Bob Dylan 980513 in Vancouver, British Columbia
The Rage Address: 750 Pacific Avenue Capacity: small club Subject: Dylan Does the Rage - May 13, 1998 From: baja (baja@axionet.com) Date: 14 May 1998 08:12:18 GMT Review: Dylan does the Rage, May 13/98 The doors opened at 8 p.m. There is a small stage with a dance floor that could hold about 500 people and tables all around. There is a small balcony that appeared to offer a good view. Ron Sexsmith opened the show, solo acoustic. There was a great deal of anticipation in the air. Most people there who have not dedicated their lives to Bob pursuits did not quite know what to expect. "Ladies and gentlemen..." and the fun began. Bob comes out in his formal blue suit looking well rested and happy to be back onstage. He opened with Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away. A great opener. A song everybody knew. The joint was hopping (in more ways than one - you must remember that this is British Columbia). Next up Tonight I'll be staying here with you - a classic version like we have heard before but so perfect - this song has really grown on me. Song 2 is the ideal spot for it. The acoustics in this small bar/club were outstanding. I have never heard a Dylan show sound so good. As expected Cold Irons Bound came up next followed by Make You Feel My Love which was performed with real tenderness. Bob loves to play his new songs. By the way the usual mugging and hamming it up continues. He was smiling and doing the Dylan waddle all night long. He had great energy. Also Bob spoke more than I have heard in years. Not only did he say "thanks everybody" several times, he said it one point to the audience "you're much too kind". What next, Bob introducing his songs? No but later on in the set he did what I believe is a Gordon Lightfoot song "I'm Not Suppose to Care" (please help me with this one anyone out there who recognized the song) and said after the song "a friend of mine wrote that". In the fifth spot was Silvio, this also got the crowd really excited. A wonderful acoustic set followed - Stone Walls, Baby Blue, and as we come to expect Tangled Up In Blue. The crowd reaction for this one was probably the loudest. A lot of people were singing along. I'm really glad the guy standing behind me didn't know the lyrics to the other songs. Back to the electric guitars for Million Miles, I'm Not Suppose to Care, and Highway 61. As usual Bob and the boys really rocked this one. Next the encores. I was surprised how hard the audience had to work to get him back on stage. 4 separate encores - Till I Fell In Love with You, It Ain't Me Babe, Love Sick and, of course, Rainy Day Women. Ah, I wish he would give us a few more of these club show as there are so many songs that I would love to hear in this venue. But while I may feel sorry for myself you should not as tomorrow night i'm back at the Van, Joni, Bob show at GM Place,the home of the pathetic Canucks and Grizzlies. Peace. Baja.
Subject: van club tape! From: Shawn Sheers (shawn_sheers@bc.sympatico.ca) Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 12:53:15 -0500 I was at this amazing show last night and I was as far away from Bob as he was to Buddy Holly in his Grammy speech. Not too many suprises to a tape collector like me. A Gordon Lightfoot cover was the only song I wasn't prepared for. What did suprise me was how much ripping lead guitar Dylan did. His soloing is so bizarre and unorthodox, like the notes are secondary to the way he hits the strings, he obviously loves to play and they had him up loud in the mix. Also he was grinning ear to ear at times and actually laughed during the bridge of Tonight, I'll be..., it was classic. The crowd was so jacked, I actually saw one guy who made a little sign requesting "Rita May"! My whole reason for this post is to find out if anyone taped this show and if so HOW CAN I GET A COPY! I had planned to tape it but for various reasons couldn't. Please email me, I have lots to trade.
Subject: Re: Bob great, Van very good, Joni sucked From: YousefK (yousefk@aol.com) Date: 21 May 1998 22:08:04 GMT > Bob great, Van very good, Joni sucked hmmm. certainly not my impression in vancouver. (forgive the delayed response, but out of the country since last friday. hey - bob's band were about 5 places behind me at the alaska airlines counter. no, I didn't chat them up.) I thought all three performances were steller. obviously, joni ain't gonna do no straightforward rocknroll. but the three artists were in perfect counterpoint to each other, playing fairly orthogonal styles with a similar flow: van's highly textured soul; joni's cryptic (autobiographical?) narrative, spare arrangement, disjoint rhythms, and that unique joni guitar sound (is it the wierd tunings?); and bob's tight, tight, tight jam session. the sound system helped. I don't know what it was like in san jose, but at GM place, the clarity and separation were better than I remember ever hearing in a large venue, and, if I may say so, I've seen a few concerts in my short, bleak life (if anyone has a boot they'd like to pass on, I'd be suitably appreciative). Sat next to a guy on the plane who claimed to be responsible for installing house systems in arena type venues, including GM place, and he also reported being completely overwhelmed by the quality of sound at the b/j/v show. re bob at the rage - i've read a review here marvelling at the sound, but I thought it was pretty muddy. the rage is a very poorly designed place, left over from expo '86; most of the bad vibes left over from the fascist bc government of the time disappeared with recent renos, but sound tends to bounce around badly there. however ,more than made up for it by my being about 5 metres from bob. at both shows, I was impressed with how smoothly they flowed from acoustic to electric numbers, and especially at the rage, how they were able to switch from 'normal' sound to the TOOM lanois-layered and spread palette. I'm not sure how that works, but I'm reasonably sure that it involves more than just drenching everything in reverb. :-) (any rage boots out there?) It was good to see bob hamming it up and obviously having fun. He seems to have turned something in his life around. last time I was that close to bob, Montreaux '90, he seemed pretty flat and lifeless, even though it was a great show. he did have great headgear then, wearing what looked like a black bishop's hat. It was facinating being up close to such a potent icon. Both times, I was struck by the reversible cube effect of seeing either "Bob Dylan," or the human being up there, communicating his emotions and thoughts, while in a particular personal place, with a personal history of experiences and connections; living an extremely unique life, but still subject to the universal ups and downs, pains and joys of life. ok, that last sentence sounds banal now that I've reread it, but the experience was powerful at the time. The songs certainly share a similar iconography, having pretty much permeated global culture since I was old enough to realize culture existed, and so I was impressed with bob's messing with the old tunes, providing large rhythmical changes in meter and phrasing. when I first experienced this, I was a little disconcerted (no pun intended) that I couldnt hum along, but realized that was probably the intent - to prevent the audience from going on autopilot, just listening to the version in their head, and, instead, forcing them to _listen_, in the moment. long post, but one last comment - my companion at the bob shows and I were, apres concert, discussing similarities to l cohen, whom we've also seen together a few times. for her, the most salient point was that bob did not seduce, while for leonard, there probably wasn't a dry seat in the house. peace. yousef k
Subject: Dylan at The Rage, Vancouver May 13th 1998 From: (woodfish@my-dejanews.com) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 11:53:27 GMT The folowing is a letter I Emailed to friends and family after I saw the Dylan show at a small club in Vancouver. I realize that it is being posted a little late and I have already seen some postings similar to it, but I recently discovered the ability to post such messages on the Net and felt the urge to share this with the world. If anybody does ever read it I would love to hear back from you. Thanks, Jonas Crawley What a show! Mr. Zimmerman came out a picked up a crowded club full of adoring fans, put them in his pocket, and gave them the ride of a lifetime. A great mix of old and new combined into a high energy, incredibly entertaining evening. There was a certain tingle in the air as the lucky one thousand ticket holders lined up outside The Rage, a mid sized club in Vancouver. No one was really sure what this show was all about. The tickets being gripped tightly in every hand decried "A Special Evening With Bob Dylan". It was going to be a quick tune up show for the triple-bill tour (Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan) that started the next night. But would we get old stuff or just new stuff? Would it be a long show or real short? Standing outside the club you could easily hear the outdoor concert being put on by the Dave Matthews Band in the Plaza of Nations, and wondered what it was going to be like inside. It dawned on me that I was about to see an artist that I had literally grown out of my diapers with and matured into an adult, singing and playing his songs with my father and friends. This was a generational moment for me. I had never seen this man because every time he played at a concert near me it was in a stadium, which I felt it was never intimate enough to warrant the expense: here was a man whose music I had jumped up and down on couches to as a rambuncious young lad, fallen asleep to my father singing on his Martin guitar, the very first song I learned on guitar (Silvio) was one of his, moved across the country and felt at home in the Vancouver rain with "Tangled Up In Blue" playing softly in my furnitureless apartment. I was nervous walking into the club. After checking out the terrain of the club, grabbing a beverage, and finding a spot less than twenty yards from the stage our group staked our territory and waited. Then he walked out. Dressed in his Buddy Holly outfit that he wore at the Grammys, a huge cheer from the crowd greeted him and he stepped to the front of the stage and gave an appreciative bow. Turning and stepping back he grabbed a Stratocaster guitar, wheeled and ripped into "Not Fade Away". Buddy Holly was certainly touching down. His voice and phrasing were very reminicent of Holly, and his guitar playing brought a young Robbie Robertson to mind. Bobing (no pun intended) and weaving around the stage the joy on his face created a great big grin of my own. He truly was excited to be there and couldn't wait to show us what gifts he brought. Getting down into a groove he went into new material for the second song. From there on he jumped years, back and forth, for songs. After he had finished a song he would turn to the band and tell them what was up next; making him the only person in the room, and onstage, to know what the real score was. After a few electric numbers with his four piece (guitar, bass, drums, steel slide guitar) they all switched up to acoustic instuments (brushes on the drums, upright bass, mandolin and acoustic guitars) for a change of sound, but no less intense or energetic. Throughout all of this Dylan jumped to and from the microphone singing his lyrics and alternately riffing on his guitar. While picking away he would look sideways at the crowd and grin madly, as if to say, "You didn't think I could do this, did ya? Want some more?". And in adoring appreciation the crowd cheered and whistled and yelled, replying, "If music be the food of life, riff on until dawn cause we ain't goin' nowhere." To choose one or two highlights from the concert is near immpossible for me. The whole evening was a highlight in my life. Hearing him rework and invigorate some of my personal favourites ("Silvio" and "Tangled Up In Blue") and work the ethereal sound of his latest songs (produced by Daniel Lanois) was compelling enough to acknowledge his talent as a great performer (song writing ability aside). His obvious gratitude to the audience as he bowed and waved to us all after his three encores gave him a gentlemanly demeanour, along with his somewhat confused grace after accepting flowers from a woman who body surfed over the crowd that cheered her. After the show ended we walked away from the club too excited to know what to do. As we walked across the Cambie bridge we stopped in the middle to admire the view. Looking down at the water we noticed an odd shape floating on the surface in the distance. Suddenly it curved and disappeared. Thirty seconds later, while we were puzzling over its possible meaning, it appeared right below us and flapped its flippers in comunication. It was a seal, and was lounging on its back looking at us trying to puzzle our meaning. I guess we were just watching the river flow. As an aside I have included a review of the show that I found on my homepage the next day. This was the same place I found out about the show in the first place. [CANOE: CANADIAN ONLINE EXPLORER - WWW.CANOE.CA] Thursday, May 14, 1998 Emotions ran high at Dylan show By DENISE SHEPPARD West Coast Editor, Jam! Music After more than a decade of going to concerts and last night at an intimate Bob Dylan nightclub performance, I experienced the most touching event I've ever witnessed at a concert. It was during "It Ain't Me, Babe." Bob was onstage with four other bandmates (keys, guitar, bass and drums) playing to an adoring Vancouver crowd made up of a mere thousand lucky fans. Standing three-quarters of the way back, it was the perfect vantage point -- right behind the sound board -- to see Bob and to see Bob's fans react to each song. A diminutive woman worked her way from the very back of the room, a dozen roses in hand, trying to get past a tightly-packed crowd, determined to deliver the flowers to their intended. Halted by a metal barricade only a third of the way up, she stood, looking beaten until two men offered to carry her over her first hurdle. Appreciative but still stumped, the two then picked the woman back up and began crowd surfing her towards the front of the room. As Bob continued with his song, warmly warbling "It ain't me, babe/It ain't me you're lookin' for" the crowd became aware of the quest and started to cheer. The flowers held high above the forty-something woman's head, her body experiencing the only moshing it likely has ever seen, the crowd positioned her head towards the stage. Arms outstretched, the flowers were the first to arrive where Bob stood. He finished the song, went to the woman and held her, thanking her warmly. There was not a dry eye in the house. It was just that kind of night. Indeed, this was not an "industry schmooze." The room was not filled with any stars of stage or screen, it was an event whereby fans lined up at one Ticketmaster outlet for tickets only two days after the last-minute event was announced, ensuring an adoring, attitude-free audience. The Rage show was a warm-up event for Dylan, who kicks off his West Coast mini-tour with fellow legends Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell tonight at BC Place in Vancouver. I will admit that I was a tad skeptical walking in to the venue prepared to see a jaded musician performing songs he had grown tired of long ago, but the truth is that Dylan blew all naysayers away with his energy, his enthusiasm and his ability to genuinely entertain. Straying far away -- and far beyond -- the band's intended set list (see below) the original eight-song plan doubled in size at the man's hands, as he moved effortlessly from old songs to new. Kicking the 90-minute set with "Not Fade Away", the rockabilly number pumped an already electric crowd even higher. It was immediately evident that these were fans inside that club, the real thing. Nearly every person polled before the show had purchased their tickets after waiting in line, 15 hours on average. A father camped out overnight in line so that his son -- flying up from California to follow his dad on four dates of the Mitchell/Van/Dylan tour -- could witness big Bob in a small venue as he had nearly 30 years ago. Another bounced his rent cheque to attend the event, waiting 21 hours in line for a ticket and then another 13 hours to get a center-stage spot in the standing-room only event. Dressed in the same Southern country gentleman attire he wore on the Grammy Awards, Dylan said few words during the show, save for "thank you" and "you're too kind" but his lyrics spoke volumes. Dylan seemed clear, focused and decidedly present when performing every number. Playfully aiming his guitar like a shotgun during a blistering solo in "Cold Irons Bound", it was apparent by that third number that the man was enjoying himself immensely. A few songs later, "Silvio" brought forth another incredible solo and when the crowd screamed their delight, a huge smile spread across Bob's face. That explosive reaction seemed to egg Dylan on; "Tangled Up In Blue" came next, complete with an energetic acoustic guitar solo that caused the room to spontaneously burst into cheers. His eyes glowed and he teased the audience with solos that were only outshone by the animated look on his face. Yes, some may accuse Bob Dylan of sounding apathetic on television, some might say he's been around too long, but if those naysayers had witnessed last night's show in Vancouver, they would have seen a man with incredible energy and charisma put an impressive amount of emotion and care into his music, all for his hardcore fans. It was a privilege to witness such an event. The Intended Set List (as appeared on the sound man's sheet): Not Fade Away Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You Lay Lady Lay Cold Irons Bound Doin' It All Night To Make You Feel My Love Steel Bars Blue The Actual Set List Not Fade Away Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You Cold Irons Bound To Make You Feel My Love Silvio Stone Walls and Steel Bars It's All Over Now Baby Blue Tangled Up In Blue Million Miles Highway 61 Revisited I'm Not Supposed To Care (a Gordon Lightfoot song) 'Till I Fell In Love With You It Ain't Me, Babe Love Sick Rainy Day Woman #12 + #35 Check back at Jam! Music tomorrow morning for a review of tonight's (Thursday, May 14) Dylan - Van Morrison - Joni Mitchell triple bill in Vancouver. -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
