When I found out Bob Dylan was going to play Wahconah Park in Pittsfield last year, I thought about going. But I didn’t, for all the typically lame reasons: the traffic, the crowd, and I felt a little bad about it. Then when I heard he’d be coming back this year, to play this Saturday, I was excited for a few minutes, then decided I wouldn’t be going. And it isn’t just the $49.50 ticket price.
Before I go any further I should state clearly that I am a huge fan of Dylan’s early albums, which are on regular rotation in my iPod, and am a pretty decent amateur Dylanologist who can could parse the meaning of being followed by a Persian drunkard or of “jewels and binoculars hanging from the head of a mule” until the wee hours of night. That said, his live performances, and everything he’s recorded since Blood on The Tracks is just… is just… is just…..
I’ve seen Bob live three times. The first was in fall 1992 when I was in high school at the Paramount Theater in Springfield. Back then I was big into classic rock and the 60s and 70s, and since so many of my heroes and just about everyone I really liked was dead, I was quite in awe of the fact that Dylan was still around. And indeed, I was so star-struck that I felt bad for thinking that the band was ragged and sloppy and that the best moments were when he was alone on stage – like the old times – and grumbled out one of his classics.
I saw him again in December 1995, at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia. This time, he was wearing a weird sparkly blouse and again, the band chugged like some engine that was spitting out screws and blue smoke. He grunted, garbled and chudded through a boring set of what I thought I recognized as Bob Dylan songs. He wasn’t helped by the fact that he followed up his opening act, Patti Smith, who was playing one of the first shows of her comeback and damn near blew the roof off the place – to my incredible surprise, because I didn’t really like her all that much before that night. Bob didn’t have a chance, and I actually left early.
Last time was late 2001 at the MCI Center in Washington. It was the worst place to see a concert, though we got good standing spots along the boards of the hockey rink stage left and had a good view. I have much fonder memories of this show. His band was certainly much, much better. They were on a tighter leash, and clearly far more in tune with what Bob was up to. Maybe I’d just grown up, or knew the work better, but I could see the stubborn way he tried to make his songs new, by changing the rhythm and the intonations. That said, I dug it as an intellectual exercise, but my heart was elsewhere.
So while I might not think his most recent stuff really compares to his early stuff as much as some other serious fans do, I still have a lot of respect for him. The first volume of his memoirs, Chronicles, Vol. 1, was one of the most interesting and insightful things I’ve read in a long time. I like that in an upcoming article for Rolling Stone he refused to come down against Internet music downloading. That and the fact that he still makes a living as a musician should – by going out and playing music for people – signals that he absolutely has the right attitude about his art and his craft.
On Saturday night I’ll probably put on Blonde on Blonde wherever I am, but I won’t be going down to Wahconah Park. I hope everyone who is has a great time.
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