I guess Dylan loves keepin us on our toes as usual,-)
Rainy Day Women" aka "Everybody Must Get Stoned". "Stuck Inside
of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again".
Both of these are off of BLONDE on BLONDE, IMO w/ HIGHWAY 61 his
best two LP's...
and CHARLIE McCoy is on BOTH,-) on Gtr, Bass, Trumpet and GOOD
Harmonica,-)
Thanx for the Cool Review....sounds like it's time for him to STOP
tourin,-)
Best,
Rob P
----- Original Message ----- From: "jazmaan@xxxxxxxxxxx" <dmf273@xxxxxxxxx
>
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 10:16 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] Dylan at the Santa Monica Civic
I saw Dylan perform at the Santa Monica Civic last night. The
last time he played there was in the late 70's and before that in
the mid-60's. The Civic doesn't even have rock and roll anymore
except on very rare occassions or for awards shows, so it was
definitely an "event" like atmosphere. Fans were camped out from
the night before to get the first spots in line for the general
admission festival seating within.
By the time Dylan took the stage every square inch of the floor was
filled with people. I saw a lot of concerts at the Civic back in
the day including Pink Floyd (twice!) but I've never seen it as
full as this. It normally holds about 3,500 but I'd say this was
at least twice its normal capacity.
Dylan opened up with "Rainy Day Women" aka "Everybody Must Get
Stoned". The next song was "It Ain't Me Babe" followed by "Stuck
Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again". Then he played a
string of newer songs I wasn't familiar with. Then he played the
traditional blues "Rollin & Tumblin". Then "Ballad of a Thin
Man" ("Mr. Jones"), a couple more unfamiliar songs, and then he
closed the show with "Like a Rolling Stone" and "All Along the
Watchtower".
Dylan did not pick up a guitar all night. But his band was quite
good with one Strat, one Tele, Fender Bass, Drums, a utility player
who switched between fiddle, mandolin and acoustic guitar, and
Dylan himself on keyboards all night and occassional harmonica.
Dylan's harp playing was absolutely atrocious. I used to kind of
like his playing, but this was bad - really bad! He seemed to be
using the harp more as a percussion instrument than anything else,
often playing one note repeatedly without regard to whether it was
even a "right" note.
This was puzzling because, suprisingly enough, Dylan's keyboard
playing was very very good! He was rocking the joint, constantly
propelling the entire band with a relentless forward momentum. I
was quite impressed!
Don't even get me started on his singing. Even if you knew every
word to his songbook, you might not have recognized his lyrics
until several choruses into each song. He garbles, mumbles,
gargles and moans, sings behind the beat, indistinctly and
mushmoushed until the singing becomes like an impressionist
interpretation of the words you thought you knew. But it was
interesting!
Overall it was a very enjoyable night.
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_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l