A few years back, maybe 2007 or 2008, I first got introduced to the realm of art that is Bob Dylan. Literally, no less than a week after I had bought my copy of “Highway 61 Revisited,” my mom’s friend Robin attended a Dylan concert and had nothing but bad things to say. She complained about the quality of his singing voice, his figurative distance from his audience and the fact that she could barely recognize some of her favorite tunes. Well, thankfully, I ignored Robin’s advice and went to the Dylan show at NKU on the November 3, and it was a fantastic performance.
Dylan and his band played a straight forward roots-rock show that highlighted a mixture of his mid-sixties stuff and a few songs from recent recordings. Thankfully, I had listened to his latest albums before going to the show, so when he opened his mouth and a raspy throat singing emerged, I wasn’t shocked.
I honestly believe that Dylan has a great voice, even including his recent gangly vocal style. Dylan’s voice has always been his most honest trait, so if he’s older and sounds like a raspy old man, then I’m going to accept nothing less and appreciate it all the more.
During the concert, Dylan, playing both the electric piano and his electric guitar, banged out some unexpected gems from his past, such as “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and “Tangled Up in Blue,” but what made his concert interesting is the new and entirely different arrangements that he gave these classic tunes. Some critics may complain about how drastically different he has made some of his older tunes, but Dylan is an artist, and experimentation has always been his signature.
This was the first Dylan concert that I have ever been to, but Mike Roos, my teacher, editor, and fellow Dylan fanatic, tells me that in the recent past, from about 2003 through 2008, Dylan’s concerts lacked theatrical flair. Sometimes during that period, Dylan would stand behind his keyboard throughout the entire show and sigh out his songs.
Thankfully, this was not the case for my first Dylan experience. During many of the songs, Dylan would leave his instruments and stand behind the microphone like a circus ringleader and conduct the audience like a witchdoctor through his refreshingly new-sounding songs.
A clear example of this occurred when his band kicked into “Ballad of a Thin Man,” and Dylan stood on the edge of the stage, surrounded by copper-colored lights, and seemed to warn the crowd with his ambiguous lyrics.
Overall, it was great show. I believe that Dylan is truly one hell of a performer, and even though he may be getting older, he still has all the flair and attitude that made him one of the most important figures in music history.
Special thanks goes out to Mike Roos, who not only got me into the show, but made the experience even more enjoyable by joining me in guessing the songs as they would start, and laugh with me whenever Dylan changed up his lyrics.