TSB Arena
August 10 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

WELLINGTON was on tenterhooks on Friday. Everywhere I went businessmen were talking on their cellphones about it, students were futilely trying to score tickets, shops were blaring the music. After all, we did have a bona fide legend in our midst. This was the third time he’s played here in recent times as part of his never-ending world tour. But as the relative youth of the crowd was a testament, he seems to be speaking to more and more people as the years pass.

The night was opened by Irish rockers The Frames. Having seen an endearing performance in the Film Festival’s Once, lead singer Glen Hansard was a winning frontman for the band, who have considerable indie credibility and a killer live reputation. Apparently Bob Dylan chose the band for the tour after seeing Once, though of course, by being an opening band for a legend they will always be seen as a filler by the vast majority of the audience. Nevertheless, their show was very good, with a powerful sound and a lovely use of a violin.

When performers like David Bowie and the Rolling Stones played in town, they essentially played a greatest hits set. This signified two things – their newer stuff isn’t as good as their stuff at their peak (though to be fair, Bowie’s new output isn’t bad), and that it is unlikely that we’ll be seeing the likes of them again. Dylan wasn’t in this position. It seems that unless something serious happens, it’ll be inevitable that we’ll see Dylan again on our shores in a few years. Also, the man is still releasing quality music, with last year’s Modern Times a fantastic album by a man refusing to fall back on his reputation.

I was admittedly a little concerned about how his performance would hold up as reports of his recent concerts haven’t been entirely complimentary. However, this is a man who is synonymous with bootlegs, so he’s got to be pretty good. Also the TSB Arena doesn’t have the greatest acoustics, and from what I’ve heard, the reverb affected pockets of the crowd’s enjoyment. I was just fortunate that my seats had great sound. This was a professional and polished performance – a furious backing band who controlled the proceedings with precision. For all the historical references to Dylan as a folkster, it’s easy to forget how influenced he was by the blues. Friday night was a relentless blues set, a rollicking, raucous swirl of songs haphazardly thrown together from throughout his career. He started off with ‘Cat’s In the Well’, then moved into ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’. He didn’t ignore the oldies – ‘Stuck Inside Of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again’ and ‘Lay Lady Lay’ for example. There was a particularly loud cheer when he pulled out the harmonica for ‘Tangled Up in Blue’, and Dylan moved from the guitar to mainly playing the keyboard for the set.

Some of his re-interpretations may have caused some consternation from the old fans, but this is Dylan – he can do what he wants. He’s probably played the songs so many times that he’ll need to reinterpret for his own sanity, but it did allow him to bring out his love of the blues – as evidenced by a killer ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, his quasi-tribute to the mythology of blues legend Robert Johnson. There was also an excellent ‘Spirit on the Water’ from Modern Times. He closed his main set with ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ – an even-more brooding version of the brooding classic from Highway 61 Revisited full of murky organs and a sneering voice (though I’d have loved to have heard that great putdown ‘you’ve read all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books...”). It was brilliant. His encore performance was his Alicia Keys musing ‘Thunder on the Mountain’, and the staple ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’. The song that provoked legends like Sam Cooke to wonder ‘how did a white man write that?’ and defined an entire civil movement, dripped with history as Dylan re-interpreted it as an upbeat number. It was wonderful stuff – a performance by one of the 20th Century’s artistic giants, that proving that he’s just as good in the 21st.

See also:
» Dylan as the greatest, or pointless veneration?