from
Inside A Prune
I am writing
this on the last day of 2005 and it is hard to imagine that the coming
year can be so Dylan-filled and full of thrilling releases as 2005 was
– but you never know. It would take a great deal to top the No
Direction Home DVD, the Dont Look Back outtakes, the No
Direction Home soundtrack (including Blonde On Blonde
outtakes!), the Scrapbook, and the partial releases of the
Gaslight Tapes and Carnegie Hall etc.
Difficult, but not necessarily impossible; for example, a new album
anywhere approaching the fun, quality and depth of “Love And
Theft” and a rethinking of the live shows would bring this
listener to something approximating the same excitement. (Though Pia’s
testimony of my first full viewing of No Direction Home would
perhaps make that statement redundant. Well, come on, you all cried
too, surely?)
You will gather from the above comment about ‘rethinking the live
shows’ that I wasn’t completely bowled over by the shows
I saw and heard in 2005 but I should hastily add that the later 2005
were better than I had been fearing as I discussed in the light of 2004’s
performances at John Green Day 5 (See letters page for responses to
that).
When I went to Nottingham, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.
Mind you I went with subterranean expectation levels and there was not
a song performance I’d call outstanding, nor was anything added
to any of the songs and nor were they shown in a new light. This used
to be my criterion for ‘good shows’. I don’t mean
any single song performance had to be better than at any time before,
but rather that at least one had to make me appreciate or think about
a song in a new way. This has not happened for me for some years.
However, putting that perhaps overly demanding approach to one side
there were things to give thanks for, the lack of upsinging prime amongst
them. Also, it is always exciting to see him for the first time in a
calendar year, but somewhat disastrously I took binoculars (I did not
have a close seat) yet left them in the car. Thanks to the kindness
and thoughtfulness of Mr Bristow I did end up much nearer the stage
than I started out and had a reasonable view. It occurred to me though
that it must be hell to be behind Dylan as he didn’t move from
behind the keyboards so from there you’d see nothing but the back
of his (rather splendid) new hat.
The stage set-up seems very strange now; the keyboards are still on
the left but much more central which scatters the band around the stage
with guitarist at the extreme corners. Both the lighting display and
the sound system have been improved since I last saw him live. The audience
however were the least enthused I’ve ever seen. Very few were
standing at any time and outbursts of applause were brief compared to
the norm.
My next concert, Glasgow, saw an improvement; a stronger voice and slightly
more adventurous approach. He even came out from behind the keyboards
briefly. I was very close to the stage so that obviously helped too.
Due to personal circumstances I could only manage a paltry two shows
this year but felt no regret at that, for I am just not getting the
enjoyment I used to from the Never Ending Tour. It is a personal matter
of course, though many seem to be in the same boat as myself, and I
was naturally delighted to hear from those who were thrilled by the
shows they attended, particularly Birmingham and Brixton. Plus, I would
definitely have loved to have been in the audience when the opening
chords of ‘London Calling’ boomed out for the first time
(a brilliant idea for a one-off that became a two-off). What would this
dissatisfied attendee prefer to witness though? Well, remembering that
it is Dylan’s prerogative and choice to play how he likes and
I am only voicing a personal preference, how about shorter sets so his
voice is less strained plus less cluttered and loud backing so he doesn’t
have to struggle to be heard above this backing-music-without-let-up?
A semi-acoustic style hour of songs from recent albums that were written
to suit the hard-living sexagenarian’s restricted vocal range
interspersed with the likes of old blues like ‘Delia’ and
ancient ballads would be my dream for 2006.
Another thing to gladden my heart would be if you could all remember
to re-subscribe to Judas! Without you, after all, there is
no magazine; in fact you could even go further and persuade a few friends
to subscribe, the more subscribers we can attract the more we can improve
the magazine with commissioned articles or photo spreads like we managed
in our early days.
On a personal
note, just before Xmas I gave a talk at a Cambridge school to a group
of late teenagers from around the world. It was instructive to hear
what they knew of Dylan, or rather did not. The knowledge ranged from
‘never heard of him’ to the giddy heights of ‘he was
somebody (famous) in the Sixties’. Somewhat different from the
Dylan audiences I am used to talking to. Naturally I attacked the situation
with an almost evangelical, missionary fervour.
Meanwhile
enjoy this issue, we have another special article from Homer,
the slut’s back pages (with a 40 year anniversary slant)
as the last one proved so popular and, unusually, we reprint an article
available on the web as a poll of readers we sent it to said it deserved
a proper printed setting. All the other goodies I’ll leave you
to discover yourselves.
Andrew Muir
