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Still
Painting his Masterpiece
Bob Dylan,
Nolan Park, Co. Kilkenny
20th July 2001
In Nolan Park G.A.A. ground, Kilkenny, an audience of 40,000 people mill
around expectantly. The ageing hippie quotient is high: there are many
grey heads around, and many beards, though the occasional pocket of youth
shows up here and there. The higher age profile means that the queue for
the bar is more than usually orderly, though the occasional waft of hash-smoke
hints at former glories.
On stage, the lights go up, and to rapturous applause, a pensioner shambles
on stage with a guitar and harmonica brace. He begins strumming, wheezes
on the harmonica, and squawks in a nasal voice that few would describe
as beautiful. The audience love it. We settle in for a long night. This,
we think, will be a treat.
Robert Allen Zimmerman, otherwise known as Bob Dylan, is 60 years of age.
He plays concerts almost constantly ( about 150 nights a year find him
on a stage somewhere), and records studio albums faster than most contemporary
rock bands. A couple of months ago, his birthday prompted tributes so
effusive that they may have led Dylan himself to wonder whether he was
actually still alive. The reasons for the effusiveness though are perfectly
understandable. It is difficult to assess Dylan's worth as an artist without
also having one's judgement affected by his importance, a very different
thing. So central is he to development of popular music from bubblegum
to serious popular art form, that one can simply take his legendary status
for granted, and reel off the standard critical observations. Ask a Dylan
fan, one of the really hardcore guys (you know them - beards, rolly cigarettes,
often wearing tweeds. They abound in the English and Archaeology departments
of universities, and in bookshops like the Winding Stair.) "what's so
good about him anyway?" and chances are they'll be stumped. It's a question
so seemingly redundant that no-one ever stops to ask it. And for the Dylan
fans, it's a question so rarely asked that they've forgotten the answer
as irrelevant. Bob isn't because, Bob just is.
Mind you, it's a reasonable question. We all know he's important. Sure,
we know that Dylan kickstarted both folk-rock and the singer-songwriter
boom, thus giving us The Byrds, Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Paul Simon, Tracy
Chapman, David Gray, Fairport Convention, David Kitt.... (the list can
go on indefinitely). We know that he made lyrics an important part of
the song and led the mid-sixties vogue for musical experimentation, thus
changing the pop landscape beyond recognition. We also know that if not
for him, whole generations of musicians wouldn't be wearing sunglasses
indoors. The more basic question, then: What's the big deal about Dylan?
The first thing to be said to anyone approaching his music for the first
time, is to come without preconceptions or expectations. Dylan's music
is informed by, but ultimately free of any other genre. For all the attempts
to define his music as Rock & Roll, Rock, Folk, Folk-Rock and varying
intermediate shades, Dylan fits into that hardest to pin down of all genres:
The unique artist. A fan of Rock'n'Roll in his youth, he hopped on the
folk bandwagon in the early sixties. Ditching the folkies in 1965, he
hooked up with the Band (then the Hawks) and made some seriously loud
Rock & Roll. By the late 60's he was doing Country Rock. Blues turned
up at nearly every phase in his career, and R & B made regular appearances.
In the mid seventies he was playing an unusual strain of Folk Rock. The
late 70's saw (oh no!) Christian Rock before he moved to contemporary
Rock in the 80's.
The next decade saw a return to a traditional Folk style, before he pitched
up at the turn of the millennium with Time out of Mind, a record too sparse
and eerie sounding to be called folk, but not sounding much like anything
else either. Dylan, at the end of the day, makes Bob Dylan records, and
that's as much pigeon-holing as they'll support. His is a unique vision,
one unparalleled in music of any form. In his songs, he creates a world
and peoples it with characters. The Dylan song-book is like a fancy dress
party or a fantasy road map. Pimps, outlaws, eccentrics, lovers and poets
jostle for space on Desolation Row. Mr. Tambourine Man walks along Highway
61 with Napoleon in rags, en route from Maggie's Farm, as Mr. Bojangles
sings to the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Low-lands. This is no chancer tossing
out funny characters to attract attention, this is a song-writer serious
about his art, taking his listeners into a world that existed a long time
ago, or never existed, or may one day exist yet. That's why the Dylan
fan can become a bit of a trainspotter; It happens with Tolkien, Joyce,
Wodehouse, with any artist who creates a world of their own. There is
a sense of definiteness to a Dylan song. The story it tells may not be
a true one, but in Dylan's artistic world it's truth is as real as Heaven
and Hell. "'Twas in another lifetime" he sings, introducing Shelter From
The Storm, "one of toil and blood". In other words, this is not contemporary
music, it's something purer and older and more elemental.
Even songs as well-worn as "The Times They are a-Changin' " retain a remarkable
power. Strip away the song's fame, it's status as soundtrack to any number
of documentaries on sixties radicalism, and listen closely to any random
verse:
Come gather round people wherever you roam
And admit that around you the waters have grown
And accept it, that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth saving.
And you'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Despite their thousands of slaughterings at the hands of buskers, the
words still have a magic to them, the sort of power that historic speeches,
biblical quotations, Shakespearean soliloquies and ancient folk songs
possess. They seem to have a weight, a solidity borne of endurance. This,
you think, is a big song. Yet unlike the old folk songs, these words were
written only a few decades ago. This is what makes Dylan unique, an ability
to write songs which at once seem as if they have always existed and always
will. At his best, his voice carries with it a history of American music,
and a secret history of America itself; of laments and love songs, of
ballads and blues. That voice, that seems to come to you from one hundred
years ago, or longer, telling tales of murder, love, struggle and redemption,
it seems to encompass within it a whole half-forgotten world. In considering
whether any other living artist within the Rock genre can even approach
this level of scope or depth, can similarly bring the past alive, or mythologise
the present until it's as powerful as history, only Shane McGowan comes
to mind, and even at his peak, McGowan was never as prolific as Dylan.
Even the song titles have a certain grandeur to them, - I Shall Be Released,
When I Paint My Masterpiece, Forever Young.
"Judas!", a disappointed fan shouted in 1965, when Dylan raised two fingers
to the folk purists and went electric. In truth though, few artists from
the sixties stand less liable to accusations of betrayal. Unlike so many
of his contemporaries, Dylan always had his vision, and to that he stayed
true. Sure he made bad albums, baffling albums, sometimes even terrible
albums. No-one much liked his Christian stuff, and his live reworking
and re-arranging of old hits found little favour. But the true betrayal
would have been to follow the demands of the critics or of fashion at
the expense of the vision. And he never did that.
That is why we are here to see him tonight. The question is, will this
be one of the greats, or will Bob have one of his "funny nights"? When
you're on the road as much as Dylan is, every night is unlikely to seem
as special to you as it does to the audience, so it simply isn't possible
to pull out the top-drawer stuff all the time. And Dylan has been known
to have some real stinkers. Heart not in it, voice wayward, guitar-playing
perfunctory, the connection with the audience is sometimes simply not
there. Full calendar years have gone by without him saying a word between
songs. (A few years ago he played five nights in London's Hammersmith
Odeon. The grand total of speech from the five nights was a single question:
"What?").
Tonight though, with the crowd in good humour, the last of the sun shining
down on us, we have high hopes. As it happens, our hopes are justified.
The band are small but tight, and they chug along steadily to a blues
rhythm. Nice touch having them all in black suits too - it's always nice
to see a performer making a bit of an effort. Admittedly, his devotion
to the cause doesn't go as far as actually saying anything to us, apart
from introducing the band, which featured Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood. But
what could he say anyway? He's not really the type for all that "Everyone
having a good time out there?" malarkey. (This is a somewhat contentious
point amongst myself and my friends, some of whom maintain that at some
point in the gig, Bob did in fact mutter something about how he liked
Kilkenny. Without wishing to brand anyone a liar, let me just say that
Bob must have said this while I was queuing for the portaloos.) The songs
of course are strong enough to do the talking, and Bob gives us lots of
material from his first great creative burst of the mid-sixties. Desolation
Row, Stuck Inside of Mobile, and Don't Think Twice It's Alright all get
rousing receptions, but inevitably the biggest cheer comes for his finale
of Like A Rolling Stone.
In truth, it wasn't the kind of gig you'd tell the grandkids about, but
then it was never going to be. Outdoor sports stadiums are not the natural
home of music, and certain compromises have to be made. Where Neil Young's
sonic assault can be just as compelling in front of a big crowd (see the
well-deserved rave reviews of his recent Dublin and London shows), Dylan's
essence is quieter, more restrained, more suited to intimacy. Paradoxically,
in order to make a stadium gig work, Dylan has to play down precisely
what makes him special. He gives us the hits, and we lap them up. It's
been a good day, the ever-present threat of a duff gig didn't materialise,
and we can go home happy. We've seen him, and that's enough. The crowd
spills out of the stadium and onto the streets of Kilkenny, in search
of a few more pints before closing time. No-one's in a particularly demonstrative
mood, but there is an air of quiet satisfaction about the place. We are
glad we made the trip, and we're glad Bob made it. The best gig I've seen
played by a 60-year-old all year.
by
Fergal Crehan
23rd July 2001
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