hcard, Thu, July 23rd, 2009

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”
Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues

On November 21, 1965, Bob Dylan walked onto the stage at Loew’s State Theater (now the Landmark) for the second half of his concert. As he and his band (The Band) cranked up their electric set, a voice from the crowd yelled “Dylan, play Dylan,” a plaintive criticism of his legendary performance earlier that year at the Newport Folk Festival. Musically, for Dylan, “The times they were ‘a changin’.”

In the nearly 44 year s since that night, Dylan has, indeed, “played Dylan.” He has risen several times to the status of icon – folk, rock, folk rock, pop, country, whatever label people might put on it, Dylan’s music has always been just that – Dylan’s music.

He has gone through stages of quality and quantity. He has been criticized and lionized – he has crashed (literally, on his motorcycle) and burned and risen from the ashes. He has remained true to his own vision and confounded critics, analysts and ‘experts’ attempts to figure out just what that vision might be. Dylan has done more than play Dylan, he has been Dylan.

And in so doing, he has entertained me for more than those 44 years. Last night at Alliance Bank Stadium was no exception. I would guess that I have seen Dylan live about 15 times. I have not saved set-lists or tickets stubs, so the details are unclear.

Most of the concerts were in Syracuse or nearby. I admit that once I left early because it was a night that things weren’t working. That was during a period that I didn’t like when it was necessary to catch a lyric to recognize the song.

I tried to keep in mind that there was a big difference between his studio voice and his road voice, but sometimes it was difficult. The studio voice is refined and tweaked till it works, and it works very well. The road voice overworked at times, just might not work. To say otherwise is to subscribe to the “Emperor’s New Clothes” school of criticism. He has not always been good in concert, but he has always been Dylan – and that is all that he is required to be.

I spent a period of time bemoaning the fact that the tunes were different, the words changed. People still spoke of him as the ‘poet laureate’ of the 1960s. I always got the impression that he didn’t care for that, so I dislike the apologetic sounding opening announcement that he has used for the last ten years or so, speaking of how his career spiraled downward only to be revitalized. It’s too “un-Dylan” for someone who really doesn’t need to apologize for being himself.

My ‘keep in the car’ disk is a Dylan compilation that I update periodically. It spans his entire career, all the songs I need to hear that will fit on a CD. I listen to it so frequently that if I hear “Tangled up in Blue” somewhere else, I am a bit jangled that it is not followed by “Positively Fourth Street” and then “Cold Irons Bound,” as it is on my play list.

As a teacher, I used his lyrics to teach my students the connection between poetry and reality – how poetry can take on serious meaning or simply take a spin through the English language. I showed them how music changed and grew because of Dylan’s influence. I wore a Dylan T-shirt to my retirement dinner.

So last night, with huge speakers blasting at Alliance Bank Stadium, the band was solid and the music was powerful. Dylan’s voice was typically unique, at times requiring close attention to stick with the lyrics, but after all, it was Bob Dylan.

And some five and a half hours into the evening, with people heading toward the exits, I stayed and listened like I had that night in November 1965 and all that mattered was that 44 years later it still meant something to hear him “play Dylan.”

CATEGORY: Music

TAGS: bob dylan,abs syracuse,dylan poetry,dylan lyrics, Loew’s State Theater,Alliance Bank Stadium

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