Bob Dylan played a tiny venue — the Enmore Theatre, in Sydney’s inner west — on Sunday night. When you say that you went, people want to know: how was he?
How to answer?
How was he? Who even is he?
He’s a Nobel laureate, a troubadour, a vagabond, a folk singer, a musician, a songwriter, the teller of our tales.
How was he?
It’s an impossible question: so much depends on who you are, and why you’re there, and when you last saw him, and who you were then, and how much has changed, and what you’ve come to hear.
So the lights went down and the show started with a warning to quit your mobile phone (no pictures, no videos, under no circumstances). Security guards prowled the aisles, enforcing the ban, saying: “My boss would like your full attention.”
He had my full attention.
Dylan came on wearing a coat and it never came off, and his hair was crazy, wild.
He stood wide-legged at the piano, and my friend Di Robinson thought she saw a gold statue, perhaps of a woman, to his left. I didn’t see it, and what might it mean?
Aretha? He never explains, never apologises.
He started with Things Have Changed, which they undoubtedly have for everyone since Dylan was last here, as they will again by the time he returns, which he surely will. He’s only 77.
Aficionados will tell you that Dylan has played pretty much the same set every other night for a few years now, but at the Enmore he switched out song 13 — traditionally Desolation Row — for Visions of Joanna, which opens thus: “Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?”
Cheeky monkey.
Song No 4 was Simple Twist of Fate, perfect for anyone — that’s everyone — who ever missed an opportunity to make a special connection, but let’s not dwell on that because nine songs in, Dylan unfurled Make You Feel My Love.
Whippersnappers be like: that’s not Adele?!
That’s not Adele.
Tell friends who are not fellow tragics that you’re going to see Dylan and some will say “But he can’t sing” and it’s all you can do not to look at them like they’re another species. He can sing.
He took the stage at 8pm and sang for two hours, no intermission, one encore.
Like always — almost always — he gave the gift that is Blowin’ In The Wind, that Ballad of A Thin Man, which is why I just don’t get why people say he won’t play what you want to hear.
Some go hoping for some kind of insight, ignoring the fact Dylan never said or pretended to have any. But he did play Serve Somebody.
He bowed at the end, and the audience roared, and then, on the way out, with the crowd shoulder-to-shoulder, shuffling towards the exit, you could overhear this:
That was magic. Amazing.
Awful. Gee, the voice is rough.
How can it be both things? He said it best, way back when: It’s all true, everything you’ve heard.
Miners change tune on climate change
Peak mining industry body The Minerals Council of Australia has joined the fight on climate.
Easy to point the finger
Demanding we abandon coal for climate is akin to asking NZ to give up love affair with sheep.