Review

Karlstad, Sweden

Karlstad CCC

June 30, 2019


[Amund Børdah]

Review by Amund Børdahl



A ticket to Karlstad? I am not talking train or bus tickets here, they are
most always available; but the Karlstad CCC concert hall is not very large
and has long been sold out. If not quite yet it appears? There is a ticket
on Row 4 - Seat 91 left, but its sight is "delvis skymd", as they say in
Sweden, i.e. "partly hidden", which must mean that you won't see all of
the stage from there. It doesn't look like that on the seating chart
though. To make a short story even shorter: 4, 91 is a PERFECT seat. From
there you stare directly at the pianoplayer from hat to feet, and the
sound is gorgeous. Next time Bob plays the CCC, this seat (or another one
nearby) is the one to go for. And the concert itself? Absolutely sweet.
This concert grows on you. Among the standouts were a splendid "Scarlet
town" and a strangely beautiful new version of "Girl from the North
Country" (new to me, as he played "Don't Think" in Bergen and "Boots" in
Oslo); "reinventing himself" has become a cliché if ever there was one,
but it is also a true description. And then to spend the rest of the
evening with two of the best Norwegian writers on Dylan (and, to tell the
truth, among the best in the world; check out https://johnnyborgan.blog/;
and if you don't read Norwegian, it's time to learn it; this 700 pages
book contains a lot you will not find anywhere else, including a great
deal of factual information on Dylan songs and their literary contetxs:
http://vidarforlaget.no/boker/den-store-sangen-%E2%80%93-kapitler-av-en-bo
k-om-bob-dylan; do you for instance know about the old English ballad
which Dylan based his "Sad Eyed Lady" on? No, I didn't think so)... To
spend the rest of the night until early morning at the wrong bus stop with
a bilingual mother (Swedish, Somali) and her four courageous children (age
six months to nine years) was a truly joyful conclusion to a memorable
journey. Btw, he plays Roskilde in a few days.

Amund Børdahl

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