...Bob Dylan Concert...

...Whenever writing about Bob Dylan, writers try to use one of his lyrics to somehow connect their cleverness to Dylan's...I've even mocked myself, saying, "You mention his name so much that people will be forced to make comparisons"...they won't?...I won't use a lyric here, but a reference to the the Dylan biopic I'm Not There...My family, girlfriend and I went to see Dylan live at Foxwoods this Saturday, our Thanksgiving guts giving us less agility to groove to the music...I don't know whether it was still leftover sleep deprivation or just hard to comprehend that I was finally seeing him live...in my mind, gazing at the stage, "That's really Bob Dylan up there"...Whatever the reason, I, well, felt, again, like "I'm Not Here" or "Wasn't There"...

...Days later it's still hard to comprehend I saw Dylan live...My girlfriend commented, "If I close my eyes I wouldn't know that was Bob Dylan on stage...but I like his voice that way"...His voice now is essentially shot, sounding like he's smoked a chimney a days worth since the 60s, the era his present work is always compared to and never lives up to...Dylan himself may be the only one that's truly moved on from then and has become a whole new artist...I commented, "I can't believe he's still doing this...he's been touring for over 50 years"...If you kept looking on stage expecting to hear the 60s-Dylan then you haven't put on one of his records beyond that decade...I didn't expect that Dylan, but it took me 4-5 songs to forget and then appreciate what he was doing in the present...After the first two songs, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, and Lay, Lady, Lay, I didn't know if I'd last the whole concert, that voice!...But, by the end, I was excited and I want to see him again...But then again, it doesn't make a difference what I think or the next blogger thinks, Dylan will continue touring and I wouldn't be surprised he died on stage...realizing this, gazing back at the sea of people, Dylan still selling venues out...People from the audience screamed out song requests, "Hurricane!...Blowing in the Wind!...Like A Rolling Stone!"...

...Dylan did end the encore with Like A Rolling Stone, however, you could barely recognize it, the melody completely different, no organ-drop to act as the needle hitting the record to jump-start the song, and "Once upon a time you dressed so fine" was one of the few coherent and recognizable lyrics...fun to hear, nevertheless...I looked back at the people yelling song requests with an expression like, "What's the point?...Haven't you realized he's going to do whatever he wants to?"...They kept requesting, Dylan kept doing whatever he does, and then the crowd requested a second encore...By then, our crew had vacated the venue...My mom was disturbed by his voice - "I couldn't understand anything he said"...She had actually left early for a Marbolo Light break to no return...I saw her leave and joked, "Is she walking out because he plugged in?"...The rest of us were excited, adding to the soundtrack of commentary like when people leave a movie and it's discussion-time...We shared our opinions and concluded the best song/performance of the night was the last song before the encore, Ballad of A Thin Man...

You walk into a room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, "Who is that man?"
You try so hard
But you don't understand
Just what you'll say
When you get home
Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?...

...I think back to the 60s...man...and when Dylan first revealed his work...People must have felt like that lyric - "Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is"...My father recalled the first time he heard Subterranean Homesick Blues on the radio...He hadn't heard anything like it before, didn't know if he even liked it, but couldn't look away...It seems that is the common equation with Dylan...Everyone has their opinions on what he's doing, or what he should be doing...but whatever he does, most still can't look away...And, to get myself off the hook of being one of those writers that uses a Dylan lyric to end oh-so cleverly, I will end with one of my own...I saw a Dylan interview from sometime in the 60s, and when asked for an autograph he said, "I'd give it to you, but you don't need it"...And so, I wrote:

Hey, Mr. Dylan...
A...hey, Mr. Dylan...
No...a...I don't need an autograph
But I wouldn't mind sharing a laugh
Imagine that
Making him laugh
I'd put that on my resume
Above my GPA...
And the influence of Dylan becomes osmosis
And from Robert Johnson to John Anthony Gillis
become the bookends of my musical collection
And this
Well this
This is the greatest song ever written
Since Bob Dylan wrote "Like A Rolling Stone"
However, that is the past
Let us move on
It's "Blowing in the Wind"
So I try to breathe peacefully
While some say I speak cynically
I promise I'll live respectively
So clap with me
Because this is music
So write with me
Because this is reality...

(Snippet of something I wrote as a senior in college..."However, that is the past...let us move on"...).