Reviews

Copenhagen, Denmark

Falconer Salen

October 16, 2013


[Lars Kjædegaard], [S.K. Nielsen]

Review by Lars Kjædegaard



Wonderful wonderful Copenhagen show - this was my sixteenth Dylan concert,
and it was the best. The songs came out like pearls on a string, Dylan
sang beautifully, every word counted, and the atmosphere on stage was
relaxed and purposeful. Even the short intervals between the songs were
great, the tinkling of Dylan's piano, Sexton hitting a few chords and
Recile brushing the snare. It had an old-fashioned concert quality which
was great. 'Forgetful Heart' was stunning, 'Long And Wasted Years' felt
like an embrace. I was with my wife, my kids and my son's girlfriend. It
was a night we shall never forget. Thank you, Mr. Dylan.

Lars Kjædegaard

[TOP]

Review by S.K. Nielsen



Bob Dylan took the torch as blue contemporary artist back in 1963 fifty years ago. 
No paper or critic has yet mentioned the fact during his European tour although 
Dylan right now plays the piano so blue that some critics see it as a fault. No it is 
not. The mighty master of mindblowin' blues might not always know the meanings 
of his poems; but he certainly knows his song well before he starts singing.

As eyewitness in audience with his loving audience last night in Copenhagen, I'll 
try to give my humble credit and thanks.

What an offer, what a life Bob Dylan and his never ending, caring band has to give 
and live!  Leavin' Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Germany next, hidden in a big, 
black Austrian bus just seconds after leavin' the answer blowin' in the wind with 
us, the audience standing, stamping our feet, clapping our hands, yelling out loud.

Yet still, it is clear, why he just have to continue. 'Cause who is out there to take 
his tortuous torch? Dylan took it from Pete Seeger 50 years ago - and thank God, 
Pete is still with us also - but who is here to take Bob's torch? No one!
Ok, John Mayer played at another gig in Copenhagen last night too, drawing a great 
crowd - bad coincidence for a lover of blue. But where is the contemporary poet 
with lyric that blows our blues away, if not for you, and you know it's true?
He or she is not there yet. That is why Dylan has to keep going, listening to us, his 
lovin' audience who can but only cry out loud with the crier in Copenhagen: "We 
love you!" Yes we do. And we love lovin' you always, all ways. Love Sick is our 
name. Long and wasted years our song - you know what it is all about.

Joni Mitchell may envy the character Bob created. She certainly deserves much 
credit and is loved too. But the difference, that Joan Baez spotted early on, 
between the master joker & thief and the rest, lies in the non-understandable 
truth, the collective self written lyrics, that not even the writer fully comprehends - 
words walked beside fountains of nearly equally non-understandable forcefully, blue 
notes. Fifty years, ladies and gentlemen!

Tangled up in blue was never amplified so blue, as Dylan demanded it done from 
his piano this time around. The wind howlin' all along the Watchtower were never 
hammered out more brutally blue, than Dylan did it yesterday just before the 
master joker, the bard of bards ended his play with a no-nonsense, anniversary 
edition of Blowin' in the Wind, that for who knows how many roads, times and 
deaths made it impossible for us, his lovin' audience in audience, to sing along. 
This is not our fate.

Southerly, southerly now Dylan's blue wind blows his band and bus on their 
European tour before ending up westward bound in the Royal Albert Hall, where 
princes kept their view. The Hall that Dylan left almost fifty years ago wondering 
why the booing audience ever bought their tickets.
You are a walking antique, Dylan wrote then. And sang in Copenhagen yesterday. 
Thank You So Much!

[TOP]

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