in the least trying to be reductive about anyone's concert experience. I know the tapes don't do justice to the live moment; but they do reveal how he actually sang. And if you listen to any pre-electric performance, or any Live 1966 performance, or London or Paris 1978, or the Fox-Warfield concerts of 80-81, or Barcelona 1984, or 'Tears of Rage' from Besançon in the early 1990s, it doesn't matter whether you were there or not: the radiant greatness and unfaltering artistic bite of Dylan's performing and vocal genius shine through. No special pleading needed. And if you were there, the tapes don't disappoint.
And look at that list. It's telling that it descends from whole eras of greatness to whole years, to wide sweeps of concerts, to one concert, to one song performance.
This is a downward spiral. Now it's so far down that we're desperate to find from among a vast amount of touring even half a song that's sung tolerably well. One fine phrase even!
Sometimes it feels as if we're dogs under the table listening to a lot of unedifying noises and waiting for the odd edible scrap to fall.
Michael
I do not believe that you are serious when you state that the graph of Dylans performance history "descends....to one concert,to one song performance" (in the early 1990s).
In this blog you have spoken very highly of Portsmouth 2000,etc and in your book you said that Woodstock 1994 was one of the GREAT performances.
IMO Dylan found his voice again in 1994 and 1995 was an exceptional year. There have been many excellent tours and concerts since then including the great 2002 tour with the exceptional covers of Mutineer, Carrying The Touch, Something,End Of Innocence, Accidentally Like A Martyr,etc and 2003 with Romance In Durango,etc.
The Genuine Never Ending Tour Covers Collection 1989-2000 provides ample evidence of Dylans continuing greatness as a live performer (despite the inconsistency of the recording quality).I have compiled my own single cd selection from this 9 cd collection including Lady Came From Baltimore, Pretty Peggy-O,etc and it stands comparison with vintage Dylan.
There have also been exceptional TV performances over this period including the Grammies Love Sick, Cash Tribute Train of Love and Nelson Tribute Hard Times.
The audio quality does have make a difference. I was recently listening (on headphones} to Liverpool 2009 and there were several songs at the end from Dublin 2009...suddenly the sound completey changed and the vocals were considerably improved and you could actually hear some deft instumentation with Denny Freeman excelling on guitar!
Somebody told me that there were over 100,000 Dylan performances on you/tube.
Age is a funny thing...we have witnessed arguably the greatest performer in all stages of life ( as Pat said some time ago "we will never see his like again, of that I have no doubt")unlike the the young men and women in Japan this year who responded to his performances so enthusiastically judging by the video on you/tube where you can only see the audience. Cardiff 1997: standing next to a 20 year old woman who was seeing Dylan for the first time ..she was like a child on Xmas morning, sadly as Dylan came on stage her partner passed out and she had to leave !
Paul
I too - for a long time starting in the early 2000s and especially from 2005 - 2009 - had the impression of a decline, that from overall greatness the really great performances went down to a couple of shows per year, to one show, to a few songs, to certain moments in certain songs. Which was not only an impression, it was easy to prove - just to listen to a, say, 2008 recording and then to any from 1999 or 1994 or 1980/81 or 1976 was evidence enough. And not only listening to the recordings left little doubt, even when I was at the shows there were so many forgettable songs (from Moder Time e.a.) and lame performances. Of course it still was Dylan and the moments (not more) of beauty and intensity sometimes made up for the other 85% of the concert.
I was never one to criticise the voice, though. Well, of course I critizise it but it didn’t put me off. Of course it's broken, raspy, a deep grunt etc etc … But that I didn't and don't mind, as long as Dylan works with what's left in an interesting and intense way. It was the music I didn't like, the guitar playing, the dominating sound of the organ, and the way Dylan seemed to hide behind the keyboards, so the stage had no center, there was no ‘star’ in front of you, just a voice coming from the speakers and literally people in grey playing murky music.
And that’s what completely changed on this tour. Dylan was again front of stage and not only when playing guitar or singing with harmonica in hand. Even when behind the keyboards he was looking at the audience (or communicating with Sexton or Herron or Receli), often playing with just his right hand and pointing to the people. That and of course Sextons presence (in more than one way) made an incredible difference to the years before. There again were these moments, whole songs, when I was just mesmerized, when I couldn’t take my eyes off him. At EVERY show I saw ( six in a row) Dylan was not just delivering another Bob Dylan Show, he was engaged, working the audience, acknowledging the audience, playing WITH the band, trying out rhythmic and melodic patterns, having fun. Maybe this doesn’t come through on a recording, maybe this time you had to be there.
Rainer
This is a lovely, thoughtful response - and I’m filled with admiration for your eloquence in English.
In part, we don't disagree. I acknowledge - I already did - that the “you had to be there” is a valid and understandable feeling; but I find it hard to agree when you talk about his intensity at the same time as saying the voice doesn’t matter. As I argued earlier, it’s hard to accept that he’s concentrating when the voice is making so many horrible noises. In the studio, on Christmas in the Heart and supremely on ‘Mississippi’ on “Love and Theft”, the voice is very limited but he really does do something concentrated and intense with it.
You may respond that it's unfair to compare the studio and a live performance, but it wasn't for many years. The consummate live 'Lay Down Your Weary Tune' and the studio version are pretty close to identical, in fact; and if you argue that the point of a Dylan live performance is not to be identical but to be different, then OK - but the live 1966 voice stands any comparison you like with the Blonde On Blonde voice; so does the 1978 live voice with Street Legal; and at times, the live voice outshines that on the studio performances. We could both cite at least 20 examples. But how many of them would be from the 21st Century?
And yes, Paul, Woodstock II and one of the two 2000 Portsmouth UK concerts had slipped my mind. They hardly disrupt the spiral I describe. You mention 'Romance in Durango' from London 2003. You're already citing a single song performance yourself - and anyway, yes, it was great to hear him throw that in, a marvellous surprise: but in truth it was a poignantly less certain vocal performance of the song than any on the Rolling Thunder Revue. And we'll have to disagree about the quality of those Warren Zevon covers. Again, refreshing to have them in the sets, but every one fell down somewhere along the line either into fakery or slipshod vocal fudge. I tried every one of them, over and over, hoping to be able to select just one sustained, felicitous rendition. I couldn't.
I'm sorry to be such an old grouch about this - I know it doesn't make me popular - but I have to hold to my own judgment. I often keep silent. I can't always. There'd be no blog at all if I did...
Whilst agreeing with most of what you say about his bad vocal habits & affectations; hearing Workingman's Blues from Hop Farm is the first time in a while that i have heard a performance of his & been moved enough to have wanted to actually be at the concert.
Jack
Michael
I’m still amazed at the amount of sophistry and art form special pleading employed to say that Bob is still great and seeing him is wonderful and all of the nay sayers wouldn’t appreciate Shakespeare if he appeared in front of them.
One of the things that always strikes me is how people don’t seem to see that if you use your superlatives on the low level currently in existence what can you usefully apply to the times when he was a wonder. The other is that it’s an iron rule that the closer someone was to Bob at any concert the more they think it was fantastic. And that’s because, obviously, people don’t go to really hear it or appreciate it in any kind of thoughtful or analytical way, but just to be in his presence and feel that they have made some kind of connection with… what, the past, their past, the wonderful Sixties that they’ve read about. He’s become a cross between a holy relic whose mere propinquity confers grace, and an exhibit in the Natural History Museum. He’ll keep turning out as long as people keep turning up, but what he wants is to get lost in the thunderous boogie, and the chore of vocalizing the words is the price he has to pay. Some people around my age, live near Hop Farm and went. They have no axe to grind. They were old time fans but don’t read up on articles or mags. And they went away sad and disappointed. “We loved him for the words and knowing the songs,” they said, “and we couldn’t recognise anything or hear the words.”
And on a related subject did you read what Jakob Dylan said in an interview, also on expecting rain, giving a view I can support.
And then do the songs change as you get out and perform them?
DYLAN Yeah, but I’m also appreciative that people are going to get a baby-sitter and drive their car and pay for parking. I don’t see any reason to insist that I can’t play it the way I played it ten years ago because I’m not in
the mood anymore. The artists who do that have always rubbed me the wrong way. You’ve got to play a song however you can get inspired to play it, but for me to play a song the way people remember it for three and a half minutes, four minutes, that’s not asking too much. I can always do that.
Also I think it’s tosh about him reacting with the audience when what’s being referred to is gesturing and grimacing that doesn’t actually involve talking to them at all. More self-delusion.
I think you are wrong, Roy. I’ve been to a lot of concerts in the last 10 years (and before), I know many, many people who attend shows, and I always try to listen to people talking coming out of the shows – there are very few who expect anything like being shifted back to the Sixties or their youth, get the “Sixties feeling” (and be it only in their heads) or out of nostalgic reasons. They who do so are disappointed and won’t go see Dylan a second time, we all know that.
On the other hand, you are right – there’s something special in being in front of a ‘legend’ but that’s part of the game in any rock-concert or in any live concert/reading/what ever. But that does not automatically mean that every critical judgement is shut off. Many people, even fans ;-), nowadays have the (post-modern) ability to distuingish clearly between playing with the situation – rock-concert, star, fan, letting yourself go, etc – and looking at it from another level to judge the artistic quality.
And the communication? Well, maybe that’s the wrong word I used. Maybe interaction is better – Let’s not forget one important thing. It’s not Bob Dylan who’s on the stage, it’s Bob Dylan playing BOB DYLAN the artificial persona (like you won’t see Mick Jagger, David Bowie or Jack White on stage, they all are playing the reypective stage personae) and that’s the way it should be. It’s not someone I know being unpolite and not saying ‘hello’ to me or not asking me how I am. It’s someone I do not know playing a character who’s known for decades of not saying a word to me from the stage. So what? All I can tell is if the actor has fun doing his act and is doing it well. And on this tour he did.
I should just add that Limerick was an unexpected treat to round off my Bob gigging for 2010. I'd mentally written it off on the basis that it couldn't possibly match the 3 french gigs on a subjective level as I hadn't a chance of getting anywhere as near the front, it was a festival setting, outdoors etc. However, it turned out to be a very strong gig indeed and the longest set of the entire tour! The crowd around me seemed to love it. My wife's seventh Bob gig and her favourite by a country mile. Bob was in great form and apart from Tangled (that new arrangement is still not working for me), this was a cracker. My favourite outdoor Bob concert since Kilkenny 2001. The image of him out front at the mic (looking great I might add) delivering a truly powerful Cold Irons Bound and genuinely commanding the stadium is one that will stay with me for some time. Still kind of glowing nearly a week after the event in fact.
i could not help but feel some of Roy's points were made in reaction to my initial comment. Yes it was a treat to get up close to Dylan and be in such an intimate venue. But Im not beyond being judgemental or analytical.
I have been to a number of concerts and have been thoroughly disappointed. Last year in Dublin for example, was pretty woeful. The band were plodding along mundanely and Bob was totally unengaged, shouting the words incoherently. I thought I'd never go see him again.
There are things i didn't like about the gig i saw recently in Bratislava. I find the setting he has keyboard set to awful, its like an ice cream van or something. In fact i wish he would stop playing it all together or at least turn it so he faces the audience. I don't understand why he doesn't speak to the crowd, i'm used to it by now, but it comes across as cantankerous and pompous.
But nonetheless it was a great gig. He was having fun and it came across. Of course it wasn't like going to see him during the rolling thunder period or in the early to mid sixties. But everything is relative. There were moments in that concert that were genuinely brilliant. His centre stage delivery of High Water being the most notable, and shelter from the storm too.
But i do wish he would take a long break from touring, see a specialist about his vocal chords and then go on short tours of intimate venues, minus the ice cream van.
Oh and Judas Priest, I was at Kilkenny in 2001 too. It was an amazing gig. But it was the crowd that made it for me, I remember it being wild and huge sing-a-longs on Knocking on Heavens Door and Just like a Woman.
I can empathise with Roy's friends experince at Hop Farm because I had a similar experiece...the songs changed beyond all recognition, the voice at times bland and strained,poor showmanship with rather silly hand gestures and such a total disregard for the audience- hardly a word uttered all night. This was my experience at opening night Earls Court 1978. This was my first Dylan concert and I was so far away from the stage that I felt that I was not really there.
Is it self delusion or has Dylan hardly ever spoken to the audience ?
I agree that the special pleading serves no purpose and does Dylan an injustice....it really is about the voice. It continues to divide people as it always has ( the Every Grain Of Sand demo is one person's captivating experience and another person's "the dog can do better". It has always been so (" you sound like a hillibilly ")and will always be so.
I don't like to speak for other people....I came across a comment on the Hop Farm video of Thunder on the Mountain on you/tube from a young woman who attended and can be seen siting on a friend's shoulders at the front. She descibed the experience as the "best day of my life ". A nostalgia trip ? Die hard? No.
Paul.
It was in an earlier post on this subject that I mentioned seeing Bob from the front row. Did my proximity to Dylan, as Roy Kelly suggests, inflate my appreciation of his performance? Did it perhaps get in the way, as he implies, of my ability to be cool-headed and to see things in the proper perspective?
Hmmm. It was the only time I have seen Dylan close up. I had a mighty fine time. What is telling is Roy Kelly's use of the words "thoughtful" and "analytical" and his insistence on their opposition to "connection". Wasn't it Forster who wrote, "only connect"? There is truth, certainly, that Dylan is currently being overpraised. But there is also something to say about writers and critics who have forgotten how it feels, and perhaps place too much importance on the historical worth of a particular performance, on weighing it up against his illustrious past. I went with low expectations and had a great time, whereas no doubt Mr. Kelly went armed with his pen and notepad, ready to weigh and measure every ounce of Dylan's performance. Just exactly who sees Dylan as the "holy relic" here? The casual fan like myself, who goes to Dylan every few years and enjoys himself, and reads little into it, or someone like Roy Kelly, who goes with preconceived theories that current praise for Dylan must be rooted in some misguided veneration of the Sixties by people who were not born then, and who finds it impossible to lighten up because every line Dylan delivers must be measured against the holy writ of the studio recording or live performances from his prime. Quite frankly, the Sixties have never meant anything to me, despite the fact that I am too young to remember them for what they really were. Dylan's words and work, though, do mean something to me personally. There is much more to life than Bob, Roy. Perhaps it's time you closed the book on the pages and the text and moved on?
I've commented at some length on Dylan's current voice.
It's fine in my book, fascinating even. In certain instances it's the best voice for certain songs ever.
It doesn't come across live in many instances, and while part of it is energy, I wonder to if the dynamic range just doesn't come through in concert. Much of what he now does is subtle, the louder passages are when his voice rasps (perfect on a blues "standard" like "My Wife's Home Town), but the tender soft parts can get washed over live.
Very hard to get anything out of the Euro leg of the tour. The sound quality on the u-tube posts ranged from bad to worse not to mention Sony strip mining them as fast as they go up.
Disappointing after the Japan and Korea shows where I found much that I listened to through to the last note, and even returned to for repeat listening.
Pat Ford
Michael,
I strongly recommend you have a look and listen to this- Cry A While from the recent Kansas show. The sound quality isn't particularly strong and alas not all of the song is captured but it's safe to say this one is back with a bang. He is absolutely nailing it. Good to see Donnie so prominent in it too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA9XDYjUyrk&feature=channel
Enjoy,
Garret
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