Bob Dylan and his band, The Point Theatre,
The silver and smooth heads of the chino wearing crowd bop to the twangy guitar and up-tempo country rhythm of the five piece band on stage. It could pass for a show band reunion except for a rugged voice emerging through the honky-tonk mess. Dylan sits side stage behind a keyboard in a black coat with sparkling silver buttons.
Over the claps and screams of the anticipating audience Dylan opens with a barely recognisable version of Maggie’s farm. His magic poetic timing is lost in the rhythm change and weak repetitive vocals throughout the show.
The crowd erupts on hearing the simple sound of Dylan’s harmonica and a single drum during Watching the River Flow. As Dylan croons ‘I’ll give you shelter from the storm’, a grey-bearded fan with a crumpled hat closes his eyes, like he is transported back to another era and screams out ‘I hear ya’.
The encore brings throaty vocals in Forever Young and striking imagery in
the Ballad of Hollis Brown ‘There’s seven people dead
on a