June 24, 2008
Review by Alvaro Martin
It was 21:30 at the Anaitasuna Sports Hall, and I wasn’t supposed to be
there… none of us, even Bob. We were meant to be at the famous Pamplona’s
Bull Ring breathing the open air and stepping on the sand. Instead, we got
this way smaller venue that got hotter song after song. I was at some
Dylan concerts before but never on the front rows and I have to say I
enjoyed the experience at the queue. Just waiting for the gates to open,
keeping quiet, talking to the neighbours about past experiences at Bob’s
gig... I met really nice people over there. There was also a bit of
confusion with the crew people about how to place the fences to form a
proper line. Once they let us in, we came down the steep stands and… front
row, here I am! You have to enjoy that moment: to look at all the stuff up
there covered with black clothes, and trying to imagine what’s underneath
each one like in a magician’s trick. Then we have the support band
(one-man band, actually, P.J. Hermosilla), recording with the pedals, very
well done. And there we are, it’s 21:30 and “His band” are stepping in,
wearing grey suits, looking serious and going straight to their positions
and it’s like “We know what we are doing”. And they do know. And there’s
Dylan, wearing a white-ish hat with a feather on it, black dress with
maroon details. Ok, Bob, it’s time for rock and roll. And we get 2 hours
of rock and roll or whatever you want to call it. There should be an
exclusive musical genre just for him. It’s “dylanesque” we are listening
to, with the peculiarity of his voice and the way he’s bending towards the
keyboards and from time to time looking at the audience, kind of with the
corner of his eyes, sometimes straight in our faces. There’s lots of
energy up there and credit where it’s to the band. George Cecile playing
brilliantly the drums and Tony Garnier like Bob’s esquire. I admire Tony.
From my point of view the best moments were “John Brown”, which is a hard
song to listen to live, with such a raw lyrics, brings shivers down a good
few people’s spines. The same with “Masters of war”. Some people came here
today just to listen to “Blowin’ in the wind” and that’s fine with me, but
I loved being able to listen to two Modern Times masterpieces: “Nettie
Moore” and specially, “Workingman’s blues # 2”, I could feel a magical
atmosphere, maybe it was just me, it really moved me deep inside, there I
was, “fighting my best on the front line, singing a little bit of those
workingman's blues”. After the last song He & His Band came closer and we
were sing “Oéé, oé, oé, oé”, rather than “Oléé, olé, olé, olé” and they
kept standing there in front of us for a good while like thanking us. I’ve
seen them before and this time it looked like they were very pleased and
so we were. But the actual highlight I think it happened when they came
back to the stage for the encore: Bob stepped in and danced a little bit,
with no music, just 5.000 people clapping hands and cheering. Brilliant.
Just Bob. Thank you, Bob.
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