Quote
Nikkei
"but we are like 'useful idiots', the band knowing we will be there anyhow, no matter how much we might complain. They have won our hearts long ago."
I would say that Dylan made his name long ago and that is the reason he gets away with performing his shows the way he does. There's an awful lot of explaining to do in order to enable someone to even appreciate it. The Stones however created a sound and style all of their own and it is expected by the audience and themselves that they live up to that.
Well, Dylan "gets away with the way he plays", but the cost of it is that even tough his followers love the way he does, knowing that that is his thing and that's what they - for example, me - want from him, but as a concert draw he is a second class act, and has been that for ages. He might tour more than any of his big name contemporaries, and him probably being the biggest name of them all in a theory, but we will never see his name in the lists of biggest grossing performers. Surely Bob does well, but the Big Money associated with touring these days is out of his reach. Bob probably has the happiest hardcore fans but the most miserable casual fans and tourists. With the latter he seemingly not is "able to get away with". But probably for the former - the hardcore fans - the uncompromised nature of his shows, and a kind of controversiality surrounding him, starting with his voice, is a part of the attraction.
Surely part of his attraction is who he is - his incredible history - but that is kind of thing with any big name of the past. It all is build on that foundation. In the case of Dylan - who is actually famous for surprising career moves that sometimes had been disappointing for fans - I think the way he keeps on moving on, making touring like a series of conceptual art exhibitions is a great example what one could do with a big reputation and deal with one's past. Some other folks do differently, but that is what Dylan does. During his 'Never Ending Tour' that seemed to end with 'ROUGH AND ROWDY WAYS tour' I think he has a couple of times re-created the idea what a concert can be. Or at least that has been my impression. A couple of times I've been after his shows like, 'What the hell that was?'. But that was just positive, having understood seeing something totally novel, unexperienced before. That's a big thing in my book.
Reminds me of the story of Mick and Keith watching a co-star Dylan's show in the desert festival some years ago. Both were amazed and Keith, according to his own words, said to Mick "look, this thing can be also done that way".
Yeah, it could be part of it is just getting away with it, the very thing Macca calls "daring", and it asks a huge reputation and arrogance for that. You know, that being sort of non-professional behavior in show business by not acting by the standard rules (for some people I've seen even him not talking to a crowd is a sign of him not caring about his audience, although for me that's, with lights out, an impressive way to emphasize the very substance, the performance of the songs) . So the moral could be - if someone is "look to Dylan" - that: 'Kids, don't try that at home. You don't have that big balls'.
- Doxa
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2023-07-01 16:34 by Doxa.