Dylan live at Littlejohn

Yesterday we were treated to a masterly performance by the legendary Bob Dylan. And his band, as indicated on the official show bill at right. At left is an unofficial show bill that someone at Clemson's graphics communication department produced but that was rejected by the promoters. Personally I think it's better than the official one. Anyway, Dylan and his band played at Littlejohn Coliseum, the location of Clemson's basketball games and convocation ceremonies. It's a fairly small place and last night it was configured in 3/4 usage making it seem smaller still. But small can be good for concerts because just about any seat in the house seems pretty close to the performers and the acoustics I think tend to be better as well. In comparison to other concerts I've seen at large venues (BC Place comes to mind), if you're stuck way back there on the opposite side of a large "dome" then the performers seem tiny on stage and there's an appreciable sound delay (e.g., you see the drummer strike the snare but you don't hear it for a noticeable fraction of a second later).

There were three bands in all: Amos Lee, Elvis Costello, and Bob Dylan. I never heard of Amos Lee before, but they were good. Sort of like Hootie and the Blowfish kind of sound. Well executed, good performance, no complaints. Costello performed solo. I normally don't like the solo acoustic guitar act, but he has got a very distinctive voice, and I think he managed to pull off a good set. Alison was great. As was another song The River in Reverse: a protest song of sorts! (It's hard to believe that just as in the 60s protest songs are again meaningful; in fact some of those songs from the 60s once again make sense today.) Below is the only shot I got of the night, super blurry, but maybe enough to get an impression of our seats: I didn't use a lot of zoom to get this shot as we were pretty close to the stage.

Then Dylan and his band came on stage. How many in the band? I don't remember now, but what I do recall is a very full and well balanced sound. Dylan played guitar for the first three numbers, then went on electric keyboard for the remaining songs. A standup bass showed up on a couple of numbers. Entertaining? You bet. And what I mean by a well balanced sound is that no one instrument was overpowering the rest, yet when Dylan played the harp it was temporarily properly amplified. I don't mean to sound like some kind of know-it-all musician, but I suppose this latter observation comes from our own band's sound problems (feedback, insufficient volume on the monitors, etc.). So when you see a show like this, where all musicians know what they're doing, the sound is engineered flawlessly, you get an even better appreciation of what it takes to produce such good sounding music. And the tunes themselves were excellent. They played a few numbers from their latest CD (Modern Times), which I think is actually quite good. They ended with a new one, Thunder on the Mountain, and an old one, All Along the Watchtower, a classic popularized by Hendrix. We were up and dancing by that point.

My only negative comment is about the audience and the overly zealous event staff. That had to be the lamest audience I've ever seen at a really good performance. I've seen better audiences at crap shows. Hardly anyone stood up to dance, they all just sat there and were way too serious. The guy in front of us even turned around and told us to "keep it down!". As if we were drowning out the band or something. Give me a break. Meanwhile, the event staff was patrolling for cameras. I managed to get one shot of Costello but got caught by the "No cameras!" guy. So I put it away. I wanted to sneak another shot of Dylan but I didn't dare after I saw one guy get his cell phone confiscated. Yeah, they actually took it away! Meanwhile, irony of ironies, they sold beer (yes, on a Sunday, which is usually illegal around here unless you're in a private club), the booth manned by local church personnel (does that make sense?). When we got up to get a beer and stood around looking down on stage we got chased away by event staff ("No standing!"). Why? We weren't blocking the stairs or anything. Eventually we did get up and were dancing by the time Dylan was playing his two-song encore. I guess by that time the event staff either didn't care or were called off to patrol the exits, but at least they let us enjoy the show finally.

In summary, the music was superb, the venue was excellent, if not for the lame crowd and overbearing event staff bent on enforcing too many rules. Corey pointed out one final irony. Because there is now "No smoking!" among the other things not allowed (this one I actually don't mind because we didn't come home reeking of tobacco), a smoke machine had to be used to puff out the fake stuff behind the stage. Why, you ask? I think it had to do with lighting. Back when the stadium would be filled with smokers, you would have what computer graphics types call "participating medium". In other words, the lights would shine on the performers through the smoke, lighting up these large cones of lit particles. Now, with no smoking allowed, performers were still lit by the lights, but no smoky cones anymore. So they had to put those in with fake smoke. I thought maybe it was the roadies lighting up back stage, but we'd smell it if they were. So there you have it...an evening steeped in irony, but capped off by really good music.