Thoughts on Bob Dylan

Bob Live – Generally Good Thoughts

People who want rare songs, different songs, might be disappointed but that is probably because they are not getting the point. When the music is good it doesn’t really matter what the songs are because the music transcends those limitations; you are just in the experience of the moment and within that there are so many little things going on that it is impossible for 2 versions of the same song to ever evolve in the same way and therefore there is little danger of getting bored. That is why I think Bob does it, that is go out on the road again and again, year after year, playing to countless thousands of people across the globe. I’m sure he takes in the geography of all the places he visits but the fact is that he is centre stage when it is show time and he enjoys it like nothing else, he loves it in fact. If you wish to join him then all you have to do is go out and buy yourself a ticket to one of his shows the next time he is in town. Then if you like what you see and hear you can go and see him again. It will always be different, because he is a searcher, a seeker, a permanent wanderer of the earth, ploughing the furrow of his art, and he will never stop. Even when he gets very old and has to be helped on stage I am sure that he will still do it because like it or not the stage is Bob Dylan’s theatre of magnificence.

Wrote the above close to a canal in Hertfordshire on a baking hot Saturday afternoon in June in the middle of the 2006 World Cup. Guess you could say it is the result of a positive period of thinking about Bob and his contribution to the world. I enjoyed going to the two shows I went to last week – one in Cardiff and one in Bournemouth. I suppose I am surprised at how different they were in terms of experience despite the fact that when it came to the actual sets that were played by Bob and his band they were remarkably similar. The differences lay more in fact that of the places where the shows took place more than anything else. How rough Cardiff looked, full people worse for drink with there being almost an air of madness about the place. Bournemouth in comparison was sunny and the people were very civilised. I arrived in town with a few hours to spare so I was able to go for a long walk by sea and then sit at leisure in the park in the middle of town where a music festival was taking place, the highlight of which was a local jazz orchestra do a pretty cool version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

It is nice thinking about Bob when he is on the road and playing shows in so many different places. His life is very different to mine where I spend most of my working life cooked up in an office in Ilford. There have been countless occasions where I have gone on the Net and stared at Bob’s tour itinerary and wished that I was him; after all not only does he get to go to tons of different places but most nights he has the chance to go to a Bob Dylan show! So in some sense I live this fantasy kind of life for a few minutes each day, where I imagine how it must be for Bob to be on the road; no sooner to arrive some place than to be on the way to the next stop along the line. The number of different towns and cities that Bob must have played in particularly in Europe and North America must now be quite staggering. It is something that I imagine I would love to do, even just going away for a couple of nights in the way that I did last week still has to be classified as being some kind of big adventure for me.

There is that sense of great freedom that comes from being in a place for sometimes no more than a couple of hours and then being able to move on, possibly never to see it again. I guess in reality it is not freedom at all because the state of mind is dependent on the change of the physical environment whereas in actual fact real freedom lies in being able to stay in one place no matter how rough and ready it might be and not to let it bother you. Of course there has to be some kind of basic consideration made but as long as the place is not too dangerous or in a state of war then it should be adequate enough to support you without complaint.

That is something that Bob does not have to contend because the road is an ever-moving show as far as he is concerned. It must be easy in some way to lose yourself to it and not know your way back home. In Cardiff, which I guess I would classify as a bad night as far as seeing Bob was concerned, I think I had this sense of how Bob might in actual fact be just as lost as the rest of us. In other words he is doing what he is doing because he just can’t come up with anything else to occupy his mind. Not all the time of course but almost certainly due to the frequency he is out on the road and playing shows there must be times when he just does not want to be there, just does not want to do it. Then he is just as trapped as we all are in our own little worlds of struggle and woe when we can’t find our way to the place of inner contentment.

Bob Live – Bad Thoughts

The question that has to be asked is does Bob even know why he is doing what he is doing anymore? After experiencing the 2 UK shows that formed part of the 2006 Europe Summer Tour I have to say that the overall impression that I have of Bob at present is that he is lost, trapped within the armour of his own mythology. Here he is over in Europe yet again, barely 8 months since he was last here when he undertook an autumn extensive tour; now he is playing a whole load of European shows until the last of week of July. Then he is off back to the States for a tour through August and the first half of September. Why? Judging by the 2 performances I have just seen recently I have to ask what exactly is the point? He is playing no new material despite the fact he has Modern Times, his first album in five years out at the end of August. His fear and loathing of bootleggers puts paid to any such fanciful notions that he would delight listeners with advance previews of some of the songs on it. The songs that he currently plays are by and large crushingly predictable with virtually no chance of an obscure forgotten gem being performed. Not only that but the standard of performances has without a doubt gone down. This last fact is a combination of the individual input from Bob who is now permanently on the keyboards and the fact that his current band are really rather boring.

There is simply no getting away from the fact that the best line up Bob has had in recent years when it comes to the band was the one with Larry Campbell and Charlie Sexton on guitars and Bob on guitar also, backed by the ever present Tony Garnier on bass and either Dave Kemper or George Recile on drums. Gradually most seasoned Bob watchers are beginning to realise that this is the case. Things have changed since then however with both Larry and Charlie long gone and Bob these days now on the electric piano or organ and not playing them all that well, it has to be said. Logging onto the website which carries reviews from fans of his current series of shows it is interesting and unsettling to read just how negative some of them are about Bob and his current band. People are prepared to be quite harsh in their descriptions of him…sad, pathetic, atrocious… being some of the words used. I don’t think I can remember words being used like that for a long time by his fans but they are now.

So why is he here again, presenting his material in such a way? As I said before I think it is because he has become lost. Bob has toured and played for so many years now that he quite simply does not know what else to do with his time. It is a pity in many ways because obviously he must have millions in the bank and therefore hardly needs to go out and do all this touring from a financial point of view. In fact he must be so rich that he could retire tomorrow and live an extremely comfortable life, just as he could have done 30 years ago. There is little evidence that he gets to enjoy his money by taking out some quality time, either resting at one of his many houses or visiting his many grandchildren or stuff like that. If he is not into those things he could always go off and do a hiking tour of the Andes or something interesting that might give him a new perspective on things. To be brutally honest no one is going to miss him for a while if he does take a break because for the last few years he has rolled into town so frequently that it hardly seems like he has been away before he is back again.

It might be different if Bob displayed signs that he was in love with what he is doing, that he was out there giving performances of his life. This is just not the case however. For the main the performances have been turgid, repetitive and above all numbingly predictable, especially towards the end of the show when everyone knows what songs are going to finish the main set and what songs are going to be performed in the encore. Things are beginning to look a bit frayed around the edges as a result. It is difficult to see any of this stopping in the near future. Bob is as locked in now as he ever was to this cycle of going out there on the road and playing his shows. At the moment he seems to be going through a sticky patch and it is clear that his solution is simply going to be to see it through and hope it evolves into something better. It probably will but at the moment it is all rather painful and more than a little irritating.