Bob Dylan - Adelaide Entertainment Centre21 August 2007
Well I was given these concert tickets from a friend and can honestly say I barely know what Bob Dylan sings, I knew he did the Hurricane and a few others but that is it. So maybe it is not the best concert to start my first review but well here goes.
Hmmm well ok yes Bob Dylan definately has a unique voice but I don't get why most of his songs sounded the same. He has one of those voices where he almost talks his songs and to be honest he spoke the lyrics so fast that I could not understand what was saying. He obviously has a lot of new music because none of the songs (except one) sounded even remotely familiar to me - and he didn't sing 'the Hurricane' what is with that????
The stage set up was fairly basic, instruments on stage with a black curtain behind the band - nothing overly spectacular, Bob did no outfit changes, but to his credit he did sing for two hours straight. I think it would have been nice though if he had of interacted with his audience a little more.
The audience was quite good and seemed to enjoy the show, those few people who knew all of the songs did generally sing along, everyone else just toe tapped to the beat. There was a small congregation at the front of the stage of die hard fans standing for the best spot in front, but generally most people sat and listened. When he finished the final song, the people in the front of stage area gave a standing ovation and cheered for him to come back and do an encore but he did not make it back out.
Bob Dylan was ok, as I said it is a little hard because I do not know his music, so while I found the concert mildly entertaining, it is not one I will store in my memory bank as a favourite show. That being said, the die hards did seem to enjoy it and I guess that is all that counts!
4 comments:
Hi there.
Mmm - you could probably do with looking at the DVD 'Don't look back' to see where Dylan comes from and what he is all about. Whatever music / bands you do like - pretty much comes from Dylan in the long run. The face of contemporary music is shaped by his influence. With huge respect, I think you should know Dylan before you even begin to write reviews about anyone else....without some Dylan knowledge, anything else you may have to say about any other band just isn’t going to have any kudos.
Cheers,
D
So True. I respect your right to have an opinion, but to critique music without knowing anything about Dylan is is kind of like writing about literature and not knowing who Shakespeare was. Dylan's had a huge impact on all sorts of music (And I'm sure you know more songs than you think you do - you just know them as covers!) His lyrics are still as beautiful and relevant as they ever were. I was down there in the standing ovation... seeing such a legendary performer in person is an experience i'll always treasure.
Thanks for the feedback, and I know that I could be slammed for writing about a music legend - Please do not get me wrong I was not trying to write a negative comment on Dylan, I just really wish I could have understood or heard properly the lyrics to his music, I also wish that he had of performed a few more of his bigger music hits.
Cheers
CC
Gee I wish I'd been lucky enough to be given tickets! I agree with the other comments about Dylan's influence on contemporary music but I also sympathise with Critic Chic. Dylan is very hard to understand these days in performance because of the manner in which he delivers his material. He's not helped by a venue (Adelaide Entertainment Centre) which is great for Crusty Demon racers and mud bikes but which has hopeless acoustics for concerts not to mention a sound engineer who was simply driving the system too hard and had Dylan's voice too submerged in the mix.
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