I will forever remember Bob Dylan's trotting onto the Riverbend stage in
Cincinnati, 9/11 in 2024, the day after Trump hilariously ranted on prime
time about immigrants in Springfield, OH, not that far from where I was,
"eating the dogs, eating the cats, eating (dramatic pause while loading
more rant) the PETS!", the 23rd anniversary of a day that put the world in
a very dark course, also the day of Catalonia's national holiday, in which
we commemorate a defeat (that's a very catalan thing to do) against the
King of Spain Philip V, a guy who ended up his days believing he was a
frog and running naked around his palace near Madrid. Last night, on the
only Outlaw show I was going solo as I wanted to had at least a close seat
for such an special night, I made it to my seat just in time for John
Mellencamp, whose sets have been such an incredible and surprising display
of energy and craft, perfect to just put you in the mood for Bob (oh, I'll
miss Mellencamp this Fall in a way!).

We spent yesterday touring and detouring around Cincinnati, we crossed the
Ohio twice, made it to neighbouring town of Covington across the river in
Kentucky, with an historic district full of spectacular houses, half East
Coast and half South, then back to Ohio and up to Mount Adamas, with a
full view of Cincinnati and the Ohio. My mom wondered why Cincinnati is a
known city abroad, and I guessed that probably is just because of the
name, it's such an incredible name for a city. Cincinnatus was a Roman
consul and dictator who did very well and was loved and appreciated, but
after his term he refused to stay on power despite lots of petitions for
the Senate to do so; he went back to his farm and that was it. George
Washington did a similar thing after his second term despite the pressures
to institute a monarchy in the US or to run for a third term, so that
spirit inspired the Brotherhood of Cincinnatus, and thus the name of the
city. From the high viewpoint, I was reminded of a couple of lines Bob is
singing these days: "this is the key of the kingdom and this is the town,
this is the white horse that leads you around".

So, this was the town, Cincinnati, where I came to see my 100th Bob Dylan
concert and maybe that concert could be key the kingdom. In Catalan, 100
is "cent" ("cien" in Spanish) so I badly joked as dubbing this show as
Centcinnati. Boo, lame. Some 20 minutes before showtime, I was placed in
my seat, perfect view of the stage a bit right sided, and just decided I
would record Bob just coming onto the stage, nothing else. I wanted a
souvenir of that super special night but didn't want to bother him at all.
I kept realising that, if in truth is true that 100 is just a number as
any other, not that different from 99 or 101, there was value in what was
about to happen. That I had come so far, seen so much, put so many efforts
into all this, also spent such an almost offensive amount of money, had so
many people to thank to, that 100 meant something, that it was more than
ok to feel proud of it, that it was also fitting that I was on my own last
night, that the profound meaning that these songs have to me could not be
shared in all its extent, and last night I felt I had the right of feel
them to any extent that sprung.

Same intro song as in St. Louis (is it Wagner?) and I prepare my phone.
Camera it's not working, I have to reset the app. Fortunately, for the
first time in my Outlaw shows, the band comes in first and some 10-15
seconds pass with no sigth of my man. I start recording, and here he
comes, that jog-trot, steady and sure, urged to glue himself to his piano,
better than he's ever been. Both him and the band are beautifully dressed,
now I've seen that Bob's flourished shirt is the same he wore at the first
of his Barcelona shows in 2023, with jackets rich in embroidery, as if
they were playing at a fashion gala. They all look gorgeous, and then that
militar march in the drums, everybody must get stoned.

I wrote about this in the St. Louis thread, but 'Rainy Day Women' was the
first song I saw Bob Dylan perform, with the crowd going wild in Barcelona
2010, and in St. Louis I was a bit underwhelmed about a mild reaction, but
hey hey hey, if Cincy crowd was going down that same lonesome road, I was
not following. Fortunately, a nice amount of people at the front was into
it, but it was not only the people's deed, it was coming from the stage
too. Bob, as in Tinley Park, felt plugged, but plugged to a power plant,
the strike of lightning constantly flowing, and I extent that to all the
band members; something felt extremely powerful, Bob even changed a couple
of lines here and there and I think it was already here he spitted a WILD
"WHY?!" before one of the choruses that made my mind suspicious about this
on the course to be a night to remember. I got extra excited when I
realised that back in my first Bob night I was amazed to see people so
excited and singing along this song, and 100 nights later I was among the
crowd I wasn't in with back then, and then I also missed some friends with
whom it would've been amazing to share that moment.

In Somerset I was baffled when Bob played 'Shooting Star' but the
performance was a bit muted at the beginning and maybe too tiny for a
crowd of several thousands and being a song of intimate cosmic dimensions.
So when the song started in Cincinnati I immediately felt something
different, a rumbling force below the music, a longing gaze into the hopes
and defeats of a millenium-lasting relationship, Bob sang: "did I missed
the line, overstep the LINE only you could see?", and in repeating "line"
it was an apparent flub but he turned that into a beautiful reflection on
the song itself, on the wrong that is to expect an specific feeling or
meaning before the time comes, before you ask and honestly answer yourself
if you ever became what the other wanted you to be, and if that's an ok
thing or not. It caught me by surprise how intense this song can be, and I
was thrilled to see Bob grooving to the rhythm so much during this one.

By the way, I seated as most people all around did that after the opening
song, but the chatter, albeit a bearable one, and the fact that being
seated somehow detracted me from what, from boths sides of the stage,
seemed to point towards a memorable evening made me stand again for 'Love
Sick', with its surgical precise beat, its slimy double entendres, the
tension between focus and dizziness that permeates the whole song, so
incredibly conveyed last night by the band and a Bob who threw it all in
the witty depths of the physicality of the lovers in the meadow and the
unkwon silhouettes in the window, hangin' on.

I used the two days without shows to listen to some of the original
versions of some of the songs I was not very familiar with, specially the
covers, and what Bob does in that regard, I'm asking honestly, does anyone
else do something similar? It's not only how he make them seem his own
songs, is that he avoids any showing off, any accessory detail, he goes to
the core of the thing and ruminates there, and boils the guts of the song.
In Chuck Berry's original 'Little Queenie', there's this intermediate part
where he stops down the singing ("meanwhile, I'm thinking..."); Bob has
gone this route recently, as in 'Can't Wait' but his 'Little Queenie'
speeds the song down the racetrack, his thinking is not one trying to make
the move but dancing on his own, rooting for little queenie to go, go go,
to strike another match and go start anew.

I sat again for 'Mr. Blue' and, God, last night it could have well been
the star of the show. It felt so meant, the sadness and deep implications
of the town painted red by one and also painted blue by the other, he took
them to the limit, all the band were in the best of spots, it was such an
incredible moment, definitely hit me out of the blue.

'Early Roman Kings' was the first part of a trilogy of warning, prophecy
and aftermath, possibly the stretch of the show, in its core of all
places, that gets more meatphysical and allegorical. I could say we have a
first part of retreat and longing, acknowledgment too, then an even angry
or hallucinated liminal reflection and then a last part, from 'Things Have
Changed' on, of self-affirmation and defiance. Bob had such a crazy amount
of fun on ERK, he savoured all the innuendos on the lines, I was standing
there (by the way, is that a wink to the Beatles' song?) and maybe he saw
me, maybe he dind't, but when he attacked the "I ain't dead, my bell still
rings!" line he was surely making a very real and meaningful statement, to
me sounded like a promise that he could go on for another 100 shows, and
in that moment I regretted a bit the decision I've taken of reducing the
amount of shows I'll be seeing from next year onwards, because truly to me
there's nothing in life that beats enjoying Bob Dylan performing on a
stage. Of all places, Cincinnati's 'Early Roman Kings' felt extremely
fitting, Bob shifting the focus from the association of ancient rulers to
himself, like Cincinnatus maybe did, when he went away from the power over
the crowd to the power over himself, and by when I sang along with Bob
"tuned up my strings, gonna break it wide open" or "gonna shake'em all
down" I related to that reclaimed power; like Cezanne did and still does
with an apple, he shaked'em all down.

'Hard Rain' has occupied the heart of the show and it's just getting
better, groovier and, above everything, more focused, Bob stressing the
images his phrasing conjures, one after the other. When last night, a 100
shows later, he asked me "what did you see, my blue-eyed son?" I almost
bursted into tears. If 'Key West' is an otherwordly meditation, 2024's
'Hard Rain' is an hymn for deranged times, a political encouragement to go
out and face the unknown, and bring an anchor in the form of a song with
you to come back a 100 or a 1000 times again. I cheered the girl who gave
him a rainbow and I cheered the rainbow, I cheered the black dog, I just
felt sorry for those who weren't listenin', for those who kept laughin',
but I felt atop of the mountain, I felt extremely connected and hopeful
that one day all souls can see what I think I have deep inside my heart,
and I surely know my song well, and I sang it, and by the end I shook
hands with a gentleman in front, both wounded by those words, Bob looking
utterly content before us.

The energy of the envisionment that 'Hard Rain' conveyed was carried into
another song that, like 'Mr. Blue', didn't land that far the previous
nights. 'Under the Red Sky' was UTTERLY jaw-dropping stuff. The band
displayed all their abilities around Bob, and Bob took that energy that
was flying low and high (as the song states!) and toyed with it, morphed
it into something really elevated, the diamond girl touched fingers with
the rainbow girl of yore, the leading horse was black instead of white and
the old moon man went home, which I came to realise is a self-fulfilling,
mysterious line that, while dancing to it, made Bob and myself seem more
alien than usual. He in fact went home with an extremely powerful harp
solo at the end that kept going and going, the my crazy disbelief, the
band following and emotions running high all over those who were
listenin'.

After such a trio of unforgettable, trance-like voyages, 'Things Have
Changed', maybe because the precedents set that high a bar, didn't hit me
as hard as in previous nights but Bob got really involved in the most
malicious parts of the song, it was almost an irresponsible thing to sing
along, because it connected to the previous song by the "low down, fly
high" lines, and all the cards were down again, all the truths up to one
big lie, which is a very dylanesque, contradictory yet illuminating idea.
That said, I picked up bits of amazing guitar moments from both players
and Keltner, all in all, did an epic job last night, Bob smiling a lot to
him towards the end of the evening.

Then it came what to me was perhaps the naturally, most long time coming,
emotional moment of my 100th night. 'Stella Blue' blew me away when Bob
debuted it in Barcelona last year, despite being a song I didn't knew, but
after that it fell short other times I saw it played, for whatever reason
that first time, though unknown somehow, maybe that's why, shone a light
on me that I had been eager to feel again. A blue star, Mr. Blue's star
perhaps, untouchable yet everpresent, everlasting, above us all, casting
our sadness and unreality, absorbing it to let it hang forever more up
there, in plain sight till we go blind. That was how beautiful it was last
night, when Bob stressed that voice of his to make you be sure that
nothing comes for free, all will be gone someday, yet you will have this
moments, that once were just a dream, to hang on for life, crying like the
wind. By the end, I felt it took me 14 years of my life to see the real me
at last, but there he was, dreamin' of me.

'Six Days on the Road' can't come at a greater time than to help you keep
on keeping on, to let the good times roll, it's a curious and funny song
abot moving and going forward but it speaks of the destination all the
time, how great it will be when the journey is over, and being all these
days of really hard travelling and somehow logistical nightmares, I relate
a lot with its message. That said, when you see Bob Dylan dancing whlie
playing piano, the guitars killing it, Tony grinning big and Keltner
rounding it all up, well, it's just such a sight... And then that last
verse "If you think I'm happy, you're RIGHT!", Bob sang it like detached
from the rest of the song, as an statement or, better put, a confession,
and I felt so connected to it. I'm in a colorful bus ride right now to
Akron surrounded by some noisy characters, but when I put in front of my
eyes what I experienced last night, I'm happy, you're right.

There's an eagerness for the physical arriving into the hometown in 'Six
Days on the Road' and there's an eagerness for the mind arriving in 'Can't
Wait'. It's all a song happening inside your head, you can see yourself
from the outside all alone despite being surrounded by thousands, anb Bob
sings it super coherently with that idea, almost himself alone with the
words coming out from him, trying to make a connection with you. The 'a
cappella' style reveals all the cruelty and problems of the lyrics, and
then there's the beautiful bridge "I'm dreamin' of you and all the places
we could roam together...!". Up to last night, I always thought about
myself and my travels, as if I was the only one singing, but last night I
thought as if Bob was singing that to me specifically, I was positive I
was among the very few ones who had been rolling through the stormy
weather to get there, dreamin', and I envisioned future roamings, and them
Bob attacked the last verse like he had nothing to lose, how he sang
"somehow!", how he always focuses so much on the accessory words, it
drives me crazy, and I felt that I also don't know how much longer I can
wait.

Was Cincinnati's 'Baby Tonight' the best take of the song I've ever seen?
Maybe I contradict myself, but it could well be! The volume kept going up,
the energy kept going up, the whole show progressed in that regard like a
natural flow of things towards some place I had never been before, I see
that now, but it was just like that. I specially remember the instrumental
break, where all the players let themselves loose and lose it, and it was
so great seeing Doug stomping his feet, all them having so much fun, and
it sounded cohesive and unique, like when I first saw Bob in 2010, crazy
as it may sound.

I started feeling the sadness for all of it coming to an end, it was being
some of the most memorable and special nights since following our man, but
'Soon After Midnight' felt balsamic, yet ironic and sage all at once. I
remember Bob really gaving his all in the delivery, raising his voice, not
passing through the words but projecting them and trying to weld its
hidden meanings; I'm not sure what "Mary dresses in green" means, but I
was sure Bob knew it last night. And, again, when the last verse came and
he sang "more than ever" it got me to my soul, to again relive 100 nights
of irreplaceable emotions and, as in 'Can't Wait', I felt as if the "I
don't want nobody but you" came in both directions, from us to him and
from him to us. The greatness and uniqueness of Bob Dylan could well be
that: you can relate the songs to yourself and your personal life (like
with 'regular' songs) but even greaters emotions can come if you relate
the songs to themselves, to the incredible meanings those words hold on
themselves.

I feared 'Simple Twist of Fate', after destroying me completely in Tinley
Park, had reached its height for me there, but of course I was wrong and
the 100th night was meant to stay. In the first verse, Bob referred to a
"he" both times, thus meaning he was singing about a relationship between
two men. Probably just a flub, as in the second verse it was again man and
women, but imagine the effect it had on me when I heard that. It broke my
heart, that that beautiful song, that eternal imaginary, could be a story
between two men. Again, the power of words themselves, just what that
small change could do, just that simple twist of fate and, as he did 14
years ago, he was changing my life again, teaching me new things, setting
new horizons. And he was not done: "put your hand in mine, there's no need
to hesitate!"; he was encouraging us, he was rooting for us to take that
one last chance to make it real, to disintangle the blue and, as he said
in the pandemic, stay observant and watch out for a simple twist of fate.
It was a towering performance, you could see and count the city blocks,
the waterfront docks, and again the far glance into the distant future
"how long must he'll wait? One more time". One more time Bob, just one
more time, that's what I thought last night, hit me baby one more time.

Well, I don't have much to say by now, just that 'Ballad of a Thin Man',
with Mickey Raphael staying again to play harp with Bob focusing in
feuding him from the piano, brought me back again to my first show, and it
did big time. Also, in that first show this song was played, and I also
didn't know it back then, but I remember crystal clear the effect it had
on me: that man came indeed from another planet, the way he bended, the
way he moved and what he conveyed with his voice was so unique that it
felt a miracle I was his contemporary to witness that for myself. I left
the show transfigurated, I felt fundamentally changed. Maybe it was me
being hyped up for the number #100, maybe not, but I felt some kind of
salvation in last night's rendition, I felt handed a bone, I felt in sync
with that man on stage and I could swear that during the final notes we
were both looking to each other while nodding at the rhythm of a music
that came from where it's not dark yet.

Last night I thought many times about it being my 100th time seeing Bob
Dylan, so thank you Bob, as formulaic as it may sound, I just want to
thank you with all my powers of expression.

In the morning I watched some of the 9/11 commemoration ceremony from New
York City. It's been 23 years. A lot of water under the bridge, a lot of
other stuff, too.

Who pays attention to "severe clear" weather conditions, as  aviation
calls these clear skies, so very blue, with the same feelings we used to
have before 9/11/2001? We notice them on a September 11, that's for
sure.  87 degrees F, sunny, very hot.

The crowd coming in to see this year's version of The Outlaw Music
Festival was quite elderly, compared to the crowd when I last saw John
Mellencamp, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan together which was on a baseball
field in southwestern, Pennsylvania in July 2009. Not as many mobility
scooters, Drive push chairs, walkers and canes in those days, we stood the
entire time mere feet from the stage, impossible! 

I was happy for my shaded Pavillion seat this day.

I was amazed that the focus of attention was mostly drinking alcohol,
standing in line to get in (drink up they only allow you to take in
bottled water), as far as the eye can see once you enter are places to buy
alcohol, and once the performances begin a lot of coming and going to get
alcohol throughout, as well as talking throughout. But, hey, people want
to have a good time and they sure did! Everybody must get stoned! Some of
that, too. 

John Mellencamp was so much fun, he sang to the audience, got the audience
singing to him, he played his hits, played them perfectly and
professionally and gave the band moments to shine and took the stage and
the Riverbend crowd and stood and delivered. He roamed the stage to make
sure everyone got a good looksee and if we sang out every "Oh, Yeah"
and every "Ain't that America" and every "for you and me" and
every "Life goes on, long after the thrill of livin' is done" and we
did very well, for some of us were choked up a little, a few tears in the
eyes, and some of us were just looking around a little bit away from the
stage, looking back and seeing the sea of joyous humanity, together,
singing, the land of the free, home of the brave. It was very pleasant
indeed. Wow. Mellencamp was generous, and gracious, and accommodating and
dare I say youthful in his exuberance and, his hand tapping his heart,
grateful, for the crowd's reception. It hurts so good.

Bob takes the stage, strides to his piano in black attire with silver
trim, accents and designs. Bob is shouting about people must get stoned,
so, well, people do as they're told. Highlights for me were Shooting
Star, and Hard Rain. If the folks could stop their non-stop nattering,
but, no, it was a talkative crowd, I was close enough to give my attention
to the songs, appreciated Bob's careful, forceful, committed performance
but the man next to me kept saying "C'mon, Bob!" in his annoyed
voice, expecting the hit parade he didn't get, he sat down and stared at
his phone after awhile. I caught a quick glance, he was googling "Bob
Dylan" and I wondered if he found him?

It was indeed a treat for me to be there, so happy to have seen Bob Dylan
in nearby Kentucky several times in recent years, the great Aronoff center
here in Cincinnati, as well as the Brady Music Center here in town. But
these outdoor Pavillion crowds are a certain type that want to hear the
hits, can't blame them, but that's not happening and I got the feeling
everyone was marking time until Willie Nelson came on. 

Such a shame, because something was happening here, but they didn't know
what it was.