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On September 2nd, 1993 I was semi-excited to see a doublebill featuring two acts I was moderately interested in at the old Exhibition Stadium in Torontotown: Bob Dylan and Carlos Santana. I say I was moderately interested in Dylan because despite the fact that I owned none of his albums back then and was likewise intimately familiar with very little of his music I had seen him several times before and really enjoyed his live shows.
And when I say I was moderately interested in Santana I am being a little kind; I wasn’t really interested in Santana at all, but I had long been intrigued as to why this was. Santana was everything I liked about music back then; guitar-heavy bombastically rhythmic extended spiritually-induced jamming with a low lyrical focus, and yet my ears just would not give him the time of day. I had been told again and again (generally by the same person) that Santana’s live shows were the place to get signed up for the sound. It had worked when I saw The Allman Brothers for the first time and went from dismissing them to loving the band, so as I say I was moderately interested in seeing if a live Santana concert would convert me.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
Santana and Dylan were taking turns in the opening slot on the tour but all these years later I can’t for the life of me remember who went on first. I do recall that it was raining pretty hard for much (all?) of the concert but with the stage set up directly in front of the (mostly covered) left field cheap seats – to abbreviate the venue size – the dripping sky didn’t put too much of a damper on things.
Dylan did his usual ’90’s Dylan thing, unapologetically obscuring lyrics and melody lines as much as he could and jetting through one unrecognizable classic tune after another. But while songs like Maggie’s Farm and Tangled Up In Blue took a little work to decipher there was no mistaking a couple of obvious career highlights like All Along The Watchtower and the set-closing Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, a clear nod to the hazy weather.
As for Santana, his songs were distinct and obvious, and sounded much like they did when they came out of my FM radio speakers. In a word, I liked his live show no better than than his recorded work. I found the constant multi-percussion assault tiresome and repetitive, his guitar playing was overstated and uninspired (flying in the face of…well, his face), and the songwriting just didn’t (and still doesn’t) float my boat.
I’ve seen Santana once or twice more along the way – every time in a situation similar to this where he was on a bill that I was going to already – and my opinion of him never changes. Dylan, on the other hand, just keeps getting better and better and better.
And by now I own lots and lots of Dylan’s records and am intimately familiar with much of his oeuvre. There are still no Santana records in the the house.
Todd Man Out 