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February 28,1974SynapsePate 7Hero BluesBob DylanDylan Concert Reviewby Gene Shapiro and Iver KernBehold, he is coming with the clouds! Every eye shall see him ... I saw seven standing lamps of gold, and among the lamps one like a son of man, robed down to his Jeet, with a golden girdle round his breast ...his eyes flamed like fire;... and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters; ... and out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and his Jace shone like the sun in full strength.The Revelation of John 1:7-16The social event of the season happened last February 11 — Bob Dylan and The Band performed at the Oakland Coliseum. The Band was excellent.The scene outside the Coliseum was about as expected — people were perhaps several years older on the average than the standard Winterland crowd, but the Krishna people were there passing out booklets, “as Bob asked. It tells where his music is coming from.” And there were plenty of costumes; one man in a sari and veil asking for pity and a ticket in a poorly disguised accent, for he had “come frommusical numbers, the order of which (including the two encores) could be read the week before in the popular news media. The audience went wild, rushed the stage (body guards appeared before the number, knowing what was to come), and lit matches in the dark, all right on schedule.“I just can’t do what I done before,” Dylan sang as he began the set with “Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine)”, which he also sang as his first encore. And indeed, he wasn’t the Bob Dylan of the ’60’s. The songs and the words were the same, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They are a-Changin’,” “Lay Lady Lay,” “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All-Right,” “Highway 61 Revisited,” a:nd others.But the man, the style, the feeling was not the same. His voice was strained, as though he had to push out the last word of each line. And the music no longer had the intimate relevance to the lyrics; the delivery was no longer marked by that ability to send his meaning deep into the personal world of each of his listeners. In fact, most of the 1 vrics were barelvtheir set. They played many of their old favorites, such as “Rag Mama Rag,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” and “The Weight,” and accompanied Dylan on most of his songs.But the attention centered on Dylan, and the crowd responded with enthusiasm to whatever he did. The climax came with “Like a Rolling Stone.” The signal seemed somehow to spread, perhaps it was the positioning of the body guards, that it was time to rush the stage.The lights turned on the audience as people swayed and even danced with joy — it was Bob Dylan singing! Spotlights spun around the arena, all was wonder and delight. Glowing matches appeared on all sides, an ineffable (for the majority who were unfamiliar with the old Joan Baez peace concerts) tribute to a modern hero. Two encores, the final one a rather hollow version of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and it was over.Driving back across the bridge, and for several days afterwards, I felt a strong sense of bewilderment. What had hanneneH^ Who is the. Rnhcurrent issues of the day his power and relevance began to fade. The truth is that Dylan’s songs have not been political since before the days of “My Back Pages.”No, it is not a sense of the political, but a sense of outrage, perhaps the only unifying principle in the vastness of his creations, which Bob Dylan seems to have lost — outrage at thesoil for the development of great artists or prophets. I don’t believe that either Maha-raj ji or Werner Erhard will replace Bob Dylan.Indeed, what could Dylan have done onstage that would have been relevant? What kind of popular art causes more than a minor stir these days “Deep Throat” or “The Exorcist?” Dylan’s direction
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San Francisco Synapse
San Francisco, California, US
Thu, Feb 28, 1974
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