Bob Dylan Live by Aidan Connolly
OK, so let’s get all this out of the way at the start.
Aidan Connolly, 08 Jul 2010
OK, so let’s get all this out of the way at the start.
No, he didn’t talk to us. Why would he? For Bob, it’s a purely transactional thing... you pay, he plays. It’s simple economics, stupid. He didn’t even bother doing the ritualistic thing of name-checking each band member towards the end of the gig. He doesn’t do the schmooze-fest thing. He’s an American guy of 69 years of age. Why should he owe us such a burden of care, that he uniquely recognises that we are so screwed up nationally we believe every visitor to our shores will tell us we are wonderful. He doesn’t know that, so he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t know we are that screwed up. So... as they say, get over it. He’s only taking care of business.
But this was a great gig. Here’s the stats. He started at 8.15 and he closed at 10.15, hardly drawing breath for an eighteen piece set between an initial sham closing and the encore.
He opened with a rousing version of ‘Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat’, no doubt making the pale shade of Edie Sedgewick blanche once again, as she absorbed the opprobrium of the conspicuous consumption of the 1960s Greenwich Village set, long before such obscene excesses could have been countenanced in Dundrum.
Thereafter, Bob moved through a number of songs, before enthralling us with a beautiful and harmonious version of ‘Lay Lady Lay’, and an emphatic version of ‘Just Like a Woman’, featuring clipped articulation and an unexpected harmonica performance.
Bob remains an enigma. In our popular imagination, he seems to weave a circuitous route between 1960’s cult figure, and a much later “noughties” reinvented popular icon. The latter turns up as the mid-afternoon, mid-western, mid-week keyboard player plonking out repetitive melodies for the catatonic residents of an old folks home. Such is the mediocre tyranny of the electric keyboard.
Happily, last Sunday evening in Thomond Park, Bob turned up in rude good health and with a creative imagination that at least for two hours seemed unbounded. For a good third of the numbers played, he stepped out from behind the keyboard and fronted up playing guitar with his band. His recent re-acquaintance with front-man Charlie Sexton was obvious, and lent an immediate and edgy verve to the band.
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