A self-ordained professor's tongue too serious to fool

“Let Us Not Talk Falsely Now”

Ryan Leng

Bob Dylan is a pretty weird guy. He showed up in a Victoria’s Secret commercial awhile ago (which is weird, but also unassailably cool). He also starred in the movie entitled Masked and Anonymous, where Dylan acted alongside half the cast of The Big Lebowski. (Believe me. It’s weird.) Last year he published the first installment of his autobiographical Chronicles, which explores everything People Magazine didn’t want to know about him (which is baffling, but probably better in the end). So I didn’t know what to expect when I bought my ticket to see him.

I traveled north to Mount Pleasant, where Bob Dylan was playing with his band at the Soaring Eagle Casino. I met up with my friends, and entered into the auditorium. We waited around until fifteen minutes after the show was supposed to start. I got up and went to the bathroom. Then he started playing. I heard from the stall the announcer saying something. The sound was muffled, but the music started and so did Bob. I nearly tore off my zipper in a rush, grabbed my coat from the hook on the stall door, and took off with toilet paper trailing me like a ribbon of euphoria. Now, I’ve seen both George W. Bush and even Ronald Reagan speak in person. That was cool. But that was only a mere blip of excitement compared to the rush I got from seeing Bob Dylan perform. I suppose if I drank pure adrenaline from a human adrenal gland, I could feel the same amount of raw exhilaration.

I calmed down considerably a couple songs into the set. I leveled out and tried to act a little less like a rabid, twelve-year-old Avril Lavigne fan. Dylan himself was not mellow. He’s sixty-four going on sixty-five, but he bounced around like he was fifteen. He looked good, donning his black suit and black, Stetson cowboy hat. I suspected him to look washed up, strung out and generally broken down. But he wasn’t.

The fourth song into the set really reminded me why I’m a fan. He pounded out a heartfelt performance of his “Just Like A Woman.” Maybe it was the acrid pall of smoke hanging over the audience that got me teary-eyed, but I think I know better. “This man is a true human being,” I thought to myself. He was happy, and excited to be performing. He wasn’t out to change the world. No, he’d done that already. Nowadays he is just trying to have fun. He wasn’t weird either. He was completely normal.

The audience didn’t recognize most of what he played. I have a “modest” collection of twelve of his albums, and I only recognized half of his set. But that didn’t bother me. This bothered me: During the encore, Dylan played a scorching version of “All Along The Watchtower.” And this girl on my row asked her boyfriend, “Why is he covering a Dave Matthews song?”... I’ll calmly draw a curtain of charity over the scene that followed. Anyway, that gives you an idea of what the audience looked like. The pouting facial expressions kept asking when he was going to play something they had heard. To which Bob responded by playing “Like A Rolling Stone.” The crowd once again grew ecstatic.

He impressed me greatly with the inclusion of one of his gospel songs. “Saving Grace” seemed like an odd song to throw into the mix, being as he was playing at a Casino for a bunch of drunken gamblers. But this simple, direct expression of his faith once again grabbed me by the throat and throttled me to tears. But for the most part, I just rolled and rocked with his punchier songs.

Dylan played piano the whole set, and he traded harmonica solos with a hot fiddle player and a phenomenal pedal-steel player. Dylan’s voice was on most of the night. Sometimes, I wished he would have enunciated better, because some of his lyrics were lost in the mix. But all in all, it was a solid performance.

Dylan and his band left the stage too fast for my liking, so I flicked my Bic during the encore cheer and shouted until he came back. He re-emerged to play a couple more songs. Then it was over. I had just seen a living legend. I now try to convince to myself that it wasn’t a big deal – that I’m only a moderate fan – but who am I kidding? I ate this stuff up, and it was a “dream come true.”

Dylan is going on tour this summer with Willie Nelson, playing mostly minor league ball parks east of the Mississippi. He is also releasing Volume Two of his Chronicles in the near future. Check out www.bobdylan.com for his May through July tour dates and other news and updates.

1. To Be Alone With You (Nashville Skyline)
2. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (John Wesley Harding)
3. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (Love and Theft)
4. Just Like A Woman (Blonde On Blonde)
5. Cold Irons Bound (Time Out Of Mind)
6. Moonlight (Love and Theft)
7. Highway 61 Revisited (Highway 61 Revisited)
8. Blind Willie McTell (Bootleg Sessions 1-3)
9. I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) (Another Side of Bob Dylan)
10. Summer Days (Love and Theft)
11. Saving Grace (Saved)
12. Like A Rolling Stone (Highway 61 Revisited)
    
    encore
13. Forever Young (Planet Waves)
14. All Along The Watchtower (John Wesley Harding)