Live: Bob Dylan @ The Camden Roundhouse, 26 April 2009
Maths was never my strongest point, but I’ve been doing some arithmetic lately. Bob Dylan began his recording career 47 years ago, in 1962, and since then he has released 33 studio albums. According to my calculations, this gives him 363 songs to choose from when playing live. And that is not counting the huge cannon of B-sides and other rarities that have spewed forth from one of rock’s greatest minds in the intervening years.
With this in mind, it was unreasonable for anyone except the most steadfast Dylanophile to expect to be familiar with every song performed at the Roundhouse on Sunday night. It’s fair to say some of the numbers he offered, such as ‘Po Boy’, ‘Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum’ and ‘Million Miles’, while decent songs, would not get the nod on many fans’ ultimate Dylan playlist.
As an artist who has performed thousands of shows over the years, it would also be easy to believe Dylan was simply going through the motions. This wasn’t the case though; he seemed to be enjoying himself, with the occasional harmonica flourish or impromptu organ wig-out matching the flair of his choice of headwear: a brilliant white boater. That familiar, thin-lipped semi-smile even snaked across his ripened features sporadically throughout the evening.
Unfortunately, that the Roundhouse’s intimate nature afforded me the opportunity to get close enough to one of music’s true legends to observe such minutiae was one of the highlights initially. Now firmly in his twilight years, David Bowie’s description of Dylan having “a voice like sand and glue” has never been more accurate. In fact, it’s more like cement laced with rocks. While this adds a certain gravitas to his latter-day positioning as an ultra-grizzled classic rock star, it also makes for a frustrating live experience.
This is nothing new for Dylan veterans; his style of delivery has veered closer to a throaty spoken word for a number of years now, yet it does make it difficult for the more casual Dylan fan to decipher lyrics, sometimes even songs. Indeed, it was not until he was almost halfway through ‘Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat’, one of my favourite tracks from Blonde on Blonde, that I realised what it was.
It was also apparent on a laboured and disappointing version of ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ and ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’, which had been twisted and turned in every possible direction, leaving it almost unrecognisable.
With ten of his 18-song set coming from his last three albums, it was something of a surprise that he didn’t venture a single track from his newest release, Together Through Life. His recent creative upturn has coincided with Dylan returning to the music of his own youth, namely blues and pre-pop, and this blueprint was followed admirably by his band, all dressed from head to toe in black.
The man himself made no concession to pleasantries, positioning himself behind a keyboard for practically the entire evening and providing not even the merest hint of between song chitchat for his nonetheless captivated audience to hang on.
With 90 minutes down, a selection of songs either too new to register genuine delight or too mangled by Dylan’s voice and arrangements had passed. Then it happened. The jaunty organ intro took flight and immediately the mood inside The Roundhouse transformed. Solemn faces melted into smiles and regimented foot tapping became, in some cases, arms swayed aloft. The magic of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ engulfed us all and didn’t release us from its gorgeous, familiar embrace for almost five minutes.
It was one of the most inclusive concert experiences of my life. Genuine delight, almost tangible, swarmed this small pocket of Camden. That He followed it up in the encore with All Along The Watchtower only added to the glee, Dylan was God once again.
All of a sudden it all seemed worthwhile and the realisation that just one song could do this to an audience summed up the Bob Dylan live experience. We make this pilgrimage with the hope we will witness something spectacular, something unexpected, something classic. Experienced Dylan watchers know we are often disappointed and he certainly alienated the casual fan a number of years ago. It is also a great shame not to be able to decipher some of the greatest lyrics ever written but the aura is still there. Almost 400 songs and half a century later, witnessing Bob Dylan play live, particularly at such close quarters, remains one of music’s quintessential experiences.
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