Review

I liked the show, but I didn’t love it. I felt it was good, but not
amazing. Before I go back to that…

I have been fortunate enough to be able to see unfold as growing old, one
of the most wonderful renaissance in Bobs career,  and unique live
performance experiences, as the period 1993-2003/5 has been for me. He has
taken his own songs north, south, east and west, and developed a variety
of music styles as a performer in the digging of many gems of others
music. So yes, he has nothing to prove. He has rocked the house like no
other, driven you to tears with sweet and timeless tunes, offering you to
feel as yours, treasures from some other time and space. Magic.

Then for my own taste, he sort of enter an uneven period from 2006 to rock
botton in 2011. But yet again, with Tempest, and the selection of some of
his newer songs and well chosen American standards, he seemed to had
regained motivation from 2012 on…2017 ish..We ve seen spirited
performances, like ”Stay with me”, the rare performances of lost gems
like “tell ol bill”, and many others. But then we hit 2018…

And I go back to my first sentence, I felt it was good but not amazing. I
think he is a lot about motivation. I don’t agree when they say he has
lost his voice. He never had a wide range, but he was genius at phrasing
and delivering emotion. And he has been doing that very recently, so its
not that. I think he is temporarily or not, bored.

I was 10 feet away from him in Liceo, so to me he just looked disengaged,
“another day in the office” and automatic pilot mode…like he
couldn’t care less.

Its not that there were not brilliant moments, sometimes for a whole song,
sometimes a line or two. Very uneven. Not because he cant, but because to
me he seems unmotivated.

He can rock you out of sleep in one minute, and throw you into confusion
mode in the next. Breaking all the melodic or harmonic rules, in a bad
way. Like he himself wakes up and falls asleep periodically during a show,
or during the same song.

But hey, a little bit of Bob, is a lot. If you never seen him, its worth
seeing it, as you wont ever see anything like it. But my problem is I know
to much. So compared to himself, this tour is a bit dull. He has a lot of
self-esteem I get it, he is nobody’s clown I get it, he has the right to
not give a dam, I get it;  but if you don’t feel like it, why do it?

So I hope he finds his motivation soonish, it is soon after midnight in
his age range, I don’t mean to say its easy, I admire his determination.
But as much of a fanatic I have been, I am not about to kiss his ass and
say it was a concert for the ages, or that really it was great. No it
wasn’t, it was ok. I am not mad ok? I am just saying as i see it.

Oscar Bombi
obombi28@gmail.com