My Monday night out in Long Beach, June 21st, 2022. The Terrace Theater.

Its a 50 minute drive up Coast Highway from home to the venue. 8 pm kick off for Bob Dylan. We left at 5 to enjoy a dinner in Long Beach which has become an extremely vibey place for nights out. We arrived at the venue at ten to 8. A short line. Easy enough access.

First curiosity. When we entered they take your phone. And lock it in a secure lock box. This not only causes you to not have use of your phone. It also requires you to carry this weighty lockbox all night.
Uncool experience element #1.

The Terrace Theater has three sections accommodating some 3,000 audience. I booked seats in the center, in the second half of the venue. $60 a ticket including the ticketmaster upcharge. The event was almost sold out. Maybe 10% empty seats.

We entered at exactly 8.01. And the band had already started. Six players in shadows on a backlit stage. In a compact venue of this nature, noticing two giant semi-trucks outside that would have brought in two tons of stage equipment, you would expect quality live sound. But that is not what greeted us on entry.

Clearly there was an issue with the bass. Occupying some 80% of the sonic space at the level we were seated. The drummer was evident to the eyes. He had a bass drum and a snare. However the ears were unable to find either in the bass heavy mulch of sound through which an atonal guitar solo meandered gormlessly, almost always missing the center pitch of the note. Surely, as this was just the start, this must have been intentional and not a guitar gone out of tune after two hours of sweaty thrashing.

The instrumental sound check warm up completed and in the center of the stage an upright piano suggested that is where Bob would appear.
And so it came to pass, without announcement as one of the six shadows sat down at the piano and began to sing. Yes it was Bob. I assumed.

Two things about the live sound on his voice. Heavy short tail reverb. Overpush on the upper-mid EQ to make it more or less one solid block of frequency that appeared just above the overloud bass player and simply overwhelmingly too loud for the short shout phrases he uses now that his 81 year old vocal chords have that limited range.

My first thought was; why?

There was no joy in that sound, loud though it was. By the end of the first minute I could not tell you one word he sung. But then the words “Watching the River flow’ emerged from that sonic mess and I guessed it was the lyric to that song he was narrating in that gruff reverberated tuneless baritone.

No words were spoken. Just sequeing from one song to the next. Sounding largely like the same song, varying only slightly in tempo, with several constants. His voice, overloud in the mix, snatching at phrases in a for-fans-only approach to singing. His booming bass player, occupying most of the space where other parts would have been welcome. And the drummer whose bass drum and snare were not present throughout the show.

Yes, perhaps I was in a sonic blip in the room that the live sound guy had missed. But I don’t think so. It sounded just the same when I walked through for a toilet break.

So; uncool experience #2.
The live sound quality.

Had I been able to record the show on my now locked up iPhone, I fear what you would hear would be this. 80% bass boom interrupted only by painfully loud snatch phrases that were impossibly difficult to decipher. Certainly you would struggle, as I did, to recognize the song being played. At one point I heard “You go your way and I go mine.” I think that’s what I heard although my familiarity with that recording from the 70’s found no other element to confirm this was the song he was playing.

During the drive up I played the Rough And Rowdy Ways album from the beginning. I admit I had not really made it through a listen to this 2021 album previously. The most fun part of this listen-through was guessing the rhyming couplet. Bob is nothing if not formulaic.

I contain multitudes is a good example. Put it on. And then guess what he will rhyme the first line with each time. Bear in mind ‘Multitudes’ is a challenging choice for rhyme. Mostly from there it’s a slog through limited reverberated-guitar production values and unspectacular rhymes drawing, as ever, from Biblical references, until the one surprise. A sweet Dylan love song that is immediately apparent.

I made up my mind to get close to you.

In the canon of last albums by great artists like Leonard Cohen and David Bowie, who said goodbye with an epitaph collection, this one struck home for me. The mellifluously humming harmony singers underpinning an emotional message. Bob has given his heart to one great love. Us. His audience. He will keep on touring for this reason.

That was my take away – but more about this song later. Our car drive listening session ended with Murder Most Foul. All 16.55m of it. Bob at his flow of consciousness streaming best. Beautiful couplets of thought provoking reminders that his is the voice of the civil rights movement, albeit it flawed by his multiple wrong turns since the transcendent messaging of his 60’s and 70’s writing.

No single writer provoked more thoughtfulness in more curious minds learning critical thought than Bob Dylan. His place as the GOAT of love song writers is secure. (I saw a shooting star tonight. And I thought of you.)
None of which would be evident to anyone attending the show I saw.
No effective versions of the songs were performed. Even the sweet one off Rough And Rowdy ways, the album he is promoting with this tour, I made up my mind to get close to you, was, basically murdered by this performance. The song relies on those melodic harmony voices humming those simple few notes throughout. How hard would it have been to repeat that live. But no. Just a hack and slash though this beautiful song turning it into a chalkboard experience in atonal nail scratching.

By the twenty minute mark I was fidgeting with discomfort. Looking around I noticed several people were literally asleep. Yet at the same time I watched as each song ending was greeted by rapturous standing ovations by the front five rows. Perhaps their expensive seats included a different sound mix?

I needed a break and decided to get a beer. That turned into ‘Any beer you like as long as it’s a can of Modelo.’ And that turned out to be $20.
Hmmm.
Uncool experience #666

The one good thing about that break from the noise, cool experience #1, is that the toilets at the theater overlook a yard below. In there were four vehicles. Two huge semi’s and two super dooper Residential Trucks. Both with five air con units. Just wow.

Five air con units means five separate climate controlled rooms in each. Bob travels in style. I imagined he would have come out of his RV at 5 to 8, started at 8 on the dot. And closed at 9.30 on the dot to get back to his luxuriant accommodations just fifty yards from the stage in time for his favorite Netflix show. Life on the road on the never ending tour.

We did go back in for another fifteen minutes, because; he is a legend and to be in the same room as him is something like feeling close to greatness.
But.

Uncool experience #3. The lighting.

While the audience was brightly lit throughout, so any would be phone recorders could be spotted by the Dylan Gestapo lookouts, contributing to the uncomfortable atmosphere in the hall, the stage was backlit. Although I went to see Dylan, I didn’t see Dylan. Just his backlit outline. I couldn’t tell you if that was actually Dylan on stage or just a bad karaoke soundalike, heavy on the bass and reverb.

During my ruminations while this interminable mishmash of harsh Dylan growls went on, I thought of two people. Muhammad Ali. Like Dylan, the voice of an entire generation. A truly inspirational figurehead for critical thinkers, uplifting the consciousness of a whole generation. I remember all too well when he went back into the ring in his forties. Larry Holmes I think it was. Bashed his brains in. How I wished Ali would have used his superior intelligence to know. Do not get back in the ring. Your time there is done.

Bobs show had that same brain bashing element. Despite his assurance that “I made up my mind to get close to you” how I wish he would have done that less aggressively.

I remember being booked in pubs with bands playing Dylan covers. It occurred to me that this band applying for pub work playing Dylan covers would struggle to get booked at the Albion Public House. After all the great players populating his musical recordings why does he not hire at least one great player to share the stage with in this final furlough?

The second person I thought of in my efforts to distract from the unhappy noise, was Paul McCartney. Just a year younger than our Bob. And the man who 60’s Bob introduced to Cannabis with such a rewarding outcome.

Only weeks ago Paul sold out the LA Stadium. The reviews were outstanding. On stage for almost three hours. A band of great young players. Lots of tech videos referencing past glories. And singing only what he can still sing in a passable way. By all accounts, well worth the $400 ticket price. (Although it’s certainly not something I would pay $400 to see.)
Bob could possibly have chosen this same option. A grand farewell ‘Greatest Hits’ tour filling stadiums with an A-List Band.

I guess for many, especially those in the first five-rows who gave every song a standing ovation, the intimate feeling of a small venue and a loud group of thrashing youngsters surrounding the overloud old Johnny Rotten growler serves some useful function in the name of entertainment and respecting legacy.

We listen with our eyes, not our ears. Right?

I know all too well the role mystique plays in the Zimmerman biography. And will leave it there. It’s a mystery to me why he does this with whatever time he has left of this mortal coil. The unwashed phenomenon. The original vagabond. Surely he doesn’t need the money.

Perhaps he goes on just because he can. And because he likes the bus life. Five aircons on top. Bob remains the greatest of songwriters, who is still capable of writing great songs. But I hope the never ending tour does end for Bob soon. So he can enjoy his time in a more rewarding way. He deserves it.

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