Bob Dylan - Live @ the O2, London
 

If you could ask Bob Dylan one question, what would it be?

After Saturday’s gig at the O2, my question for Mr Dylan would have to be “Do you even find this fun anymore Bob?”

I had formed my opinion of the gig and decided how this review would look (which I will give in more detail in just a second) as I stepped out the front doors of the stadium once the 67-year-old singer/songwriter had exited stage right. But on the train home, I started to rethink things and felt the need to double check what had just happened... So I decided to get some opinions from the other Dylan fans heading West, just in case:

Paul, from Barcelona:
“Well, [the concert] had been my main reason for coming to London this week, and it was alright”

Jack, from Camden:
“I’ve seen Bob Dylan quite a few times, maybe 4 or 5 now, the last time was in 2006 which would have been a 10 out of 10. Tonight would be a 5. And, you know, a “Hello” would have been nice…or even a tip of his hat”

Simone and Tee, from New York:
“I didn’t really feel like he was singing at all”

Chris, from Devon:
“Back in the day, he used to be up front, he’d strap on a guitar and be more of an entertainer, [but] there was nothing like that tonight”

Oh, okay, cool, so it wasn’t just me that thought that then.

Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting a '60's glory day’s kind of show, but there were certain aspects that were sufficiently below par even in today’s standards:

Even when taking into consideration the fact that the O2 wasn’t really built with the likes of artists such as Bob Dylan in mind, the sound was spectacularly rubbish. I actually thought the crowd were making a horribly delayed mess of singing along, until I realised it was the echo.

I’m used to artists trying to pretend like they don’t need you, the fans, by saying very little or lacking quality in the meager quips they do say, but here, I actually gave up waiting for him to acknowledge that the crowd was there, and concluded he would be doing the same thing with the full capacity that he had tonight, as he would with no audience at all. And really, if Bob Dylan doesn’t want to talk, Bob Dylan doesn’t have to.

And okay, I guess I have come to expect a certain level of incoherence from Bob Dylan over the years, but he seemed particularly messy this evening. I’m not saying I want him to sound exactly like an album, because then the entire show becomes redundant, but the little or no actual singing that went into tonight’s gruff vocals, at most times sounded completely inarticulate.

Despite this overly insignificant show, I still love Bob Dylan’s music. I’m not sure whether that makes him a more flippant person than he should be about his live shows, or makes me more gullible than I thought.

It’s called 'The Never Ending Tour'. Just seemed to me like he just wished it would.

Bob Dylan played:
1. Maggie’s Farm
2. The Times They Are A-Changin’
3. Things Have Changed
4. Chimes of Freedom
5. Rollin’ and Tumblin’
6. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
7. ‘Til I Fell in Love with You
8. Workingman’s Blues #2
9. Highway 61 Revisited
10. Ballad of Hollis Brown
11. Po’ Boy
12. Honest With Me
13. When the Deal Goes Down
14. Thunder on the Mountain
15. Like a Rolling Stone

Encore:
16. All Along the Watchtower
17. Spirit on the Water
18. Blowin’ in the Wind