Review by Christof Graf
"Paris Screens" – Bob Dylan live in Paris 2025 – Review 1st Night,
30.10.25 by Christof Graf - From the Arc de Triomphe to the Palais des
Congrès de Paris, the congress and event hall in the 17th arrondissement
of Paris, the almost two kilometers can be covered on foot in about 20
minutes or you can take the metro as on the second evening, then you can do
it in just under five minutes. I've never been late for a Bob Dylan
concert, but I've been late for this one. In Paris, it's easy to forget the
time or get bogged down in distances. Anyway, many roads lead to Paris in
this case and at some point you are where you want to be despite all the
"rough and rowdy ways". As elegant and "Parisian" as the name "Palais des
Congrès de Paris" sounds, the Palais is not. After three Brussels evenings
in a Belgian classical and indeed elegant "Bozar" outside and inside, the
so-called "grand amphitheatre" (Grande amphitheatre) with 3,723 seats
seems rather sober, like a congress hall. Both evenings are almost sold
out. If you arrive by metro, the staircases lead directly to the foyer. If
you approach the hall on foot, the location looks like one of those typical
congress halls from the 1970s. Unspectacular but functional. Sober. No
poster draws attention to the fact that a legend is performing works of art
here for two days. The announced checks on smartphones are quite moderate.
The hall looks as if it can offer more than these 3723 seats. When it is
darkened at 8:00 p.m. sharp, five musicians appear on the stage, which is
not much brighter afterwards. One of them is Bob Dylan, the others belong
to his current "Rough And Rowdy Ways" tour band. What follows can be
described with the sentence "Same procedure as every year" from "Diner For
One": "Same procedure as every concert this year". There is no change in the
setlist compared to this year's last autumn concerts. Dylan "hides" behind
his piano. As an introduction, he plays the first two minutes of the first
two songs "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" and "It Ain't Me, Babe" with the
electric guitar lying on a stool. Only a few really see this. Those who
have seen RARW shows before know this. There has hardly been much to see of
the champions since this summer. There is hardly any chance of even being
able to take a look at the maestro. For those who already know this from
him, this is not a surprise but still a disappointment. For those who are
experiencing this for the first time, it is pure disappointment.If you buy
expensive tickets in the front rows, you won't see anything of Dylan. The
first two songs seem rumbling. They are still somewhat uncontrolled.To
experience "Dylan live in concert 2025" dylanesque, you have to look for a
new approach of your own. Some do without it and leave the hall after the
first third. Others leave the hall for a few songs to have a drink. Drinks
are not allowed in the hall. When they come back, they haven't
missed anything in terms of show. For them, it must seem as if they are
continuing to watch the concert where they had pressed the "pause
button". Musically, however, they have missed true song pearls, such as
"Crossing the Rubicon", which Dylan decorates with piano passages, or such
as "My Own Version Of You", which sounds like a "rap" this evening.
If you sit further up in the stands, the comings and goings are easy to
observe. Those who want to witness Dylan's creation of his musical painting
as contemporary witnesses are disturbed by having to get up. You can even
guess at a distance how they make faces when they are torn from their
devotion to let someone passby to pee or drink beer. – 100 minutes of
Dylan is sacred. There must be no disturbance.
The 17 songs in Paris I offer some song pearls despite the less than
optimal acoustics. However, one shines a little more than the other. After
all, they are all pearls, even if Bob Dylan could not make everyone shine
on this first Parisian evening. Maybe he was tired, maybe he wasn't
focused. He mumbled some song lines already on the third song, "I Contain
Multitudes". A few more mumbled right afterwards in "False Prohet". This
does not detract from the interaction with the band, which is again very
well attuned to each other, on this evening. The band "irons" over
the "mumbling" over it. With "Black Rider" the echo sounds a bit too harsh.
The first true song pearl in Paris 2025 is "When I paint My
masterpiece". Rarely have I experienced this song at my 19th RARW concerts
so far, performed so intimately. Dylan doesn't stage this song, he
celebrates it. With his words, he throws images onto an imaginary canvas in
the minds of his listeners.
The listeners don't see who sings them anyway. Not much can be seen in the
static dark yellow without any shades. Actually, only stoic-looking shadows
can be seen, which move discreetly around the man at the piano as if in
slow motion. More than Dylan's illuminated head, which looks like the
record cover of the "Greatest Hits Volume 3", is not to be seen from the
maestro.
Due to the reduction of the lighting design, the stage appears smaller in
this large, sober hall than it actually is. There is no more light. Even on
the three days before in the Bozar it was brighter and atmospherically
denser. Darkness reigned in Paris. Just as there are no solution patterns
for the interpretation of his texts, there is also no light. In all the
darkness, one's own thoughts resonate all the more "brightly" when
listening. I have the impression that Dylan is entering into a dialogue
with the audience during "When I Paint My Masterpiece". He picks up the
harmonica, which the Parisians appreciate with spontaneous applause. Later
he does it again on "Desolation Row" and on "Very Grain Of Sand" (i.e.
always on the older songs). Dylan does not talk to the audience, neither at
the beginning, during nor at the end. When he reaches for the harmonica, it
almost seems like a kind of "substitute communication" with the
audience, which immediately acknowledges this with spontaneous applause.
But back to the "masterpiece". If you listen closely, I understand almost
every sentence. Apart from the occasional mumble, Dylan's voice is
strong, penetrating and yet always a bit nasal. During the "Masterpiece",
the voice is crystal clear and there is a reverent silence in the congress
hall. Words like "Someday, everything is going to be smooth like a
rhapsody/When I paint my masterpiece" resonate. "Someday, everything is
going to be different/ When I paint my masterpiece" seem as if he were
slapping his words on a canvas with a brush. The viewer is then allowed to
see what he wants in the resulting picture at the same time. The more Dylan
concerts I attend, the more I think about the songs I hear. I let it
resonate. The songs get a new depth, a goodness, even a new meaning from
time to time than I had ascribed to them at some point before, or they keep
their old meaning, as a kind of confirmation and approval for what was once
attributed to the song. "Masterpiece" has always addressed uncertainty and
the pursuit of an ideal state that could leave everything negative behind,
even if it is anever-ending search. Dylan once described this "ideal
state" as a place "beyond one's own experience, so outstanding that you
don't want to leave it." – Old meaning, new depth from my point of view.
- On this evening, this place is in Paris for at least one song. Nowhere
else have I perceived Dylan's "desire for perfection", his longing to
create a masterpiece that concludes his own uncertainty and previous work,
more intensively than in Paris I. "Masterpiece" becomes an invitation
to Dylan's musical vernissage full of empty canvases. He groonts a little,
sings or speaks his lyrics to blues, folk, country, Latin and jazz most of
the time. He hides his own face from view. Somehow it seems to me that he
wants to present his last paintings of the first Parisian evening with the
slow last songs "I've Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You" and "Mother Of
Muses". With the rock'n'roll-like "Goodbye Jimmy Reed" it gets loud and
fast. The "clattering" sound fits well with the sobriety of the hall. Signs
of its diversity. – Since the beginning of his career, he has tried to
step out of the shadows. At the end of his career, he retired there. A few
moments after the last song "Every Grain Of Sand" he gets up from the piano
stool, walks slowly to the middle of the stage, waves his band to him and
silently looks into the cheering audience. A last chance to finally see the
legend for 20 seconds in the light of the stage, which was now lit up for a
short time. In addition to playing the harmonica and presenting his
imaginary canvases, this is the third form and this evening also the last
with which he "communicates" with the audience. – I'm looking forward to
another night in Paris.
German Version and some photo-impressions you can see on my blog:
https://leonardcohen.de/?p=33611
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