Bob Dylan Live Christchurch 8th August 2007

Seeing as I just shared with you about one of the best concerts I have been to, now let me share one of, if not, the worst concert I have ever attended. I was really excited when I heard Bob Dylan was coming to Christchurch, I never thought I would get to see such a legend play here. I totally love nearly all his early music upto the late 70s and have some of his latest stuff too. He was the voice of a generation, even if he refused to take any responsibilty for what he sung about in the early days. The only person who got close to Dylan in the song writing stakes is Neil Young.
For me Dylan had lost his voice a while back, I struggled with his gravelly sound on his latest albums even though the albums themselves were reasonably enjoyable. The rhythm and blues base to his latest stuff and the quality of his voice warned me that this concert may not be that great, but I was sure it would still be worth going to see.
How wrong could I be. Mrs Roddus and I arrived at the Westpac center just as the support act finished, took our seats and waited for Bob to start. eventuially they rambled on stage and without a word started to play the first song. What a mess to me it sounded, it was like some sloppy R n' B  band playing in the garage. I accepted this for the first song as it fitted with the style from his latest albums , but they played all the songs in just about the same style and the only way I could recognise any of the older songs was by listning for the words, which wasn't that easy either. I persavered hoping it would get better , but alas it just all sounded the same, Mrs Roddus wanted to leave, she absoluty hated it, but I wanted to stay till the end just in case things picked up. To really make this concert even more terrible was that bob, never even aknowledged that there was an audience out there listning and later he turned aside from us played the keyboards for the rest of the gig. The only time he spoke was to introduce the band near the end of the concert and then before he left the stage he gave, what was to me, a sanctomonious bow with his arms out like he was some kind of God.
Frankly he should have been booed off the stage for being a complete tosser, so far up himself that he has no respect or even gives a shit about the fans who supported him by buying his music over his carrer.
I had read that bob made the comment that he never played a song the same way twice, nowadays it looks like he dosn't play them at all, they are unrecognisable from their original form. Now I like that a band that improvises with their songs in a concert, I prefer that to just playing them straight, as they were recorded, but I like to be able to recognise the very cool songs that turned me onto them in the first place and caused me to spend big money to see them preformed live. Every other band dose this for their fans, why can't bob.
Several people I spoke to after, except one young bloke, also thought the concert was crap. The review in the paper next day was positive but not exactly gushing, unlike some of the overseas reviews I had been reading, and was still reading, in the Uncut magazine. It seems to Me that these brown tounging journalists didn't have the balls to say the truth that bob dylan is total crap live, another person here who had seen him in Wellington a couple of years earlier also felt the same way I did and finally someone in England wrote a letter to Uncut also telling them how totally crap he thought BD was as well, with similar complaints to mine about not being able to recognise any of the songs and they all sounded the same. I still really did all my Dylan albums that I have but will never ever go and see him play again.