Well, that's been quite a triplet in a row! Just feeling really happy and
content about everything going so well so far, I was looking forward to
this trip and it being a very different experience (and, I have to say,
it's being much better than expected!) but at the same time I feel it is
the most ambitious tour I've planned to this date, and probably it will
stay like that, so yup, happy all is going well, fingers crossed because
I've got six days on the road still.

Venue and crowd vibe wise, Somerset still remains on top, it was such a
beautiful evening, gorgeous surroundings and everyone was so into it,
crazy to thing this was just 3 days ago. As for me, Tinley Park fell just
on the sweet spot for me, the crowd were from distant to earnestly engaged
and I remember, after Bob and waiting for Willie, I just put my arms on
the seat in front of me (empty at that moment) and I remember having the
most dumb and hopeful smile you can imagine.

Last night, maybe the hardships of so many days of constant travelling and
specially having slept little the previous nights took a toll on me, or
maybe after the Tinley Park show it was just impossible for me to match
those feelings, but it was more a show of super intense highs and some
more regular performances. I was super happy to get 'Rainy Day Women', in
fact I was looking forward to it as it was the first song I saw Bob
perform in Barcelona 2010, but it lacked what, despite not knowing the
song back them, makes me remember the moment as if it was yesterday: the
people's joy. In my first Bob night, the whole crowd was chanting with Bob
"everybody must get stoned!" and to my surprise last night pretty much no
one did, it seemed in fact as if little people around me even knew the
song. That was a constant the whole show, little reactions, nor good or
bad. Don't get me wrong, the show was extremely locked in, it made me
think about the R&RW shows in that nuanced consistence that made them so
reassuring and at the same time electric, in fact at one point I felt as
if Bob + Band are already warming up for the Fall Tour, very curious about
what we will get. While in Somerset the crowd was on a roll from the get
go and in Tinley Park it took a bit to ease up but then it was such an
joyous energy, St. Louis surprised me, for it being a place with quite
some colour and personality, with a bit of indifference, of course always
speaking of where I was.

So, yes, 'It Ain't Me Babe' also didn't get back the emotion it came
across its performance, with Bob going full teenage wisdom on the "no no
no" moments. I was not sure if Chuck Berry was from St. Louis (I've just
checked, he was) but I kind of remembered that was the case, so also again
I was even a bit underwhelmed that after the best, most swiss clock style,
raging take on 'Little Queenie' you could get, for sure the best among the
3 I've seen, no one around me seemed to have felt much. Sorry for focusing
so much on this topic, but at some points I kind of thought if maybe I was
the one getting it wrong, but fortunately Bob cleared my clouded mind with
THE 'Hard Rain' so far, it was transcendent, it was one of the best
performances I've seen him do, I loved all of it, a song that maybe before
seemed to me a bit formulaic, too rigid poetically albeit convoking very
powerful images now displayed in front of my eyes all its intimate yet
universal transcendence. Bob kept chanting his lines, stressing each and
every worded image in a very urgent, concentrated and precise fashion. Not
much reaction on my zone and, maybe because that was the general mood or
quite well maybe not, after one of the "it's a hard, a hard..." (towards
the end of the song) Bob yelled "I SAID IT'S A HARD!" and it turned the
moment into a transcendent one, he literally was doing again a protest
song, urgent and pressing, demanding some (re)action, the words detached
from the literary plane and entering into the unknown realms of reality.
So magnificent and memorable!

From then on, I felt more connected to the show and, specially during the
more upbeat numbers, Bob and Band were kicking a** for real, with 'Things
Have Changed' being a clear highlight that again sounded quite
confrontational, as was an amazing 'Can't Wait', so purposeful and
tortured, with the "lonely graveyard of my mind" line running all over me,
making me wonder if I also could be spared my fate, in the happy case I
have any.

During a 'Simple Twist of Fate' that didn't do the trick in me as it did
in Tinley Park (and that's ok), I saw a golden half moon in the sky at my
right, and at that precise moment Bob sang "the sun was coming up". What
were the chances of the impossible happening? Bob gets a lot of praise
(he) for being a master of words, but apart from the obvious stuff, I feel
also he deserves cheering for his ability to weld the relation between
time and language, which is a bit the same as saying his relation with
timing, so even unintentionally precise on this case. In fact, this
feeling happened again just at the end of the concert, when during a roof
breaking (it's getting there!) rendition of 'Ballad of a Thin Man', Bob
couldn't help but, after "oh my god! I'm I here all alone?", answering a
sinister "You are". And, as how I was feeling last night among the crowd,
it felt such a right answer...

As I'm talking myself on a monologue, let me share a little story that has
happened today while walking back to downtown Springfield (IL) after
visiting Abraham Lincoln tomb. A beautiful yet quite big dog was in the
middle of the street, just outside of a house, no fence or anything. My
mom was walking behind me and we haven't seem the dog until we were right
in front of him, and then suddenly he jumped on me with his front legs
reaching my chest. I have a dog myself, but I'm not used to such big
animals, and my mom is not a fan of dogs, to say the least. Fortunately,
he was friendly the whole time and, while not wearing a collar, he
definitely didn't look like a stray dog, but suddenly he was pretty much
following us all along down the street. A couple of neighbours have even
asked me if he was my dog, and I've started to worry about what could we
do; at home I would have done something but being abroad and also with my
mom getting nervous we've tried to lost him without success, he just was
coming next to me. At one point, a couple were seating on their front yard
and the dog, while I think was no theirs, has went to them and we've
proceeded our way. Later on, I've learned that Abraham Lincoln, while
travelling the law circuit, helped a couple of hurt birds at the side of
the road, to many of his colleagues laughin'. Apparently, Lincoln replied:
"Laugh as much as you want, I wouldn't sleep tonight if I've left them."
I've thought about the dog and me crossing the street.

Before a huge crowd, on a gorgeous  September Sunday night in St Louis
 
Bob Dylan delivered a compact workmanlike 16 song set as part of The
 
Outlaw Music Festival tour.

The 75 minute set with comments follows:

1.) Rainy Day Women #12 and 35 (sound system excellent; band sounds

great; Dylan vocal clear/languorous, Dylan on piano);

2.)It Ain't Me Babe (slow/talk-sing vocal);

3.) Lovesick (nice guitar break, clean/cadenced delivery);

4.) Little Queenie (solid lead guitar);

5.) Mr. Blue (quiet sweet vocal);

6.) Early Roman Kings (bluesy emphasis/delivery);

7.) A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (more poem recited than song sung);

8.) Under The Red Sky (good to hear, Dylan seemed to enjoy singing it,

punctuated by some really clean harmonica work);
 
9.) Things Have Changed (ominous, galloping arrangement);

10.) Stella Blue (heartfelt vocal-well received);

11.) Six Days On The Road (spirited vocal, tight band);

12.) Can't Wait (another talk sing delivery);

13.) I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (choppy delivery but driving rhythm);


14.) Soon After Midnight (strong vocal by Dylan, nice extended piano

break, a show highlight);

15.) Simple Twist of Fate (good to hear this personal favorite, some

plaintive harmonica added greatly to the delivery);

16.) Ballad Of A Thin Man (what can I say? the song never fails

 to deliver, and neither does Dylan).