Reviews

Words have yet to be invented to accurately describe last night’s concert
in Quebec City. Try divine, fantastic, amazing, breathtaking,
mind-blowing, uplifting, bursting with energy, but still they are not
enough to give you an idea about how it really was. 

I have never seen such a Bob Dylan concert and neither have other people
who’ve been around for a while and saw Dylan perform at least 40 times
(like the gentleman from Maine with whom I teamed-up after the concert
to get a cab – I had a cell phone and he had a number where to call…. He
confirmed that he hadn’t seen anything like this, since 1968 when he
first started to go to Bob Dylan concerts).

The show started with a very powerful Rainy Day Women,  to my big
surprise because this is a song that is usually played towards the end
or as an Encore. After this it was Don’t Think Twice, absolutely
amazing. Each song was delivered with so much intensity that I started
to wonder how we’re going to keep up with Bob for the next two hours. We
were blessed with unbelievable versions of It’s All Right Ma, Tangled Up
in Blue, Simple Twist of Faith, Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis
Blues Again, Lay Lady Lay (I got goose bumps when I heard “ I long to
reach for you in the night/Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead”),
Summer Days, Spirit on the Water, When the Deal Goes Down, John Brown 
(wow! I have never heard it live…It was truly unbelievable  to hear Bob sing:
“But the thing that scared me most was when my enemy came close
And I saw that his face looked just like mine."  And a cannon ball blew my 
eyes away.", Blowing in the Wind (with a different rhythm and sound so it 
took me a while to understand what it was).

Bob Dylan was in great shape and mood, smiling and having a good time. I
was close to the stage  (thanks to the pre-sale offered on bobdylan.com)
and I could see the expression on his face for every song and I realized
that for him playing in front of an audience is like air, he can’t live
without it. People are so wrong when they say that he sometimes frowns
or he looks distant or he seems not to care. How could he not care when
this is his life? He enjoys being there and he gets a kick out of
puzzling us by playing the songs so differently ( I saw him talking
briefly and smiling at Donnie Herron during Blowin’ in the Wind). It’s
true there were not too many sing-along versions last nigh, not even
Spirit on the Water  - I guess the crowd was mesmerized by this
rendition so that when Dylan said “ You think I’m over the hill/You
think I’m past my prime” I was one of the few or maybe the only one
shouting “ No”, “ No”. He is a magician ( and genius of course). He
looked handsome in a black jacket with 3 silver buttons at the cuffs,
black pants with a red stripe on the sides, white shirt, black and white
polka dot tie, black hat with 2 small feathers (one red with some yellow
at the top, the other one green), 2 beautiful diamond rings ( a diamond
band on his right hand and diamond stone on the left).

At the end of the show we applauded like crazy, Bob Dylan was hot and he
had set us on fire too. He came out with his band, and he pointed at the
crowd, sort of  “ it’s all thanks to you…”. After a few seconds the
people started to take pictures and he was bombarded by flashes, and at
this point he said to the band “ let’s go”  and just like that, he was
gone. If only people weren’t so greedy trying all the time to get so
much more from him, we could have seen him a little longer. 

As I was waiting outside for a cab with the 70 year old gentleman from
Maine,  a car full of teenagers stopped and asked us in French if this
was the best Bob Dylan concert we have ever seen. We said  simply: “
yes!”. Last night, young or old, long-time fans or just starting to
discover Bob Dylan, we all agreed that this was The Concert. Without
trying to explain why and how, we just knew we have been part of a
something so powerful and so sublime - it was the same unmistakable
feeling that you get when you fell in love for the first time. 

P.S. this was my 6th Bob Dylan concert and tonight I will attend my 7th
concert in Montreal. How will it be? Only Bob Dylan knows…

Dana Enciu  (aikizum)
Montreal, Canada

The last Bob visit to the captal of of Quebec was back in 2002 at the
Agora in the old port. It was an amazing concert, jammed pack, open air,
warm evening, star litted skies, incredible set list, all the trimmings a
true Bob fan could dream of. I still vividley remember the standing
ovation at the end of the show and how erveryone in the audience was
shocked to see Bob's bus pulling away behind the stage while they were
begging for more. But this was a typical Bob exit. He got terrible
reviews in the local papers and the radio the next day not because of his
performance but because he left too early!

Well, tonignt's night's show in QC was not at the bucolic Agora but at
the old and quaint Colisée. It's one of the very few remaining old
Boston Garden, Chicago stadium style arenas still standing. It's got
charm but very lacking in terms of comfort and acoustics. What a pity
that Bob's concert wasn't part of the local summer festival that starts
here on July 5th. Maybe some other time. Anyways, Bob set the old barn on
fire tonight. I won't bother with a play by play description of every
song he played. See the set list. The show was just awesome. Check
that: it was extraordinaire. Terrific band.  There were about 4 or 5
thousands people at the show, not a great crowd, but they seemed to enjoy
the evening. I sat next to a girl from Brazil who was attending her first
ever Dylan concert and a guy from New Jersey who was attending his
zillion Bob concert. It was fun to exchange impressions and expectations
about Bob's set list and the whole show with them. As usual, not a word
spoken by the Man tonight except for the band introduction. There was a
little miscue for the encore. The logo didn't drop properly. It got stuck
somewhere and only half of it was unrolled.
All in all, a wonderful evening.   For those out there who haven't seen a
Bob Dylan show, go see him before he retires or something happens to him.
It blows my mind how he delivers such electric performances every night.
Got to end this updade. Got to get some >sleep cuz tomorrow I'm going to
see Bob at the jazz festival in Montreal no less and the next day in
Ottawa.

Comments posted by Yves Toupin,
a true Bob Dylan fan from New France.

Forever Bob