Bob Dylan in Nottingham

I went to see Bob Dylan at the Nottingham
Arena last night. It was a packed house, full
of blokes like myself in their 50s and 60s,
and a few youngsters. Bob's doing a tour of
the UK at present, if you didn't know.

I’m not a huge Dylan fan, but even the
devotees in my group thought his performance
was mediocre. In contrast, his backing group
was outstandingly good …some excellent Rock &
Roll and R&B stuff. Dylan played the keyboard
and occasionally a harmonica, but not the
acoustic guitar unfortunately.

His speech was not very clear … I could only
hear about a quarter of his lyrics, and the
melody seemed to be almost the same in every
song. I was sitting on the second row at the
front, so I was able to do some lip-reading,
which helped me a bit. One song I hardly
recognised was “For Times They Are A-Changing”
as he’d changed the melody completely. I
preferred the original one.

At the end of the performance (which lasted
about 90 minutes without a proper break for
the musicians .. an amazing feat), he and the
other members of the band stood still like
statues for some minutes,throughout a
standing ovation. Not a wave or a smile from
any member of the group, which I thought was
rather strange. However the vast majority
thought the performance was tremendous,
judging by the applause at the end.

Well for me it was a once-in-a-lifetime
moment to see the great man, one of the icons
of my youth, but I came away from the gig
feeling slightly disappointed.