Saturday, last, Stefan, my youngest son, and I went to a rock concert. Bob Dylan. Dylan. The Bobster. Creator of the anthems of my generation. Icon. Voice of Old Man River himself, in person.
Dylan was playing Tags in Big Flats, an outdoor venue that would be considered small by rock concert standards, capacity being in the neighborhood of six thousand or so. Reserved seats, for which the concert goer pays primo prices, were white plastic lawn chairs set up in front of the stage and set off with a yellow rope. We bought cheaper lawn tickets, rented two white plastic lawn chairs for $5, and set them just outside the restricted area.
I am not much traveled as concert goer, but I have now seen a number of Dylan concerts and have the T-shirts as evidence. Both Stefan and I wore concert Ts, as required, for this cultural exposure.
A concert like this can prove to be a bonding experience between a grizzled boomer and his offspring.
"Tell me what it was like back in the day, Pop."
My take on the performance itself is essentially the same as Pete Seeger's response to Dylan's performance at the Newport Folk Festival all those years ago when Dylan plugged in and, thereby, offended nearly all the "folk music" purists. Seeger is reported to have said that he wanted an ax to cut the cables to Dylan's amplifiers. Years later he explained that it was too loud -- he could not actually hear the music.
Little has changed in that regard. Dylan is still kicking out the slats, blasting the faint of heart into the next county, rockin' with the best and baddest of the rockers. All the cliches apply. Too loud for nuanced analysis.
I listened hard during each number to catch a line, lyric or melody that would tell me what song I was listening to; but it was generally hard going. I leaned over to shout a title at Stefan when I figured out what we were hearing. That happened for maybe half the numbers, although I know every song on the playlist that we found on Google later. Consequently, I shall not evaluate the finer points of the concert. A very clear, detailed, and presumably accurate assessment of Dylan's new arrangements, shifts in lyrics, and the implications of these things for Dylan-watchers appeared in the New York Times shortly after Labor Day for those who want a real review. For most of us at Tags, nuance was beside the point.
The audience was clearly a veteran Dylan audience, closer in median age to Dylan, who has passed 70, than to my son, who is 26. Most of us sat down for the concert, comfortable in our plastic lawn chairs. No crowd surfing that I am aware of, although several beach balls surfaced early in the concert, but they sank fairly quickly.
Most of the dancing in the aisles seemed to be in the direction of the latrines, which were a cultural experience in themselves. For the men, at least, the latrine consisted mainly of long aluminum troughs that reminded me of junior high summer camp. The aisle dancing, beer drinking, and the latrines were linked in a direct and urgent way. I caught only one brief whiff of grass during a concert that lasted the better part of two hours, not the now legendary saturation fogging that were rumored to produce contact highs. And I spotted only one forty-ish dude with the intense glazed deadpan look indicating he was experimenting with serious brain chemistry.
To be fair, a few other observations of the crowd are in order before I quit. There were many vintage concert T-shirt, most of which were tented out by paunches and broad hips. As one might expect, there was a high per capita incidence of bad grey pony tails, curiously braided beards, and geezer-hip clothing choices. On the whole we were generally a tame bunch; most of us looked just like middle class white people flirting with retirement.
Due to the 10 p.m. "noise curfew" in Big Flats, the concert ended on time. We called Bob and his band back for a new treatment of "Blowing in the Wind," and then we all responsibly left to find our cars. Most of us are cautious of the dangers of night driving these days. I suspect we are also more mindful of bed time than we were a half century ago when Dylan first plugged in and jolted the music scene.
Still, it was a fun night rocking in the free world with my boy -- tripping, musically speaking, in our plastic lawn chairs. As another geezer band wrote in an earlier age, "I know it's only rock'n'roll, but I like it!"
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