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On November 16th, 2012 I drove to Montreal to see the wonderful Bob Dylan at the Bell Centre, with the amazing Mark Knopfler opening the show. Not a bad pairing huh?
In fact, this concert featured such a great pairing that I could easily have written that intro thusly: “On November 16th, 2012 I drove to Montreal to see the amazing Mark Knopfler at the Bell Centre opening the show for the wonderful Bob Dylan. Not a bad pairing huh?”
But really, Dylan was the headliner and so why shouldn’t he get top billing in my memory as well, right?
Suffice it to say that I have previously driven to Montreal to see Dylan and I have also driven there to see Knopfler and was thrilled to do so each time. Seeing them together under one roof and for a single ticket price was a joyous opportunity, and one made extra-special when I managed to score tickets in the second row*, dead centre**.
Mark’s opening set was subtle, relaxed, thoughtful, and divine. Aside from his last song it was all new or newish solo material backed up by a brilliant and laid-back seven-piece band. In addition to the half-dozen guitars that Mark played throughout the set the band had brought with them their own abundance of musical instruments including bouzoukis, aeolian pipes, fiddles, accordions, Celtic whistles and more. The instrumentation on the stage ran the gamut of the world’s greatest kitchen party.
And while the set would rank low on even the most sensitive energy scale, closing with the Dire Straits (nay: planetary) standard So Far Away was enough to finally elicit the enthusiastic response from the audience that every moment of Knopfler’s opening set deserved.
Dylan (on the other hand) hit the stage as a veritable ball of energy – relative to both Mark Knopfler and his own usual self – opening himself to the audience with a splendid offering in I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, and he was. With nary a guitar in sight, Dylan instead amused himself (and others) with a setup that included an electric keyboard, a doubleneck pedal steel and a five-foot Yamaha grand piano.
For the second number Mark Knopfler joined the band on stage, his red Stratocaster adding the only splash of colour to Dylan’s scruffy, dark-suited band. Knopfler stayed out for a trio of tunes, ending his time with a wonderful Tangled Up In Blue.
Dylan once claimed that he was “just a song and dance man,” and that much was clear whenever he left his instruments behind and stood at the front-of-stage singing and gesticulating with his arms, his hands nervously toying with the microphone and his soft shoes in constant subdued motion. His singing was surprisingly clear and even approached the sublime; for a guy well-known for garbling his vocals in a live setting on this night it was easy to hang onto every word of such lyrical masterpieces as Desolation Row and Ballad Of A Thin Man.
Dylan even wrenched some downright beautiful solos out of his harmonica, an area where his skill level often seems pedestrian at best. Closing the set with a double-shot of ubiquitous rock standards, Like A Rolling Stone and All Along The Watchtower, Dylan stood toe-to-toe with his fellow soloists, belting out solid harp solos in between soaring guitar work by his band (which included the extremely excellent Charlie Sexton) before encoring with a brilliant reworking of his anthem Blowin’ In The Wind.
Frankly, it was just this sort of “reworking” that I hear people complain about as they walk out of Dylan shows shortly after they begin; fans that expect live records when they attend a concert instead of a living, developing artist who might have had another thing or two to say about his own creations in the half-century or so since he first wrote them.
I mean, sheesh!
Anyway, this was probably the best (or one of the best) Dylan concerts I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen quite several. I wonder how much of my pleasure was related to having such a great artist open the show? If so that would be ironic, considering it wasn’t the best Knopfler set I’ve ever seen, though that is probably mostly because it was a shortened opening spot that kept the guitar master from really spreading his musical wings (which is really just another way of me saying, “too bad he didn’t play Telegraph Road”).
Great show though. Like, super-great.
*After the show I reviewed this concert for an online magazine where I made the mistake (as it turned out) of mentioning where I was sitting for the concert. Actually, I made reference to it a couple of times, to make points like, “From the second row it was clear that Bob was having a good time, smiling and engaging his band mates with winks and laughter…” and man, did I get raked over the coals in the comments section for it. “…dude sounds pretty proud of his stellar seats…” “…looks like the promoter was handing out prime seats in return for a good review…” etcetera. Live and learn.
**Curiously, the only time I ever scored actual legit pre-booked front row tickets to a concert it was also for a Dylan show, though these tickets were much better as my front row seats had been on the very end of the row, whereas these ones were right in the middle.
Todd Man Out 