Review by Eduardo Bueno
Everybody in the whole wide world (www…) calls it "football" - only americans
call it "soccer"; which probably means that Bob Dylan calls it "soccer" too… But
who really cares? The fact is that last saturday night, in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, Dylan not just played in a football stadium, but kept alive one of
the golden unwritten rules of the game: you don´t make changes in your
team if it´s winning…
Well, I guess the quote is valid for any other sport -- like, say, baseball --, but
the point here is that the expression seems to fit like a glove to define this leg
of the Ever Going Tour… And that´s probably why the set lists of this current
tour are becoming so predictable - even in it´s changes. But if the songs
remains (mostly) the same, and are even sung in the same order, the way
they came alive are still… unique. Thus, the experience of seeing and listen to
these songs of experience in different nights, and in different settings, are still
valid and… unique by itself. So, are you experienced?
Under a silver beautiful moon, shinning in a southern starry sky, in a perfect late
summer night, with the wind softly blowing, Bob Dylan and his band went to
stage five minutes after 9;30 PM, in the Velez Sarsfield stadium, in the outskirts
of huge, flat city of Buenos Aires. Even with the place being half empty, it was,
by far, the biggest venue to receive this South American leg of Dylan´s tour.
The newspapers of Buenos Aires said there were 23,000 people there - but I
guess they were not much more than 16,000. Anyhow, they were all in their
feet, clapping their hands, when the first notes - and the first stones - were
throw.
"Rainny Day Women" was, again, the opening song of the night. But, somehow,
it didn´t sound the way it should. The song received a good version in São
Paulo´s second night (March, 6th), a fair version in Rio´s (March, 8th), and…
this kind of sloppy version here in Buenos Aires… It was as if it suddenly sounds
a little too childish and foolish to Bob to sing and say, out loud, in the dawn of
this new millennium, that "everybody must get stoned". Does he really believes
that "everybody must get stoned"? Well, nobody would mind, care, or dare, to
ask such a silly question if the song sounded the way it should. So, if you caught
yourself wondering it, it was just because it didn´t stoned you… I mean, it
didn´t rocked you, isn´t it?
And the sweet lady that came up to your room shortly after that… well, she
didn´t come, neither... "Lay Lady Lay", that sounded magistral in São Paulo,
sounded… reticent and undecided in Buenos Aires. Well, not the lady herself:
the GUY who was inviting her to stay while the night still ahead, he seems (or,
at least, sounded) undecided. The line "Stay, lady, stay", carefully pronounced,
almost letter by letter, a week ago, in São Paulo, in Buenos Aires became like a
single unpronounceable word, with almost no vowels: "s´tladstay"…
I have these friends from Brazil, who traveled to Argentina just to see the show
(more than one thousand miles, boys: two days in a naughty, coughing bus),
bought the cheaptest tickets, in the farthest corner of the decaying,
piss-smelling stadium, with the warm night wind sometimes blowin´ Bob´s
voice away and, by the middle of that second song, the young beautiful couple
look each other with dismal faces and both though: "Oh, God, it´s gonna be
like one of those, uhn, say, late 80´s shows… All the money spent, all the
hours without pissing in the bus… And now this?"
I was in the front row, so I didn´t feel the same kind of despair. I didn´t feel
ANY kind of despair at all, actually, but just keep on wondering that´s a pitty
Bob Dylan still calls "football" "soccer", cause, you know, there is this typical
football thing is his presentations: one can never say when a great player will
really play in a football game. Sometimes, the game starts and, oh God, you
realize that your favorite player is just… not playing well. Then, all of a sudden,
he takes the ball and, against all odds, after dribbling most of the adversaries ….
scores: Goal!
It was just what happened next, when, as if Bob kept on wonder what´s the
matter with him, why he seemed to don´t have much to say, and kept walking
to and fro beneath the moon, he suddenly sits down on this bank of sand, by
the side of the mythical, mysterious, wide River Plate… and just watch the river
flow…
You know, the song was written when the times seemed not to be a-changing,
when time passed slowly up there in the mountains, and was as if the wheel
were not spinning anymore to tell who that it´s namin´, so BD sets down, and
sats down to watch truck wheels go round and round… and he just loved to
watch them roll, and felt so contentedly…. A merry go-round in a country fair,
underneath this sky of blue … Well, we too could breath in relief, so contentedly
now, cause "Watching the River Flow" sounded as if the show had finally started,
after two false starts… The song rolls and flows good and easy, and goes with
the flow. Good version, with Bob finding his voice and the band realizing that was
about time to start to earn their money honestly, once again, like they have
been doing for months, for years in some cases…
Then came "Masters of War" and, just like in Rio de Janeiro, it was … well,
masterly sung, full of drama and dramatization, truly theatrical, with Bob leaving
clear to everyone - even to the ones in the farthest seats, as my couple of
friends over there - that he still believes in every single word of it, maybe
because, you know, HE was born and has always LIVED in the very country
that build (almost) all the guns, build all the death planes and all the big bombs,
and also where a boy named Dylan used to bowling in Columbine, just another
pawn in their game…
Anyway, the singer is not faking, nor proselytizing, nor preaching: he´s just…
singing, cause this is not a speech, nor a pronunciation, it´s just a song -
although it rings so truthful that, all of a sudden, it is as if all the hippie and
now "passé" peaceful "ideals" of the Sixties were still up to date, still factual
(and not faction), cause, you know, sometimes, to define good and bad
quite clear, no doubt, somehow, can become an easy task; sometimes it's
NOT a lie to say that life IS black or white, just cause, in some matters,
there´s NO neutral ground, is there? Anyway, we still hope that this people
really die, and their death come soon - and maybe they will, next November…
At least, that´s my hope, if unfortunately not my vote…
"Masters" seems to made clear that there was a crash on the level, mama,
and water would overflow, and we all would bust our feet and rock this joint
and it was going to be the meanest flood that anybody´s seen! "The levee´s
gonna brake" was an explosion of sound and joy that liberate all the power
rockabilly can have. It´s way far better than the recorded version: speedier,
louder, funnier. This lovely girl next to me said that, to her, it was the best
song of the last three shows, so far. But even with it´s merry sounds, the
song reminds me of Katrina blowing lovely New Orleans away. I guess the
song was a premonitory vision of the levee number 3 being overflow, and
this people on the road, carryin´ everything they own, with barely enough
skin to cover their bones, well, they still don´t have nowhere to go…
Images of New Orleans flooded my mind as I remember the descriptions of
the city made by Dylan in one of the best parts of his "Chronicles"; so I kept
an eye in Tony Garnier´s bright face, and he was rolling his eyes while playing
that extraordinary version of this particular song. Was he thinking about his
hometown?
Then, after the waters flowed in the mythological river (Plate) nearby and
flooded the levee, something seemed to be missed in their spirit... The sweet,
tender, melodic, romantic "Spirit on the water" came next, but, somehow, it
sounded incomplete, unprovided; not "wet", nor slippery, enough, if you know
what I mean… It just didn't ring the bell. It´s such a sweet song, it sounded
so wonderfully both in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. This time, thou, it was as
if the singer step on the feet of the lady he just had invite to waltz with him.
Well, It but didn´t hurt that much, in the end…
Specially cause things changed again very fast, and, this time, for good. And
again, just like in "Masters of war" -- but for all different reasons --, you just
can´t fail to believe that the singer means what he´s telling you: yes, people
are crazy, and times are strange, and he used to care…but, you know, things
have changed. Anyhow, who would ever guess that things would change so
much that Dylan would care about an Oscar so much, to the point of inviting
that bald mute golden shinning guy for being a special guest on the stage
every night of this current tour? But even with the eyeless statue facing us
from over there, the song kind of proves that BD still is the old lonesome
hobo, without family or friends; the man in constant sorrow, seeing troubles
everywhere. But don´t worry, pal: he seems to enjoy that position…
Otherwise, how could he would be able to sing it like THAT?
Well, I just don´t know what to say about "Working Men´s Blues", the song
that came next. Oh, man: Amen! It´s already a classic, isn´t it? It's a gem,
it´s a pearl, it´s a blessing to have something like this coming out the same
source, after all these years, after all these songs… And it received a magistral
performance again, just like in SP and Rio. The craftsmanship, the "carpentry"
of the voice, turned the song into a kind of Woodstock handmade wooden
house, built without a single nail: everyone of them logs just fitted and onto
the right place. "Inspire people: what more can you do for them?" said Bob
once. God, this melody, these lines, they keep me wondering: to which part
of your mind you gotta go in order to find a golden stream of images and
sounds like that? The song is, definitely, one of the high points of this whole
tour. I have said!
Then, "Just like a woman" came in and manages to advance even further in
this uncharted territory of the creative mind. If the performance of "Working
Men´s Bules" was like finding golden stream in California in 1849; the way Dylan
delivered "Just like woman" was like find a golden mine in Klondike! And to hear
this particular song in such a misogyny country, in the macho latin land of
Argentina, oh, man, made it sounds even more sarcastic and meanest, and
lowest… and, so, it reveals more cleary this pain in here... I´d never guess a
corkscrew in the heart could make me feel so good.
So, the rumors keep on whispering on our ears that Dylan has passed most of
his South Americans days and nights locked in his hotel room? Ok, maybe he´s
just playing solitaire... Or maybe he´s there writing one more of this kind of
song, instead going to a party…
Dylan´s honest with himself, and he surely is honest with us -- so, come on,
let's be honest with him, right? The pity was that "Honest with me" wasn´t
honest with it´s previous grandeur, reveled in former nights and so Buenos
Aires lost the opportunity to hear the band´s jamming, like they use to do in
this song. But, as in a kind of compensation, the version of "When the deal
goes down" that followed, was a superb one. Have you ever heard dance
music? Well, this is "old saloon´s dance music"…
In this great, wonderful city that gave Tango to the world, the thin
moustached Bob Dylan sounds as broken hearted, as passionate, as old
fashioned as a tango singer in the mystical El Caminito joint, in the Buenos
Aires waterfront, where the sailors all come in and the neon burned bright,
reflecting in the dark river waters, like pieces of a broken mirror. "When the
deal goes down" came live way ahead of the recorded version and seems to
prove, once more, that Dylan is a kind of prestidigitador, a magician, an
illusionist - only that, instead of rabbits from the hat, he takes (sometimes
hides) words from the throat... How can someone sing like that? He´s a
cubist Sinatra, disconstructing the phonetic and reinventing the syntax,
right in front of your very eyes, man.
I swear haven´t smoke a thing, but I could not help but thinking that, if he
was gambler in a saloon, playing poker with you, he might as well be bluffing
all the time, but you would never notice it, till your last coin was gone. He´s
a coin man, a con man, a confident men! So, if the wheels go round and
round, and the river flows and the levee´s gonna brake, maybe it´s all
because this is not River Plate running in the back of the stage, in the back
of the band: instead, it´s one lost Mississippi of the mind slowly flowing, and
we are about to leave old New Orleans, boarding one of those old
wheel-boats, and Mark Twain is already there, seated in one corner, a brandy
in his hand, a handy dandy, and Herman Melville, smelling whale oil, leans on
the balcony - and they are both watching this 67 years old Huck Finn in his
black cowboy hat not just playing the cards, also playing with words, and
playing with our world like it´s his little toy...
Some songs can bleed, some songs can sweat - everybody knows it.
"Highway 61", well, this song just sparks. But somehow it didn't quite rolled
right in Buenos Aires. People just love it, anyway, because, you know, it´s a
piece really full of energy. But there´s no away you can compare all the
scenes it showed in São Paulo and Rio to this affair. But, then, there comes
"Nettie Moore". For me, it was one of the best performances of this whole
tour - maybe the best. Specially cause it makes clear why Bob is still on the
road: the song, that, I believe, sounds real good to everyone who likes
Modern Times, is just about three hundred million times better alive. The
way Dylan sang it, the way he played his keyboard, the way he tastes every
word before share them with the audience, oh, man, how can it be truth?
I´m NOT exaggerating, I swear! It was like the Piped Piper of Hamelin
blowing his flute. Ok, you can call me a rat if you feel like, but I cleary
understand why this guy is… a performing artist. This song will never sound
like it again, and I guess that´s why he´s gonna travel the world, that´s
what he´s gonna do, and show it, again and again. Equal, but not the same.
You just can´t get much more than that from an artist, man.
Well, I had enough. So, (finally) in few words: "Summerdays" again put
people out of their seats, like as if it sounds the battle charges. It was the
same in São Paulo, in Rio and now in Buenos Aires. It couldnt´be just a
coincidence…"Like a rolling stone" was sloppy too, can you believe? Bob didn't
seem to relate to the song - neither words nor music - in this particular night.
It was kind of bureaucratic, too much paperwork... Maybe it was because he
was still under Nettie Moore´s spell. Or maybe I was…
Then, they left, and they came back with a nice, funny version of "Memphis
blues again". I just love it, and I felt like Johnny Depp playing the part of
Hunter Thompson in Terry Gillian`s "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". And it's
not in every night of your life you can get a feeling like that. Then this kind of
schizophrenic version of "All along the watchtower", a paranoid song.
Schizophrenic cause the music sounded like an avalanche, but the singing
sounded like a murmur… So, you know, it was as if a cat in the distance did
growl, and the wind began to howl…
It was great, but as Dylan and the band stood still, like outlaws waiting for the
that gunpowder flash that burst to illuminate the photographies of the old
West. Bob turned to Tony and said something in his ear. He nodded, and they
decidec, only for the second time in this tour, to play the eighteenth song.
And it was "Blowin in the wind", as good as the nights before, still fresh after
all these years…
And then after accomplishing The Prestige, the great illusionist just nodded to
the screaming audience and disappeared behind black curtains. In few days
from now, he would play a casino. I´ll be there, but I´ll leave all my coins
home - except the one I´m saving to throw to this minstrel boy, to let it
down easy to save MY soul….
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