Still buzzing from surprisingly good Lebanese food from Golden, I found my way to row 35, seat 24. It started to rain. The women next to me, a nurse in her early sixties with grey hair to the small of her back, leaned in close and said:
"The first time I saw him was in 1968, Toronto.
Half way through his set, he put down his acoustic guitar
and picked up an electric one. Then he said,
‘everybody, this is The Band.’ We thought he meant ‘the band,’
but he really meant ‘The Band.’"
Half way through his set, he put down his acoustic guitar
and picked up an electric one. Then he said,
‘everybody, this is The Band.’ We thought he meant ‘the band,’
but he really meant ‘The Band.’"
Undaunted, I waited for him to make his way to center stage, like I’ve seen him do six times before (and the nurse had seen him do many, many more times over nearly half a century). Lately, he’s stayed behind the piano, leaning into the mike to gurgle words that resist rhythm as he shifts on his boot heels and does what comes naturally. Tonight was no exception.
Though I made peace long ago with his “voice of sand and glue” as a just medium for social commentary made of the same, tonight’s version was particularly abrasive. Highlighted by musak-esque blues rifts, worn and watery, and insipid lyrics about shooting stars instead of shooting viet-cong, his voice of “sand and glue” sounded much more like one of broken glass and gravel. While Red Rocks Amphitheater is unparalleled in showcasing the acoustic complexities of large acts with intricate and intense arrangements, it did little to rescue Dylan’s set. Rather, Shiprock and Creation Rock, those ancient keepers of acoustics, seemed to conspire against him, letting his rhythms pass through them, unharnessed, into the darkness around us.
As we hiked the mile back to Jane, the jeep, these deflated rhymes and rhythms followed us, begging us for respect. Disillusioned and broken-hearted, I had none left to offer and crawled into bed dreaming of Arcade Fire, who plays Red Rocks on September 17th, and of what music is becoming rather than waxing nostalgic for what it has been.
2 comments:
Nice review. Just talked with a friend of mine that was at that show. He enjoyed My Morning Jacket and gave a similar review of Dylan's set. Do you have the new LCD Soundsystem? Its a good one and I'm pretty sure they're opening for The Arcade Fire.
yeah, nice post. Out with the old, in with the new! (yeah, the exclamation point is excessive there. I'm somewhere between enthusiasm and resignation.)
I also recommend the new LCD Soundsystem.
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