Oct 10,
2013 Oslo, Norway:
Spektrum
Tickets go on sale Jun 17 09:00am CEST
Oct 12
& 13, 2013 Stockholm,
Sweden: Stockholm Waterfront
Tickets go on sale Jun
19 09:00am CEST
Oct 15
& 16, 2013 Copenhagen,
Denmark: Falconer Salen
Tickets go on sale Jun
19 09:00am CEST
Oct 18, 19
& 20, 2013 Hannover,
Germany: Swiss Life Hall
Tickets go on sale Jun
14 09:00am CEST
Oct 22,
2013 Düsseldorf,
Germany: Mitsubishi Electric Halle
Tickets go on sale Jun
14 09:00am CEST
Oct 24
& 25, 2013 Berlin,
Germany: Tempodrom
Tickets go on sale Jun
14 09:00am CEST
Oct 28,
2013 Geneva,
Switzerland: Geneva Arena
Tickets go on sale??
Oct 30
& 31, 2013 Amsterdam,
Netherlands: Heineken Music Hall
Jun 14
09:00am CEST
Tickets go on sale Jun 14 09:00am CEST
Nov 02, 03
& 04 2013 Milan,
Italy: Teatro degli Arcimboldi
Tickets go on sale Jun 14 09:00am CEST
Nov 06
& 07, 2013 Rome,
Italy: Atlantico
Tickets go on sale Jun 14 09:00am CEST
Nov 08,
2013 Padova, Italy:
Gran Teatro Geox
Tickets go on sale Jun 14 09:00am CEST
Nov 10,
2013 Brussels, Belgium:
Forest National
Tickets go on sale Jun 14 09:00am CEST
Nov 12
& 13, 2013 Paris,
France: Teatro Gran Rex
Tickets go on sale Jun
21 09:00am CEST
Nov 16,
2013 Esch-sur-Alzette,
Luxembourg: Rockhal
Tickets go on sale Jun 14 09:00am CEST
Nov 18, 19
& 20, 2013 Glasgow,
Scotland: Clyde Auditorium
Tickets go on sale Jun 14 09:00am BST
Nov 22, 23
& 24 2013 Blackpool,
England: Opera House
Tickets go on sale Jun 14 09:00am BST
Nov 26, 27 & 28 2013 London, England: Royal
Albert Hall
Tickets go on sale Jun 14 09:00am BST
More info here.
Albert Hall
ReplyDeletea swansong?
Probably not. But it won't bear any comparison - except to the ears of the combative fanatics forever convinced that he was never as good then as he is now.
DeleteRambling Gambling Gordon
ReplyDeleteThree nights in Glasgow. At one time I would have been elated.
If I don't go I'll probably regret it. If I go, likewise.
Michael, I agree with you regarding people that do not acknowledge the decline in voice between early Dylan and the current Dylan (it seems, however, like it really went down in last 4-5 years). I don't know how they convince themselves of that assessment. Are you never going to a show again? Or do you find any merit in his current performances?
ReplyDeleteCome on Michael
ReplyDeletestop being such a churl. Most people go to his gigs just to be in "the presence" and for nostalgia, not the music. I'd wager if the Grauniad asked you to review you'd accept.
I'm in the front circle on the last night, I've started practicing my 'Judas" call already,..... what a sucker!
I await your withering reply with baited breath.
joe
I've no wish to wither! But I've been in his presence, including personally, and if I want him to induce nostalgia (something he always claims to scorn, though Joanie pinned that down so well on Diamonds And Rust), I can listen to particular, rarely played, early album tracks or watch a bit of Dont Look Back. All that said, I always feel there's hope, even now, in smaller halls. The best for me this time, in practical terms, would be the opening night in Blackpool, since it's the night after I finish my own tour, which ends in North Yorkshire. But in practical terms too, I'm not sure I can afford it. I'm pretty broke at the moment, truly. Aside from all the Dylan fans who hate me (and who mostly thrive on the Expecting Rain forum), everybody loves my work but nobody wants to pay me. Dollar a day, it's worth. So I don't know if I can stretch to a night out in Blackpool, early-death capital of England. I just don't know.
DeleteThe point is, he plays great music, even if his voice is shot. Either live with it or stop going to the shows. None of us is getting any younger either. Might as well preserve our memories of things that used to be, of course, but I for one believe Dylan is still worth seeing on the state. Antonio
ReplyDeleteMichael
ReplyDeleteI didnt mean that kind of whither, where is your vitriol dipped in acid? Broke? you should try painting for a living!
Good to hear you may give Blackpool a chance. Why no Birmingham gig on your tour?
Michael
ReplyDeleteAll the tickets have been sold...
I went to see Elvis Costello last night at the Opera House Blackpool - a great performance in a wonderful venue.
I would love to see Dylan in this great theatre and will try to find a ticket.
Paul
Enjoying the debate. Saw Bob in Bournemouth last year. My third Dylan concert. Plenty of presence and an eerie echo on Thin Man. But hard listening all the same.
DeleteMichael
ReplyDeleteA friend send me a link to this...
Amazing stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-laTiFrP564&feature=youtu.be
Michael
ReplyDeleteA link to Phil Ochs singing 'The Blue and the Grey' at Gerdes in 1975 - his last public performance, I think. Bob was also there that night - and part of this gig is in Reynaldo & Clara
According to one of his biographers, Ochs claimed that this song summed up his relationship with Dylan..
.
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/irving%20gordon
Michael
ReplyDeleteThis also means that there may be a recording of Ochs singing 'Lay Down Your Weary Tune' on the same night [?] out there somewhere...
Rambling Gambling Gordon
ReplyDeleteAlas, there is much truth here:
http://www.ticketsarasota.com/2013/06/28/review-bob-dylan-distressing-at-midflorida-amphitheatre-tampa-wilco-my-morning-jacket-americanarama/
"But in practical terms too, I'm not sure I can afford it. I'm pretty broke at the moment, truly."
ReplyDeleteNow I see your point in posting the Harlan Ellison 'Pay the Writer' clip. Surely you have at least one ace up your sleeve - wouldn't someone offer to pay for another Dylan book? You have said you won't do another one, but with these times being hard...
It seems that every year we see another biography of Bob. I haven't been keeping score, but in recent years we have seen bios by Daniel Mark Epstein, David Dalton, Ian Bell, Sean Wilentz and several others. Even Wilentz, as good a writer as he is, showed his lack of background in Dylan lore in his discussion with Christopher Ricks on the Inventions of Bob Dylan (he claimed that Restless Farewell wasn't the last track on Times, and also that there were no alternative versions of Visions of Johanna). The point is that you have it all inside you, or at least in your archives. You are one of the few major Dylan writers not to have written a biography. Surely a biography written by you would have the major selling point of being written by a world acknowledged expert - bear in mind that the bulk of books written on Dylan these days are by newcomers to Dylanology. Yes, you've done a massive critical study, and the Encyclopedia, but you haven't done a biography. Not everyone shares the opinion of some of the worst modBob apologists on expectingrain. Jon
It's kind of you to say all this but it doesn't stack up against the harsh realities of current publishing. They don't care. In any case I don't hoard biographical stuff; I don't have the time, research budget or inclination to interview all those hundreds of people; and I've never wanted to write Bob's biography; and I think there are too many out there already. That won't stop other people, but it ain't me babe.
DeleteThe biography I did want to write, I wrote. Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes is the only biog of Blind Willie McTell, so it was a very worthwhile undertaking. God knows I didn't do it for the money.
I do hope to update the Encyclopedia - a huge project, as you can imagine - but publishers are by no means biting off my hand for it. So far. We'll just have to see how it goes...
Michael
ReplyDeleteThe great American guitarist, Leo Kottke's account of meting Bob:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2KoIWEAdaM
Kottke has a very good line in droll stories, so not sure how true this one is...
And this is him talking about Dylan in an earlier interview:
http://www.guitarmusic.org/kottke/gmm29772.html
Michael
ReplyDeleteA slightly different version of the same story, also by Kottke:
'"Back in '75, I was hanging around the studio in Minneapolis where they were cutting Dylan's 'Blood on the Tracks,'" recalled Kottke. "Because, I had recorded some of my albums there, and I was hoping maybe I could squirrel my way into the sessions, or at least meet Bob. So at one point, this guy walks up and asks me, 'How do you think the sessions are going?' "So I went on and on about how great they were, and how much I loved the bulk of Dylan's music, and also about some of the stuff I didn't like as much, and I went into a lot of detail, and I must have talked to him for about an hour, and the guy hardly got a word in," said Kottke with an understated laugh.
"So, a week or so later my manager calls me up and says, 'I heard you talked to Dylan - what did you talk about?' And I was sort of baffled, and told him I hadn't talked to Dylan. But then he tells me that he heard about how I had talked to Bob for a long time, and.....well, it turns out, that guy I was talking to was Dylan - the guy whose ear I bent for an hour - and I didn't even know it. I didn't even recognize him.
"People say Dylan is so reclusive that he has a way of just disappearing, even in a crowd - and, man, he sure did, because I didn't even know it was him."
Michael
ReplyDeleteFor completion's sake, this is Cold in China, the Kottke song that Dylan admired:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQu_eyKQSkY
Rambling Gambling Gordon
ReplyDeleteWhen I last saw him I sort of enjoyed bits of the concert. But that’s the problem – they were only bits, and I only sort of enjoyed them. I wasn’t thrilled or moved or left breathless by the awesomeness of his powers as a performer, and with Dylan I expect to experience at least a little of that, even now, in some form or another. Nor is it any easier to listen to the applause with which every song, no matter how well or badly or perfunctorily it might be executed, is greeted, or the prolonged roars of untempered adulation that are routinely sustained at the end as he and the band stand staring out into the darkness.
You suggested that his choice of smaller venues possibly augured well for a change, but I doubt it. I think it will be exactly the same, just in different settings. I’d love to be proved wrong but I just can’t see it.
It’s hard to deny that his sheer doggedness in carrying on – cussedness might be a more apposite word – isn’t entirely ignoble but that’s not to say very much. I wish he’d take a long break, rethink his whole approach to live performing, and if he can’t come up with something fresh and vital, stop. He won’t.
Rambling Gambling Gordon
ReplyDeleteHis fragile version of Bobby Vee's 'Suzie Baby' the other night was quite sweet.