I invited my 19-year-old daughter along. “Do I want to see Bob Dylan? That’s like asking me if I want to go see Jesus!” And there’s the thing. Dylan is such a monumental figure in music, in world culture in general, that we venerate him like a religious icon. And forgive him a lot.
I’ve been going to see Dylan, at every opportunity, since 1991, but there’s no getting around the fact he’s hit and miss live. Sticking to much the same setlist as Belfast and Killarney, there were peerless classics like and but the cheers from a crammed and reverent 3Arena that recognised phrases in the former were surely for such a song existing at all rather than Dylan’s garbling of it. The latter was played as if by someone who’d heard of it but hadn’t actually heard it rather than by the godhead who miraculously created it.
Some reinterpretations worked. Bolting the riff to added to its Los Lobos on a bender feel although another solo from Dylan’s piano didn’t help. The opening had a winning roadhouse groove to it and swung thanks to Tony Garnier’s double bass.
A recent image of Bob Dylan in concert. (Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images)
The shuffling provided an instant nod along moment, although again the piano seemed to belong to a different song, much like Dylan’s only guitar-playing of the evening which sought the appropriate key during the intro to
(2020), which formed the majority of the set, is a great record, and played by a straining-at-the-leash band, and a beautifully confident which featured Dylan’s best singing of the evening, stood out. Sadly, one of the album’s best songs, dragged without the faint but crucial drums of the recorded version.
And then with his voice coming fully back to him he gave out a gorgeous, moving complete with heavenly harmonica, and finished with a rousing, respectful, and melodically perfect cover of The Pogues’ There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
You realised that, Holy God, you’re in a room with Bob Dylan! I enjoyed every precious, raggedly-charming second. We won’t see his like again.
