Bob Dylan has never allowed anyone to dictate who he is as an artist. He has willfully confounded his own audience at every turn: giving Newport an electrified "Maggie's Farm," getting introspective as soon as he's saddled with the tag of "voice of a generation," and, in concert, regularly transubstantiating his biggest hits to fit the persona he's adopted at a given point. Witness "Like A Rolling Stone" transformed into a massive gospel number during the 80s, "Times They Are A-Changin'" turned into a cynical spit-at-the-ground during the 90s, and so on.
Everyone comes to a Dylan show expecting their own personal BOB DYLAN to show up: the socially conscious troubador for some, the romantic poet for others, and the wily bluesman for still others. He has recognized this since the beginning and has worked at every opportunity to break out of the boxes into which audiences would put him.
Last night, in his typical fashion, BOB DYLAN resolutely refused to make an appearance. Instead we got Bob. A guy who, at the moment, feels like playing some blues tunes (isn't that all he's ever really done anyway?).
Everybody's waiting on Bob to turn into a doddering old nostalgia act
and just play his Greatest Hits Vols 1, 2 and 3 until he dies, but he
hasn't and won't do so. We give him praise and call him cool because he fought to maintain his mercurial visions in the face of audiences that didn't get it. He didn't cater to them, and we love him for it. It's unfair and hypocritical to expect him to cater to us.
Put another way, we showed up expecting this:
We got this:
Old Bobby Zimmerman is still a punk rocker after all.
Comments (1)
hmmm. :)