Review: Bob Dylan: 2017 Thoughts

Subject: RE: Review: Bob Dylan: 2017 Thoughts
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 11 May 17 - 11:10 AM

Bought our tickets for Nottingham Arena as soon as they went on sale; he was streets better than last time I saw him there although that might be down to where we were seated last Friday. Having said that Motorpoint Arena is not the best place to see him in concert (Sheffield Ice Arena a few years ago was much better) and you might as well go to see him in Nottingham market square with the amount of people walking around for drinks, toilet etc or on their phones and the couple of bleeders in front of us who conducted an audible conversation during his performance and were astonished when told to shut up!
That aside I did enjoy his performance very much although I agree – too many American classics at the expense of his own stuff. "Desolation Row", "Ballad of a Thin Man", "Duquesne Whistle" and "Early Roman Kings" were worth the ticket money alone and "Tangled up in Blue" plus "To Ramona" were pleasant surprises.
The band were excellent throughout and I see numerous people complaining that he doesn't speak to the audience. Even back in 1965 when I first saw him live he wasn't exactly garrulous and I have never expected him to be so since.

Subject: Review: Bob Dylan: 2017 Thoughts
From: Acorn4
Date: 11 May 17 - 10:34 AM

Got an unexpected surprise last week when I was offered a ticket to see Bob Dylan at Nottingham:-

A few thoughts:-

A few too many of the "crooning" type songs - I can understand that he wants to pay homage to the great American songwriters but he's no Sinatra as a singer. If you'd have said that you'd ever hear him singing "Autumn Leaves" a few years ago you would have burst out laughing.

His voice was in surprisingly good form rather dispelling the myth that it was "shot".

Having said that the band was excellent and there were very good re-workings of "Tangled Up in Blue" and "Desolation Row".

He didn't pick up a guitar all evening but played piano or just sang with a mike.

He didn't play harmonica all night (perhaps someone had a word?)

There were an encouraging number of young people in the audience - I would estimate about 40%, including the one next to us who spent the whole gig hunched over his smartphone. We prayed he's drop it down the toilet when he went at half time.

His patter was non - existent - he didn't say a word to the audience throughout the whole 2 hour set.