Jen’s Den of Iniquity

Now first of all, what I describe as a “little road trip”, 186 miles london to manchester, brits would describe as a toturous and insane odyssey. They just don’t get that you can actually drive more than 3 hours at a streth in one day. Whereas for americans, anything under 6 hours is a short jaunt. Over 6 hours only counts as an official journey if it takes you across the state lines. OTherwise, it’s strictly local.

So we took the day off of work, and headed up in the early afternoon for the 7:30 show, and while it was a bit tiresome, we arrived in good spirits, thanks to liberal doses of sugar laden snacks.

The arena holds 21,000 people, and I would venture to guess last night’s attendance was not too far off that mark. It was a capacity crowd, with hardly an empty space to be seen, even in the cheap seats. Our own seats were side-view seats, nearly horizontal with the stage, but ended up being a great view, given the fact that Bob was positioned sideways, and so faced us almost all evening.

In short, it was great. Bob continues to do his “man in black” outfit, which makes him look not unlike a cowboy crossed with a hasidic rabbi. Not a fan of the look. His whole set had a distinct rockabilly theme to it, so even the classics were given a bit of a different treatment. This is only a personal pet-peeve of mine because it means I can’t sing along, but that’s *my* problem, not Bob’s. In fact, he did do a decent number of classics, and not necessarily the standard ones at that. Not being as familiar with his more recent work, I can advise this: if you don’t already know the lyrics, don’t expect to figure them out live, cause with Bob’s typical indistinct mumbling (what I like to call the “cat in heat yawl”) you’re definitely out of luck. My only other disappointment was that he did not once pick up a guitar, but rather spent the whole evening behind the keyboard. Boo to that. But anyway.

Otherwise, it was a pretty energetic show, and Bob can still rock out when he wants to. the set list was:

1. Maggie’s Farm
2. She Belongs To Me
3. Cry A While
4. Lay, Lady, Lay
5. Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)
6. Million Miles
7. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
8. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
9. Man In The Long Black Coat
10. Down Along The Cove
11. Girl Of The North Country (acoustic)
12. Highway 61 Revisited
13. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
14. Summer Days

(encore)
15. Like A Rolling Stone
16. All Along The Watchtower

“Highway 61″ and “Girl of the North Country” were standouts – passionate, soulful songs, and “All Along the Watchtower” was a wonderful suprise ending. But “Rolling Stone” brought the house down, as I’m sure it always does. Remember that time in college when you heard that song and finally *got* it? When the loneliness and uncertaintly he was singing about really resonated, and you came to the sudden understanding that there was nothing but your own two feet to stand on, and it was the scariest and saddest feeling you’d ever known, and you thought no one could ever have put that into words, but somehow bob did? Remember that? well I’ll tell you that hearing it live is like hearing it for the first time all over again.

Moving.

here’s a little ode to bob:

bob dylan, mp3

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