Dylan, band play well, uninspired in Boulder
As the crowd filtered into to the Coors Event Center Saturday
night in Boulder, it was clear that the times they had changed.
No longer was the audience full of youthful enthusiasm and
people who saw eye-to-eye with Bob Dylan’s music. Now it was
middle-aged couples that showed up to see Dylan in hopes of maybe
capturing a small whiff of their youth floating in his music. Young
college kids came under false pretences, thinking that they were
about to witness some sort of rock ‘n’ roll prophet put spells on
the audience. Young hopeful musicians showed up in search of the
legendary acoustic romanticism that they have idolized and
coveted.
When the lights went down, classical music played over the PA
system, and Bob Dylan and his band swaggered out onto the stage.
Everyone was in awe of his physical presence. Dylan went over to
the left side of the stage, stood in front of a keyboard and went
to work. Playing minimal amounts of keyboard, only interspersing
rhythmic suggestions, Dylan began his signature crooning. For the
next hour and a half, Dylan and his band showed no recognition of
the audience – they just played music as if they were jamming on an
empty garage. There was nothing for the musicians to feed off of
from the audience; they must have known that Dylan could be laying
down on the stage and singing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” in
Spanish and people would still be cheering just the same.
As the performance went on, the lack of enthusiasm on stage
became apparent. However there were some high points. Dylan’s band
members had enough power behind their playing that they could make
Harry Caray sound like a rock star. The two guitar players ripped
through old songs such as “All Along the Watchtower” and “Like A
Rolling Stone” with strong conviction and lightning blues
licks.
The drummer threw in powerful fills when Dylan’s piano playing
started to go off on side tangents. Overall, Dylan’s band had the
traits of any good bar band – they played song after song, everyone
took part in long strands of improvisational jamming and the music
would have been sweet to dance to if there was a dance floor.
Dylan’s choice of songs seemed like the standard mix of new
stuff and old classics. Besides “Watchtower” and “Rolling Stone,”
Dylan also sang “Lay Lady Lay,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”
and “Forever Young” to give the audience exactly what it wanted to
hear. But for the majority of the show it was mostly six- to
seven-minute blues jams with little or no chorus – only melodic
grunting with indiscernible words.
Trying to sing along to one of the classics with Dylan was
nearly impossible because of his timing; it was better to just keep
smiling and nodding your head up and down. After an hour and a
half, the only thing that Dylan told the fans was his band member’s
names and a joke that came out of left field that involved the
drummer putting a snake on his windshield – he bobbled the punch
line and the audience had no idea what to make of it. After an
encore Bob Dylan walked off the stage and his fans left the venue
thankful, not so much for the music that night but for the
opportunity of seeing a living legend.
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