Jan L. Willis

We went to see Bob Dylan play in Zurich tonight with extremely low expectations. He is eighty five for gods sake and playing these huge stadiums every two or three nights. I thought we would be going to pay respect and it could be night full of poignancy. Well, I was way off, Bob has as always adapted to being completely himself and played a profound set to his muse. He completely ignores the audience saving a hilarious double thumbs up at the end, the single sign he even noticed 15,000 people watching him. He wore his northface black parka WITH THE HOOD UP the entire time, never spoke a single word to the crowd, and seemed to find applause either annoying or irrelevant. So not really giving anything at the social level. But then goving absolutely eve try thing and more to the muse at the musical level. Extremely hot band woven into his every move. Extremely creative reinvention of songs both old and new. A slow, poignant tangled up in Blue, some chords changed too. His elderly voice cannot do what it could twenty or fifty or sixty years ago; but it can do other things … the wobbles of age become a feature, chromatic adornment on the way to where he is going. There is a feeling of mastery, total safety as the rules of time and pitch get stretched and safely returned. I think potentially he changed the key of a piece or two and the band quickly scrambled to catch up. He finished with his most Blakean song, “every grain of sand”. It was a total prvilege to be within 50m of him, i could not believe it was real.