Review

The old man & I got in town early. He with a broken hip, me with a broken
heart. We strummed our guitars & made friends with the bums...a dirty
faced man to you is one of the original DOGTOWN boys to me...so salute
your heroes of the open road.

A THEATER so grand that the modernity of downtown shrinks out of view...as
I watch a DUTCH, AUSSIE, & a who knows who paint what will be the largest
mural in the great state of FLORIDA....they worked hard & when the day was
done I told them that BOB DYLAN was playing tonight across the street.
they had no idea...so immersed in their project they never stopped to read
the posters up around town...they weren't there... they were home resting,
preparing themselves for their cement canvas...

maybe they got a ticket at the last minute, maybe not...all I know is that
once the lights turned down and that ol' FOGGY DEW (I only hear 900 miles)
came steaming... the hat, the walk, the band...THE SOUND....

Sitting in the last row I had a movable seat...I stationed myself on the
catwalk so I could pace in the dark without spooking the crowd... oh, The
sound...classics...contemporary...those dug up jewels...like THE ORIOLES
in my old neighborhood back home in HIGHLAND TOWN.. where they paint(ed)
the screens...the old men..with brushes...door to door.. then to the
store...home with a hat to toss on the floor...she'd let him in, or toss
it back out and he'd get some more....

But those days are gone..my mother danced everyday after school on T.V.
met Sam Cooke, Martha, The Midnights, all of em... she saw the BEATLES in
Baltimore...1964...early show... my father collected KINGSTON TRIO LPS....

That world is gone from the modern landscape...the one where rich men buy
land and then decide to decorate it with their pale minds...grey unto
grey...

But on this night BOB didn't step out to Mozart, or Jaws, or Words, or
Screens..(we all had to leave SCREEN WORLD) the lights low...like a tube
amp glow...midnight on the horizon..either eden or eve is around the
corner.. keep your hat low...walk, don't talk..silence...well there are
few who understand...that before HERMES Invented the stringed instrument
there was nothing but boredom...and a lot of drumming!

BOB DYLAN arrived in FLORIDA a road warrior, an outlaw. honest. and still
in love but just like Chuck Berry sings: "MMMain't that just like a woman"

But Bob was always a BOBBY VEE BOY, Bashful & delirious...a lover from a
time .... a time before the women began to change...to pose. to trick. to
beguile... and we men all fell for it over and over -- drugged out of our
mind by the machine of progress & plastic...the destruction of the wall &
the explosion of interest & inflation...I had to leave the upstate new
York bars... they called us bums and fed us crumbs...asked us back again
another 4 hour set on the rocks...with bathroom doors for backstage....

but old-time music is honest...and BOB begins his show with an old-time
number that only Stu Kimball can play... a chord man...like the shadow you
don't see when you pull a knife on a gambler...and if he don't get you
well, there's George Recile... he's from New Orleans...so you know how he
earned those beads around his snare... He has added so much over the
years...so much...just like ol' Charlie Sexton, an ark angel..a young
buck..car hound...slick hair guitar ripper...yeah, he's been in and out...
I saw him once on his back during the Warren Zevon tour...Bob got down
there too...so did Tony, with his big bass...how long has he been around?
just long enough to take a break once in a while to play with people like
BABY GRAMPS...on Letterman!

but the guy I like to hear is DON HERRON. a multi-instrumentalist must be
meek, less he over indulge every song he touches...Don plays banjo,
fiddle, pedal steel, lap steal, electric mandolin...i'm sure he could also
play the balilaka and the tin flute....

First time I was in NASHVILLE...2004-5...I heard a rumor Bob wanted Don in
his band.. but Don was in a good local band..BR-549...Do you cut your own
band to join a legend? Others have and regretted it; others found new
perpous and gave the band a fresh perspective...but finding a band is like
finding a woman...you can't trust no-body...

but I have found that you can always trust a real musician...not the
winner of the Bob Dylan look-a-like contest..or the girl with a guitar and
nothing to say////

say something...back it up.,..show the world..

that is what BOB DYLAN has done for over 50 YEARS...non-stop...it will
end, but like an ELIOT POEM or a Shaker Play...or a GREEK campfire...
like FIRE...LIKE CHANGE...like that river that can't be stepped in the
same way twice....

You can't affect that many people and not know that glory is in the eye of
the beholder.. and BOB has some eyes...so he says...

well I believe Him...and after that set I told my local record store guy
(who was with R. Manual the day he died in winter park) that the show was
note perfect...and he said nahh, BOB DYLAN...pfssss

I told him again so he would remember:

NOTE PERFECT:: you had to be there....I WAS.......

Mike Hansen