I had seen both of these artists before, although a long time has passed in both cases. I saw Bob Dylan a couple of times in the late nineties, one time with Ani DiFranco opening for him, and one time while he was on tour with Paul Simon - another artist that I would love to go see again.
As for Mark Knopfler, I had only seen him once before, back in 2005 at Radio City Music Hall, where he gave a very memorable performance! I had really been wanting to see him again ever since.
So, when I first heard that these two artists were going to be touring together, my interest was sparked. It was going to be a priority, as far as concerts were concerned. There were two options: Philadelphia or Brooklyn. But the Brooklyn show seemed to be sold out, and the prices on Ebay were ridiculously expensive. The Philadelphia show, by contrast, was almost half the price. True, Philadelphia was a bit of a longer trip, but the show started a bit earlier, as well. Brooklyn's show was for Wednesday, the 21st- the night before Thanksgiving. Since I was to go with someone who needed to work the next morning following either show, time was a factor. The Brooklyn show started later on, and I figured that going into the city on a night when there is an unbelievable amount of drinking going on (even more than on St. Patrick's Day, i heard), the choice to go to Philadelphia just became clearer. Just needed to work it out with a baby sitter, and I'd be on my way.
I got the tickets, and the trip there was uneventful - hardly any traffic to speak of at all. It was great. Even once in the city of Philadelphia itself, I expected traffic to pick up considerably. But it just didn't - not even at the show! Now, that was amazing.
Also, the show started at 7:30pm, and not 7:00, as was listed on the tickets. That helped, because despite the lack of traffic, there were some slight complications, and we got there just after 7pm. I was very relieved not to have missed the beginning of this show!
Mark Knopfler
It seemed entirely appropriate to me that these two legends should tour together like they are doing. When Mark Knopfler first hit it big with Dire Straits, he reminded a lot of people of the legendary Dylan, with his musical style, a very distinctive voice, and potent lyrics. He sometimes still reminds me of Dylan, although he has more than established himself as a great artist in his own right, both with Dire Straits, and in his solo work.
With Dire Straits, Knopfler provided the intelligence in both the music that he wrote, as well as the lyrics, which often showed considerable wit, but were often more reflective and thought provoking. With his unbelievable skills with the guitar, it was only natural that he would become one of the most important and recognizable figures in the music industry.
Knopfler has secured a strong place and legacy in music, and yet, he seems to almost be overlooked by popular culture at times. This seems particularly true here in the United States, although I am not sure why, yet he is often not recognized as he ought to be. That might sound hard to believe, since he has a species of dinosaur named after him (no really, he does - masiakasaurus knopfleri). His guitar playing is so strong that, when he worked with Dylan in the late seventies on an album, "Slow Train Coming", Dylan felt it was the best guitar backing he had ever gotten for his music. Yet, Knopfler is not as much a household name as many other rock legends, and that is a bit perplexing (at least to me).
Dire Straits would enjoy some huge success, although they tend to be overlooked these days, for reasons that remain a mystery to me, admittedly. I mean, they had some undeniably incredible stuff. One of my very favorite rock albums of all time is Love Over Gold. You can almost say that every note on that album fits perfectly in place, and everything in it complements the other elements, making as close to a perfect an album as anyone can get. To me, it ranks up there with some of the all time legendary albums, and that's no exaggeration. It is like "The Dark Side of the Moon", or "Sgt. Pepper's". Yes, it's that good. It only has five songs on it, but they are unbelievable tunes. Telegraph Road, which is perhaps my favorite rock song of all time, opens that album up. It is a long song - over eleven minutes, if memory serves correctly - but it has everything that you could ask for in a song. It starts off slowly, amid the sounds of a storm, and then the pace quickens, before slowing down again, finally exploding towards the finish. It is a thoughtful and thought-provoking song with incredible imagery from both the music and the lyrics. The perfect song. the rest of the album pretty much follows suit. Just an incredible album, and one of my very favorites of all time! I can say a lot more about that album, and perhaps at some point, I will. But this is a review of a Knofler concert in which he did not actually perform a single song from that album, so it's time to move on.
The album was huge, yet it seems that it is not what Dire Straits is best remember for, oddly enough. Most people, when they think of them, remember individual songs like "Sultans of Swing", their first really huge, breakthrough song, or "Money For Nothing", "Walk of Life", and "So Far Away". Their album "Brothers in Arms" became the first compact disk to sell over one million albums. Of course, Mark Knopfler wrote all of the songs, even though Sting, who sang in "Money For Nothing", gets credited with co-writing that piece. In truth, it was pretty much all Mark Knopfler, although Sting adds an incredible element with his distinctive singing in that legendary and catchy song that became a huge success, and even featured a famous video (I'm sure that you can find it on Youtube, or elsewhere on the internet, if you want to).
After the end of Dire Straits, Knopfler has gone on to enjoy some considerable success in his solo career, as well. He has not been able to produce quite the sheer number of hits, nor the numbers in record sales. Yet, his work is marked by a unique approach, with his brilliant guitar playing enhanced by some incredible song-writing, and equally strong lyrics. Some of that old brilliance first seen with Dire Straits shows itself in his solo work, as well, such as in the album "Sailing for Philadelphia".
You might think, with a song that specifically mentions Philadelphia, that he would play that song in the city of Philadelphia. I certainly was expecting it. But if you did, you would be wrong. He did not play it, although I heard some people requesting it, shouting it out. Knopfler at one point informed the crowd that he was not going to be taking any requests, then went on with the show.
When I saw him in 2005, he performed a lot of material from Dire Straits. Not so much this time.In fact, he only did one song from those days, and that was the encore song. Otherwise, every other song he did was from his solo works. Not that I am complaining. His works stand up on their own and, simply put, the man is a magician with the guitar. He put on an amazing show, and the guitar sounded sweet, seemingly almost doing some singing of it's own for him.
Such an amazing talent, and it is a privilege to see a musician of his caliber! Only the second time that I got to see him, and I wish that perhaps his show could have been a bit longer, because the Radio City Music Hall show that I had seen definitely felt longer. Still, Knopfler's set went on for well over an hour, maybe up to an hour and a half. Since the billing seemed to suggest that he was Dylan's opening act, I was happy to see him on stage for as long as he was there. But it seemed that, while Dylan was the headliner of the show, they stood as equals, with Knopfler having his own, full set, rather than merely opening. He's definitely no one's opening act!
The crowd seemed a bit sleepy at first, but began to show more appreciation and enthusiasm as the set list wore on. Not the most energetic crowd that I have seen, but I am glad that they began to pick up and show signs of life as the show went on - and this was true for both sets.
Bob Dylan
Let me be frank, right off the bat - when I had seen him before, his voice sounded just awful! Sorry, but it was like listening to nails scratching chalk.
Still, the man is a legend. This is the guy who produced some of the most powerful lyrics in songwriting history. He was no small part of the whole political activism of the sixties. He was there in Washington on the day in 1963 when Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I have a dream" speech. His works influenced countless prominent musicians, from the Beatles and the Stones, to Jimi Hendrix on down to the present generation. Not only is he perhaps the most iconic artist of the whole sixties movement, he actually helped to shape the sixties, to make it what it became. For that matter, since the sixties helped to shape pretty much everything that came afterwards, Dylan's influence has been felt now for half a century, and is still being felt today. Very few people can say that.
Think of some of the songs, and of the potency of the lyrics. The times they are a-changin'. Masters of war. All around the watchtower. Everybody must get stoned. Songs that defined a generation, and Bob Dylan wrote every one of them! That's a pretty amazing accomplishment, and few figures in history have ever been able to boast more. Almost anybody who is remotely familiar with either modern music, particularly rock or folk, or knows about the youth movement of the 1960's, is probably already pretty aware of Dylan and the impact that his music had. It seemed to open up the floodgates for new ideas, new approaches towards the relation between the individual (particularly youth) and the greater American society. He was protesting, and made it cool to protest, to challenge, if you will. Moreover, he did so not to be cool, but to be active. Like him or not, there was an undeniable intelligence behind his protests. There was anger, sure, but it was pointed. Much of the artists since have also displayed anger, but too often, it has lacked focus, and turned into some hollow anger, too often devoid of real meaning. No such criticism can be laid at the feet of Bob Dylan, however. I don't know if anger is quite the word I am looking for, but his protest music blended art with politics, and he was no small part of why the sixties were what they were.
Of course, he was not relegated to the sixties. In fact, the bulk of his career, which now is entering a sixth decade, has come since - although he is best known for his work in the sixties. But he was still active in the seventies, and still doing protest music, such as "Hurricane" (I would recommend the movie by the same name to anyone for a more detailed version of that story, which briefly shows Bob Dylan performing his song on the wrongfully jailed boxer.
My father told me that he and my mom went to a Bob Dylan concert in Paris at one point, and that it was so loud, it took them both a very long time to recover, as their eardrums hurt so badly after that. He also mentioned that he passed right by Bob Dylan in the hallways after the concert - I think that some jacket had been left behind, and he had somehow managed to get backstage.
As legendary as the man is, I have to admit that his recent works, although often given high marks by critics, tended to be ruined by his voice. Maybe that is unfair, but his voice has, at times, sounded truly awful. Maybe it lends him some authenticity, like the scratchy and beat up voices of older legends. Maybe it was just me, for that matter, but his voice, if anything, just detracted from any enjoyment of the music. Gone were the days of the sixties, as decades of substance abuse and such must have had considerable effect.
Yet, his voice sounded far better on this night then it had the other couple of times that I saw him. I remember him when he was on tour with Paul Simon back in 1999, and he covered "The Sounds of Silence". Mt father said that he noticed Paul Simon looked over at Dylan at some point during that song, and seemed almost to be wondering what the hell was going on. Dylan's voice had me wishing for "The Sounds of Silence" at that moment, quite literally!
On this night, he sounded far better. Not great, but far, far better. Not sure why, but I'm not complaining.
Dylan relied far more heavily than did Knopfler on his older material, playing numerous classics. That said, it was perhaps surprising by what he chose not to play. He also put a new spin on some of his older works, making them sound very different, very unique. If you did not know any better, you might think it was a different song altogether, like his second song of the night, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". It took me a while to even recognize it.
Overall, however, Dylan's set was stronger than I had been expecting it to be.
Mark Knopfler's Setlist:
What It Is
Corned Beef City
Privateering
Kingdom Of Gold
I Used To Could
Song For Sonny Liston
Done With Bonaparte
Hill Farmer's Blues
Haul Away
Marbletown
Encore:
So Far Away
Bob Dylan's Setlist:
You Ain't Going Nowhere
It's All Over Now, Baby, Blue
Times Have Changed
Tangled Up In Blue
Early Roman Kings
Chimes Of Freedom
Rollin' And Tumblin'
Desolation Row
Highway 61 Revisited
Mississippi
Thunder On The Mountain
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Like A Rolling Stone
All Along The Watchtower
Encore:
Blowin' In The Wind
No comments:
Post a Comment