Review by Sergi Fabregat
You (well, me) never know how you (me) would experience the last (my last)
show before going back home. Furthermore, if there's no more shows after
that is more bearable as you can't do anything more about it, but when
there's not only a show after your last but in fact it's in the same city
it's hateful to be leaving town in the morning knowing that Bob will be
playing there that same night. That is the theory.
I tried to change my flights to sneak both the Beacon show and Baltimore #2
when more dates were added, but it was too expensive so had to settle with
just 10 shows this fall (I'm not in command of myself anymore :lol: ) and
Baltimore #1 was my last 2023 concert.
The reality, however, proved to be much more different, as I left the
Meyerhoff Symphony Hall with such a deep feeling of gratefulness, happiness
and fulfillment after 4 shows that have been, even if by little, a step up
from the ones I saw before Halloween, which already seemed to go in a
deepening direction compared to previous legs. It can well be just me: the
more shows you see, the more you understand them, connect with them and
embrace them, instead of the contrary, which should be the obvious given
the same setlist and no suprise covers these last few concerts. However,
I've left these last shows with an almost undescribable feeling of
enlightenment, how the beauty can be achieved while acknowledging the
reality of death and time, how meaningful these songs and the man who
sings them can be that almost every other human interaction that happens
away from this seems farceful and deceiving. Funnily, I suspect about
other people's intentions and goals, as I suspect mine too, but I don't
doubt Bob when he is performing on a stage.
Don't get me wrong, I trust people and tend to see the positives, but in
the end there's such a few amount of persons who really care about each
of us, who care about the most profound feelings, the hopes and fears,
and in a way that's only natural but also so sad. When I'm witnessing Bob
perform, is as if someone is singing out loud about all these emotions,
not ashamed to dance through them, to be weird to the regular folks, to
share the loneliness, to try his best to be his own self, everchanging,
multitudinous.
I saw this tweet that got me thinking about this all:
“Before this concert I always sort of felt like there was many Bob Dylans
within Bob Dylan. What I realize now is that there’s actually just one
Bob Dylan, and the forces that drove him in the past are the same forces
driving him now. It’s a train that keeps on moving forward.”
I've written myself about the different Bob Dylans, the multiple personas
and all that. How we also contain multitudes and this kind of things. But
from what I saw in Baltimore, and then reading then this tweet, I may want
to reassess a bit the idea.
I used to observe Bob's shows as enclosed experiences during which
different Bob Dylans would manifest and express themselves, waiting for
some songs to make their moves and give the show an specific mood or
direction (I think specially about 2019's renditions of 'Like a Rolling
Stone' or 'Not Dark Yet'), as if those songs and how they were performed
could determine the nature of the experience per se. In a way, the shows
were like a world inside or outside *the* world that had this lifesaving
quality, so to speak. I remember thinking "if he nails 'Honest With Me',
it will be a great show", what an stupid thing to think. I spent the whole
pandemic hoping for Bob to go back on the road and bringing back to me
these pills of elevated fadeaways.
I've noticed, also reviewing the shows, that I've let myself to immerse
more and more with the concerts themselves, thus during the shows I relate
specific lines and words to specific personal images or experiences and
I'm not afraid of losing that inflection or missing Bob doing this if in
exchange of that I get to feel more. The bottomline of all this is that it
has taken me quite some tens of shows to understand that in order to be
really happy following Bob I have to allow myself to be in sync with the
songs every possible second, not after the song, not after the show, but
during the whole show if possible. Of course is not that I've not been
doing this at all until now, but I think that a greater part of what has
allowed me to enjoy these last 4 shows to the point of innocent,
constantly clean slate, purity which I've felt during most of them has
been this active effort to focus to the extreme on the live present.
Thus, if during the show there's only one instant of present time after
the other, there can't be more than one Bob Dylan, and this is everything
I came here to say today: that in Baltimore I had the infinite pleasure,
possibly not for the first time but surely for the first time I can say
it without a doubt, that Bob and I, two persons at any given time, shared
a moment of truth.
Due to where I was seating in row 3 and due to how he was seating at his
piano, when Bob looked to his right he could easily see me. I've
sometimes been afraid of locking eyes with him (I'm not the best at that),
but in Baltimore I felt pretty confident and during a couple of moments
that he looked at me for a moment I held it back, not much different to
other nights I've been close to the stage, as in Newark, where I could
swear that he looked at me during most of the first lines of 'Crossing
the Rubicon'. But during the first instrumental part in 'False Prophet',
when he started playing the piano more lenghtly and as I was nodding my
head to the fantastic rhythm, him nodding his head too, he looked at me
again, and then I knew it was now or never. I kept looking at him and
continued to nod my head, and then the most incredible thing happened:
he did the same, and for easily 20 or 30 seconds we were looking to each
other in the eye and nodding at the same rhythm. This was 4 days ago and
I still clearly remember the goosebumps I felt when Bob started singing
again and this moment was over, and it was so different to anything I've
felt ever before; it wasn't pride, reverence, excitement or whatever, it
was more like acknowledgement. I can say, and this I say it with
profound happiness, that I felt respected when Bob Dylan looked at me.
Of course, it took me a couple or three songs to recover from that
properly (though I can say that 'Masterpiece' was REALLY GOOD), and even
'My Own Version of You' seemed a bit soft to my ears, but whatever, I
came back for 'Baby Tonight', which was absolutely sassy and I'd say that
even dirty, specially for that nice modern venue. Again 'Crossing the
Rubicon' was one of the highlights as it had been since specially the
last European tour, with some lines crazily strened out, Bob putting real
effort in getting from them all their juice: "I turned the KEEEEE, I
broke it off!". I've been having the time of my life this whole last week
to be honest, really unexpectedly I could say.
For maybe the first time during a live performance of 'Key West', and I
link this to the present-living idea that can allow you to feel more, I
thought about Hiroshima when Bob mentioned Truman after the "I do what I
think is right - what I think is best", and it felt quite terrifying.
I've thought other times about how some parts of 'Key West' can refer to
the bomb dropping in 1945, but usually during the shows I think more
about how I relate to the song. It's curious and made me think that
during this specifical show I thought about that historical event, maybe
I got it a bit personal as I was in Hiroshima last april, and I shed my
fair amount of tears at the museum.
Boyfriend noticed another brief eye-locking moment at the beginning of
'I've Made Up My Mind', is quite a special song to us, maybe Bob saw me
reacting more or something, and the performance surely featured again
this 'new' quality I've been sensing this fall in which the song is a
bit more raw, less delicate sometimes, with Bob being less melodic and
more chopping when repeating "I've-Made-Up-My-Mind-To-Give-Myself-To-You".
I get that aesthetically can be unsual, but to me it, again, brings the
song back home, it's more proletarian, and despite the ticket prices,
most of us in the audience are that in the end.
I've come to think that 'Made Up My Mind' is my better half's song to me
and 'That Old Black Magic' is mine to him. I'm less lyrical and more
esoteric and mysterious, so to speak. So a love song saying "lovin' the
spin I'm in, under that old black magic called love", with its upbeat
tempo and its silliness, is perfect for me. All in all, and this is
corroborated by third parties hERe, I got so excited that even the man
himself noticed it and he cracked up a laugh. From there on, a lovely
and passionate performance under that old black magic called love!
The sight of Bob playing 'Goodbye Jimmy Reed' fully standing (that is,
not leaning a bit, fully vertical) was a triumph of all sorts, makes me
think of that great Wong Kar-Wai movie called 'The Grandmaster' in which
the concepts of horizontal and vertical merge with martial arts and
Chinese philosophy, and Bob seemed then easily 20 years younger, taller
and really on top of his game, delivering the last verse in such a hot
fashion.
I refrained from dancing during 'Goodbye Jimmy Reed' to not disturb
anyone, but when Bob started playing the harp in 'Every Grain of Sand',
I automatically stood up, hoping nobody was annoyed, but I thought that
it was the less I could do for that man. My parents warned me not to
waste my years, I still got their advice oozing out of my ears:
"Standing is a sign of respect". I needed to feel that respect, not for
him to see it, but for me to acknowledge it.
I had the fortune to be surrounded during the show by some lovely fellow
bobcats that gave it that wonderful friend-gathering feeling, but I have
to say that those two ladies behind us that told me that they enjoyed
the show a lot "vicariously through me" touched me quite fondly.
2024 can't come soon enough!
PS: I don't spend much praising the band in the reviews, but how they
are all playing, specially Doug and Jerry and even more specially Tony
is a gift we'll miss one day.
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