The frase that titles this post was the one that i wrote in my Facebook account an hour ago, and I did it with the whole conviction of someone that believes that Bob though in me. Yes, it can sound crazy, to believe that Bob, yes, Bob Dylan saw me, met me, got into my deepest dreams and decided to give me the best gift.
But I feel strongly that it was so, and that the little box that I have in my hands and that contains Christmas in the Heart, in gold color and red letters, with two horses pulling the sleigh in the snow, the sexy Santa Claus-girl in the back cover, the red labeled CD and its exquisite carols that are playing now, the greeting cards to gift with their white envelopes, all this beautiful pack that contains Christmas, Christmas and Christmas was made for me.
Because, ever since I remember, I adored, idolized, dreamed with this celebration, persecuted it al along each month of the year between the pages of the books, my plays and the memories of each one of those Christmas eve that I lived, which was not provided of leafy decorated trees, lots of gifts wrapped in colored ribbons under their feet, or huge and golden turkeys on the table, surrounded by salads, plums, jams and cakes.
My Christmas were the most simple but the most beautiful for me because what has been called for generations the Christmas spirit, the true feeling of harmony, peace and solidarity with the neighbor was there in the middle, outside and around my table, with its discreet baked chicken, a cup of chocolate and Christmas cake.
Today this overwhelming feeling has subsided thanks to the turbed magic of the adulthood, everything returns to my memory as a rough trip, while Bob's Christmas runs all along the carols sung, with his voice rough and hard as the sandpaper through the angelic voices of the choristers, respecting the original pattern of the compositions and, at the same time, puting their old and incomparable mark.
Thanks Bob for this gift that combines the two things I love most in this world, your music and Christmas.
And finally it became public. The insistents rumours of a Dylan's new discographic issue made bigger the expectations among the fans; and more because of the topic. Could we say that, not even our laconic and austere uncle Zimmy could escape from the clutches of the Christmas spirit, that one that has broken the hardest hearts each year and that there are thousands of stories written about, starting with Ebenezer Scrooge or the Grinch and passing through Jack Skellington?
Well, this is what it seems. And it's just that Dylan, not only has dealed this topic, but has chosen the romantic-clacisist side of this celebration in the album cover -which remind us those typicals Christmas postcards of the XIXth century- and among the tracks of Christmas in the heart (this is the name of the album) there will be covers of several classic Christmas carols like “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Little Drummer Boy” and “Must Be Santa”.
And to seal with a double knot the ribbon of this surprising present: all the royalties of Christmas in the Heart, will be donated to the organization Feeding America, to try to guarantee 4 millions meals for this Christmas.
As many people who read this blog knows, our Bob Dylan Club Peru have already a space in Facebook; place where we can upload pictures, articles, links and comments about the life and work of Bob Dylan. The first topic in the section "Foro de debate" is about if Together Through Life deeserves, qualitativement, the applauses in EE.UU. like in the U.K., where it has reached the top´after almost 40 years. Now, I post a detailed analysis made by a friend and member of the club, Christopher Rollason:
BEYOND HERE LIES … NOTHING? - some impressions of Bob Dylan's album TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE (2009)
Christopher Rollason, Metz, France (rollason54@gmail.com)
If nothing else, TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE has produced a new crop of firsts for Bob Dylan. It has become his first-ever album to reach number one in both the US and the UK, and has made him the oldest living artist ever to top the British album chart (a feat he had already achieved in the US with MODERN TIMES), and, again in Britain, the artist distinguished, if that is the word, by the longest time-gap between successive number one albums. Indeed, probably only fact-file obsessives will have known that prior to this album Dylan had had four number ones in his home country and/but six totally different chart-toppers across the Atlantic. The new album's success does, then, suggest there must be a consensus in the air about something.
However, in the British case further examination reveals that Dylan's three previous number ones were NASHVILLE SKYLINE in 1969 and SELF PORTRAIT and NEW MORNING in 1970 - all decidedly minor works. Before those three, he had spent 13 weeks atop the UK chart in 1968 with JOHN WESLEY HARDING, an album generally considered a major artistic achievement but whose commercial success had much to do with the groundswell of sympathy arising from Dylan's near-brush with death in his famous motorcycle accident. Is the commercial success of TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE, like that of MODERN TIMES before it, a reflection less of the album's quality than of a comparable sympathy vote, brought on by the artist's advancing years and the realisation that he won't be with us forever - that 'it's not dark yet, but it's getting there'?
My own feeling at this stage of the game is that we are dealing with a musically agreeable, cleanly produced and perfectly listenable Dylan album, but not one that is saying anything much of interest about anything in particular. Regarding Dylan's 21st-century output, I was and remain highly enthusiastic about 'LOVE AND THEFT' (and wrote at length about that album in THE BRIDGE, No 14), but have yet to be convinced by MODERN TIMES; and intuit that, for all the Latin warmth of David Hidalgo's accordion, lyrically this new offering will have a hard time winning me over. The fact that all but two of the songs are the product of collaboration with Robert Hunter doesn't help the evaluation of this as a Dylan album, but as with the earlier joint efforts with Jacques Levy and Sam Shepard, we may suppose the bulk of the writing process to have been Dylan's own (after all, it is, like 'Desire', billed as a Bob Dylan album) while not concluding therefrom that the resultant songs must be a priori brilliant.
Simplicity appears to be this album's hallmark, but, as with NASHVILLE SKYLINE and PLANET WAVES (the latter, incidentally, being another of Dylan's US number ones), a question mark hovers as to whether this is the simplicity of blissful enlightenment or the naïve simplicity of the banal. One of the questions I was expecting before the album came out, after all the well-known intertextual revelations surrounding its two predecessors (Junichi Saga for 'LOVE AND THEFT', Ovid and Henry Timrod for MODERN TIMES), was, 'Where are the quotations'? I may yet be proved wrong, but this time round, the answer seems to be, mostly 'nowhere' - neither literary nor musical. The one self-conscious literary-cum-musical line, 'I'm listening to Billy Joe Shaver / And I'm reading James Joyce', stands out like a sore thumb, as if put there to point to a general dearth of allusions.
Meanwhile though, what, if anything, do we get from Bob Dylan on this album? Technically, the songs are carefully constructed around clear rhyme-schemes (this may be Hunter's doing), and they are (mercifully) shorter and more economical than the diffuse, rambling MODERN TIMES songs. Nonetheless, on an actual majority of tracks the writing comes over as thin and gruel-like. 'Jolene' is a flat and featureless slice of country blues, and (sorry, Bob) far less memorable than the Dolly Parton song of the same name. 'Shake Shake Mama' is a clichéd blues number in the undistinguished mould of 'The Levee's Gonna Break': I fail to see the interest of lines like 'Shake shake mama like a ship going out to sea' (where is the resemblance?) or 'Down by the river Judge Simpson is walkin' around / Nothing shocks me more like that old clown' (whoever Judge Simpson may be, he's a pale shadow of Dylan's grudge-holding and stilt-walking or false-hearted and web-spinning magistrates from the past). The would-be social criticism on 'It's All Good' is simply anaemic by the side of, say, 'It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)' or even, God help us, 'Slow Train'. As to the most place-specific song, 'If You Ever Go To Houston' (the one Dylan chose to bring out first in live performance, in Dublin on 5 May 2009 - and which does look as if it might perhaps be about something), yes, it may be a critique of George Bush's Texas or the Second Amendment, and it does have a potentially interesting anachronism in the Mexican War reference - but any impact it might have is undermined by the sheer bleating pointlessness of a line like 'Mister policeman, can you help me find my gal?'.
All in all, after a few plays I began to wonder whether Dylan had positioned the album's opening track, 'Beyond Here Lies Nothin'', as a warning to the listener, to expect precisely … nothing. Should future listenings sooner or later honour any of the tracks as redeeming this album's lyrical blight, I might just about hand a nickel or a dime to 'Forgetful Heart' and, perhaps, 'This Dream of You'. In both, we find a sliver of intertextuality interacting with some just-about rescuable writing. In the first, the lines 'Forgetful heart / like a walking shadow in my brain / All night long / I lay awake and listen to the sound of pain' recall both Shakespeare's Macbeth ('Life's but a walking shadow') and the Edgar Allan Poe of 'The Raven', and the song also has a Kafkaesque door that may never have existed; the second offers, again, Poe-like imagery - 'shadows ... on the wall / Shadows that seem to know it all'. In these two tracks, there is, perhaps, a faint flickering of the old 'flames in the furnace of desire' - and yet, and yet, surely at this stage in Dylan's career, could we not have been given a bit more to reflect on than whether or not this album is up to the standard of ... well, of NASHVILLE SKYLINE?!! Bob, whatever colours you have in your mind, couldn't you have shown us one or two more of them on this record?
This is an excerpt of the big Dylan party in the Café Andino in Huaraz, Perú the past may 24th . An unforgettable moment between friends and that points out not only to the warmness of the people from Huaraz but the great preference for the work of the master Dylan.
In this take, Adam Christopher Benway sings "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", with Richard Colonia in the keyboard and Sebastián Olaza with Connor Lamphier in the guitars.
Querococha lake with the White Mountains in the backgrounds.
Writing, writing… I have to put in form of letters, words, what my travel to the north was, from the coast’s gray skies where the amount of cement just get lost, the thick and savage fog, the car’s horns, the hurry, the cold, the stress of the city, until the Andes’ mountains whose picks touch the blue skies, surrounded by flakes of cotton from time to time: clouds-flakes of unique whiteness and the shine sun, happy, shinning over the Santa river, to whose waters my grandparents, their parents, and their parent’s parents sang.
And the Huascaran Mountain, the most beautiful of all the mountains, vigilant and silent like a god watching us to come from the snake-road. The eight hours of travel finishes and Ysa receives me in the bus station with the warmness that only in Huaraz I will find and that I almost had forgotten.
Down, the bar side from the Café Andino.
Huaraz is a bustle, its people goes from one side to other but not like in the capital of Peru; their faces are happy, relaxed. They laugh, talk, doesn’t have any hurry. And Querococha, the Conchucos “alley” (long and narrow space between mountains) and the Chavín ruins, the rising road to Wilcahuain until the beautiful lodge of Wayne and Diana, the delicious “caldo de cabeza” (head’s soup) of the morning in the market of Huaraz, the visit to Anta, my lovely granny’s town, which I always wanted to know; they are some of the previous destinations to the big day, may 24th, in the Café Andino, ,where my host Ysa, her brother in law Julio, A.C., Chris,
Richard Colonia in a
musical ecstasy
Connor, Sebastián, Dylan and the inmense Richard Colonia… all the new friends that i’m meeting little by little, conspire to the great Bob Dylan hommage.
That special night, the coffee looks full, an unexpected fullness; people from everywhere are there expectant, "Beyond Here Lies Nothing" sounds in the speakers while the equipments upstairs, in the reserved space for the stage, wait the last tunings.
I ask for a beer.
Suddenly, the voice of Richard summon us he mades the presentation and then sings "Blowin In the Wind". There are a big silence, everyone is listening attentely… I am not the exception, there, lost in the bar side among the people who fill it. Jake DeBerry, volunteer of the Peace Corps, continues, singing a surrealistic version of de “Masters of War”.
Connor Lamphier
A soft voice, an angelic face sided by black curles and a thin body appears to take the next turn: is Connor Lamphier, and almost-encarnation of that shy Robert Zimmerman who went to the Greenwich Village to make his first steps in the 60’s. And "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" was what he sang.
In the next session, a kid came to the stage and took his violin, he was Adam Christopher Benway, A.C. to the friends, who made a spectacular performance, surrounded by his violin professor, Richard in the vocals, and Sebastián Olaza in the guitar, of the intense "One More Cup of Coffee". The people was amazed because of his professionalism and applauded hard for a while.
A.C. Benway singing "Knocking on Heaven's door".
But that was not all what A.C. had prepared for us, he took the micro and sang "Knockin' on Heaven's door" so tender and nicely at the same time that he had all of us in his hand. I could not believe and the ecstasy came when he asked us in his perfect English "sing with me"...... in other part of the song they sag the chorus that was the one of the whole night … ... "happy birthday uncle Bob", and everyone sang together.
Then was the turn of Wayne Lamphier from Lazy Dog Inn, who brought a very feeling version of "Girl of the North County" . Delicious. Sebastián played with him with a very lyric riffs , that turn into song time after, when this boy dedicated us "Just Like a Woman" with a stunning quality. Downstairs the people was already dancing, it was incredible… the party was in its top and, among them, a guy from Spain just danced like a restless snake...
Down, the Dylan party at the top time.
"Forever Young" came from Richard's hands and company and then, after all who sang with them, from the benches from the bar, the comfortable sofas next to the firing chemnee , the stairs until the crowded railing and the chairs and tables from upstairs who surrounded the stage, to whom everyone was looking like seeing a vision The harmonica touches of the ex Turmanyé were spectaculars and with the eyes closed and lot of passion, Richard took out the best notes. A real master.
And thanks to the public askings, the promoter of the show , to the stage, the second woman Dylan fan of Peru that I know and the best person , Ysabel Meza, went upstairs to take the micro and lead singing "My Back Pages"... the strophes fblew from voice to voice with all the participants in the stage remembering that magnific collective version sang in the 30° Anniversary Concert... precious hymn of that night and now ours...
Down the party continued, up, Richard sang us "Like a Rolling Stone", down the rolling stones enjoyed; in some place of the world, the tributed man was also singing ...
Ysabel and Dylan Mateo.
And then it was my turn. Yes, I was out of the schedule, i mean, I was only behind the curtains but, suddenly I was on the stage thanks to the Richard asking and sang that Hymn called "Forever Young", with everyone and surrounded by unexpected environment so compromised and total that I'd like to feel in Lima also; the nerves, the doubts, my past city-life of fog and behind a desk left behind ... the Dylan party in the mountains of Peru did'nt finish, was barely starting , and I sang with all my forces.
The souvenir of the Dylan Bash
I will never forget those four days in that I could breathe the most fresh air, in that i had the cjance of meeting a wonderful, warm people: starting with Ysabel, her husband and their bewautiful children: A.C. y Dylan Mateo; Richard Colonia, Julio Olaza and his wife, Sebastián, Felix the mountain guide and his girlfriend Jocelyn, the admirables Wayne y Diana, Connor, Sebastían, the China, the girl who attended us in the bar... now to write, to puta in this ecran of pixels is not so hard to me, now, even words are missing to continue and whis that this Dylan reunion in the mountains happens once more...
The title of this post is not wothout a purpose, and for my happiness, it contradicts what I was believing from decades: that only 4 or 5 people were the ones who knew about the music of Bob Dylan here in Lima, and that, with one or two exceptions, the rest of Peru were territories where the work of our great trovadour hasn’t reached to captivate their people, like it did here, with us.
But, as the title says, Dylan will be in Huaraz, in the spirit of the organizers and participants in an event that will celebrate not only his birthday but the issue of Together Through Life. And Café Andino, the very well known restaurant run by Ysabel Meza (new Bob Dylan Club Peru member, to whom I will be pleased to know that day) will be the place where the reunion homage will be. Now, I post the program reserved to the big day, may 24th. All of us are invited.
***BOB DYLAN BIRTHDAY BASH***
May 24th 2009
Café Andino, with a lot of enthusiasm and energy is establishing a tradition, to celebrate one year more of life of the great composer, poet, and musician, Bob Dylan.
People who were here last year, enjoyed the experienced of being together children, young and adults, all together because of the music of this great man.
It was a very funny and special night for those ones who were there.
This year we hope the same, and more, and I say more, because, with the last uncle Bob’s issue, we have double reason to celebrate.
Richard Colonia is the man in charge of the musical part. He is a musician with a great history, and founder of the rock band Turmanyé. Richard was born in Huaraz and from his teen years he has played and composed songs against boredom and conformism.
He is still on the road and is singing to human unfairness, nature, to friends who leave home without saying good bye, he has cried in silence for the friends who stayed lost in the mountains; he has broke for illusions who wanted to take his heart out, and for feelings unfinished; enough reasons for he to feel forced to take his guitar this may 24th and breake its cords and scream more than ever Like a Rolling Stone, Knockin´ on Heaves Door, Just Like a Woman, I Want You, One More Cup of Coffee, Mississippi, Rainy Day Women... and other gems from our great prophet.
Sebastian Olaza (14 years): young passionated musician who explores the musical world with his guitar.
Adam Benway (7 years):Last year he surprised us singing Blowin' in the Wind. He continues with his classes of violin and guitar.
Connor Lamphier (Canada): he has lived the last months near the mountains, taking care of the greenhouse Lazy Dog Inn… and in the meantime he plays his guitar.
Jake DeBerry: Café Andino’s friend and volunteer of the Peace Corp.
Special Invited:
Wayne Lamphier
Aknowledgments:
Ysa (in love with Bob J), Chris, A.C. & Dylan : Owners of Café Andino.
Tito Olaza, owner of the hostel OLAZAS B&B, he collaborates with the design of the T-shirts and posters.
Richard Colonia, founder of the band Turmanyé and in charge of the musical coordination.
By: Julio Olaza
Good rock –n- Roll fan and expert in bycicle-tours in the Cordillera Blanca y Cordillera Negra.
This is not a recent new, but, anyways, I would like to share it with you. My chronicle about my first Dylan concert, "Chronicle of an Announced Dream" has been issued in Desolation Post, one of the most important Dylan magazines in Spain.
Although the article was written to share my experiences with Bob "face to face", live (my dream that came true) it was created also to point ouit that Im not the only one. There are thousands of good music fans here, some of then that like to mantain annonymous, but most of them just "behind the stage"; all of them with knowledgment and preferences appreciables about rock, jazz, blues or even classic music. And lots of them, like me, took up the packages that time, to fly to Buenos Aires and not to miss that only one chance for us, who are in this part of the world.
I'd like to thanks to the managers of Desolation Post for this chance of publish my work and to spread it. You can read my chronicle just clicking here.
The literary talent of Bob Dylan so claimed, discussed and even prized with a Pulitzer is widely accepted . And this time, we will have time to confirm and enjoy it. A book with 23 poems of his own, never published before, and that was in a drawer for more than 30 years, will be issued.
The poems that will be part of a photography book, were found by Barry Feinstein, a well known photographer in the music scene, who, while checking his archives and papers in his Woodstock home, found the poems with 75 photos.
In those years (60's), Feinstein encouraged Dylan to write notes for his photographs (that would be published soon in a book). The poems were born then.
The book will be issued next november with the title: “Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric: The Lost Manuscript.
This is the story of a dream that started one afternoon of January while chatting with a friend. A dream that turned into a crusade and that couldn’t fulfill its target, however, it was the impulse to grab the packages and to start the odyssey to reach it. And that target was called Bob Dylan.
The Great White Wonder, Mr. Tambourine Man, the Trovadour. Bob Dylan, the eternal roving traveler, who hangs around the world in an endless tour, since years ago. Never ending tour, the endless trip, that I used to follow from the screen of the cibercafe’s computers since 1995 and with my imagination only since 1990. They were other times: you had to wait 15 minutes to see a web page wide open, half an hour to load a picture and pay 5 soles (1.5 dollars) for one hour of Internet service; but I didn’t care, Internet was my window to the world and the only one way of knowing and having the trovadour a little bit closer in this part of the world.
Because only cities like Toulouse, Roma, Sevilla, Berlin, Kansas, Dallas, Toronto, Sapporo were part of Robert Allen Zimmerman’s visit calendar, a man who can be able of play a repertoire of songs in ten different ways; and that’s the transcendental part of his shows, the reason why there’s big demand of his fanatics who load and upload on Internet the audios, pictures and videos of each one of them, and, after all, the reason why the powerful validity and influence of this singer on the contemporary music is, stronger than ever.
But this side of the world seemed not to appear in the artist’s schedule. Except for furtive and amazing performances in Chile in1993, Argentina in 1998 (as an invited singer of The Rolling Stones), Mexico and Brazil; Peru seemed to be condemned to see Dylan and his Never Ending Tour from far away only. And from bad to worse, in those times when I was poor and undocumented, it would have been impossible to me even to dream of taking a plane immediately to reach my idol in some of these places.
But suddenly, in an afternoon of January 2008, everything changed. A friend from Germany gave me the new, via chat. Bob was planning a South American tour. I couldn’t believe it !!! Dylan would be close again ¡!! And there were no more words to say: I had to see him. It was now or never more.
Peru, once again was not part of this tour. And I started a media- campaign to make it know and ask shows managers to bring him here. And, although this project could not reach the results, this put over the top the fact that more people than those ten guys who form the Bob Dylan Club Peru from 2002, were thinking like me and wanted the same: to see Dylan live, to have a rock legend on stage, to be included in the world music maps. Lots of them wrote to me and supported my intention, lots of people who share with me the same taste in Dylan music, lyrics, everything.
And with those new energies, I decided to put in practice the quotation that says: if the mountain doesnt't come to Mahoma, Mahoma goes to the mountain. And this is what I would do.
I found for someone who can buy me the ticket to the show, I made a reservation for a plane ticket, opened up my money box, collected my coins from nowhere. I spent all january and february working so hard to achieve my goal. And, although Buenos Aires is a old known lady to me, anyways it was so nice to me to see it again with the musician on its stage. A good friend from this city accepted to buy me the ticket to the show and then, in that moment, I knew that all was done, for my happiness...
Second part
An antology night
Buenos Aires, march 14th, the airplane landed two hours and a half late and full of old men, women, cruing children full of handbags and packages. The exhaustion feeling was terrible and it was so hot, but the expectation matained me stood up like a tree. After having left the suitcases in the ruin-room i rented, I run to find the person who had my little treasure: my ticket to the concert of my life
Bob Dylan had performed brightly in Dallas, Guadalajara, México D:F. Sao Paulo, Rio and Santiago de Chile.The critics fell down under his enchantement, even though the master had a little bit serious with his public, cold even indifferent, but if, on the other side he gave us a high quality performance from the beginning to the end, we could forgive him all. And that was precisely that I commented with Lorena, the girl who carried in her bag my precious treasure, here in a mall in the zone called Liniers where we were killing the thirst with a very cold beer. Of course she withouth being a Dylan fan understood me: having crossed hundreds of kilometers to see Dylan live was a very high reason.
Now, with the ticket in hands, I couldn't sleep that night; the expectation was growing, I thought hardy if he opened up the show with Rainy day.... like in Mexico, if some daring girl would climb the stage to hug him, if he would do something bozarre, and the most important, if I would be close enough to see all this.
March 15th the big day. In front of the National Congress Javier was waiting for me; he was other one of the braves, from the Bob Dylan Cub Peru, who crossed South America to be in the show. Whit him and other friend, we would meet later, in a few hours, in Velez Sarsfield stadium to seeRobert Zimmerman and his howls, who changed the rock music in this late 50 years, live. It didn't matter what the rest of the world said about his voice, I loved his rough and tired yellings that made history.
Javier and me in the previous celebration to the Dylan concert.
Unforgettable Trovadour
Then continued Spirit On The Water; a discret sound of harmonic opened the song and , y you wasn't anymore in Velez Sarsfield,but in a little unknown Grenwich Village's coffee house, listening to an old bluesman between the shadowns and lights of a simple stage, giving smooth and elegants with his cavern voice, out of time. The organ solo and the guitar who showed up once more was so simple like absolute.
When everything was wrapped in a whisper, the pounding of drums announced Things Have Changed. That song is so appreciated by who writes this, and made Bob suddenly felt emboldened to run some small steps dance while playing the organ.
Then Dylan played Workingman's Blues # 2 with lyrical touches and moving us to the ground with lines such as "No man or woman knows / the time the sadness will come / In the dark I hear the night birds sing / I can hear the breathing the lover / I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the corridor / Sleep is like a temporary death ...
And almost without respite executed another great classic: Just like a woman.
He opened this song with a spectacular harmonica solo which left the audience without reaction. His voice twisted in a lamentreally deep and vibrant when he said "She makes love just like a woman" and then in the opening stanzas, all welcome, and I mean everyone in the stadium because the sound was a great echo.
El track just closed with another harmonica solo that meade me think in those old lyrics trovadours that hypnothysed with their verses ad turn the beloved one into inmortal. Unforgettable.
Honest with Me fue la siguiente. El público finalmente ya parecía enganchado, aunque conservaba sus modismos. No al loquerío ni a los gritos y silbidos destemplados. Y dejen cantar al Señor de la Pandereta. Y luego la ovación cerrada. Pero de pronto, todo se sumió de nuevo en un susurro. Bob empezó a cantarnos sobre lo ancestral, la vida y la muerte, la sabiduría que se acrecenta con la lucha... era When the Deal Goes Down; y de allí apareció otro gema: Highway 61 Revisited. Las notas que seguían a los coros me parecieron lúgubres pero sensuales a la vez, otra vez destacaba la primera guitarra soltando agudas sonatas que se interrumpían por silencios y luego volvían a sonar.
En Nettie More, ocurrió para mí, algo inpensado: a mitad de canción, el público empezó a aplaudir al compás de ella. Las ovaciones vinieron desde las tribunas y fueron seguidas por los espectadores de a pie, los que estabamos sentados y llegaron hasta los pies de Dylan quien inmutable, seguía cantando.
Summer Days venía perfectamente para el momento en que nos citábamos para ver a nuestro ídilo: una noche despejada y calurosa propia del fin del verano bonaerense, la luna brillando con todo su esplendor justo sobre el escenario, el viento que pasaba de cuando en cuando refrescándonos. Y los teclados del protagonista sonando alegres y vibrantes.
Like a Rolling Stone siguió, o apareció mas bien, como rodando, desparramándose desde el escenario hasta las butacas, pasando por el campo y entre las rendijas de las tarimas hasta el grass y luego subiendo hacia las tribunas. Nadie quedó a salvo de ella. Y aquellos embrujados ya como yo, se atrevían a cantarla y a sentirla vibrar dentro de nosotros. La performance estuvo brillante y la gente ovacionó al final de pie un buen rato.
Parecía el fin, las luces se apagaron. Pero yo sabía que eso no era todo, así que no me moví de mi asiento. A mi lado algunos comentaban las incidencias, otros compraban gaseosas, se levantaban, otros se iban. ¡Se iban ! no lo podía creer... ¿acaso no sabían que allí mismo vendría lo mejor?y claro que vino, porque ahí mismo las luces volvieron para el encore con Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again . Bob aparecía de nuevo sobrio e inmóvil frente al órgano pero ejecutando el tema con maestría junto a sus músicos que se lucieron esa noche y ante el público que se rendía y ya comenzaba a dejarse llevar, ya no se sentaron esta vez, todos de pie, continuaban con el show.
De pronto, veo delante de mí, a una rubia que lentamente comienza a avanzar por entre los pasillos formados por las filas de asientos. Todos, seguridad incluídos, mientras embelesadamente miraban al escenario, no notaron a la susodicha que atravesó el cordon que separaba la zona Vip con la Vip Gold (las primeras localidades). Entonces fue que decidí segurla, y para bien porque en un santiamén, estaba a 50 metros del escenario, junto a uno de los parlantes.
No lo podía ceer, era mi sueño hecho realidad, Bob super cerca de mí y esta vez pude verle hasta la expresión de su rostro, la franja blanca que adornaba los lados de su pantalón, sus rugosas manos arrancándole notas al órgano. Todos los de esa zona, estaban de pie, cantando y aplaudiendo ordenadamente. Un loco a mi delante era el único que bailaba. Yo lo seguí.
Luego de aquello, Dylan presentó a su banda, fue lo único que dijo al público en toda la noche, para luego deleitarnos con All Along the Watchtower. Una gigantesca banderola con el ya clásico logo Dylan del ojo servía de pared a los artistas.
Dylan cantaba y a ratos se acomodaba, ora poniendo un pie hacia atrás, ora el otro, ora reclinándose hacia un lado. Tras esta joya, tanto Bob como sus músicos se juntaron al frente como para hacer una venia respectiva, pero no se animó a decir palabra. Estuvieron casi un minuto contemplando el estadio en pleno, hasta que hicieron oídos del clamor y volvieron a sus lugares para regalarnos otro gran tema, un himno del rock llamado Blowin in the Wind. No tengo palabras para describir esa maravilla, simplemente véanla y disfrútenla.
El show terminaba y los presentes nos resistíamos a aceptarlo. Dylan y su banda, nuevamente al frente, miró a su público cautivo de lado a lado que de pie lo ovacionaba rabiosamente. Observó lentamente, primero a su derecha, luego al centro. Sus músicos murmuraban. De pronto se fijó en mi zona. Allí la gente aplaudía, silbaba y pedía más. Todos de pie, pero nadie sobre las sillas ni haciendo más aspaviento que eso. Entonces yo comencé a dar saltos y a agitar los brazos, a llamarlo. Tenía un bolso de cartón en la mano donde estaba mi polo del show. Con éste, le hacía señas. ¿Acaso tenía alguna chance de ser vista entre los 10 mil o 15 mil asistentes?.
Sin embargo lo que a continuación diré no es un producto del delirio porque vi que Dylan detuvo una fracción de segundos su "paneo" visual que iba de vuelta al centro del escenario, para mirar de nuevo hacia mi zona, hacia mí. Era simplemente mi delirio. Y no había nadie más que yo saltando como loco, haciendo señas y descollando entre la multitud, me volteé luego para asegurarme de ello. Todos estaban solamente aplaudiendo.
Y así fue el final de una gran noche, una velada perfecta e inolvidable para quien vivía por primera vez una experiencia de esa naturaleza, y para quien haya tenido la suerte de repetirla, porque significó ver allí a un hombre discreto y sencillo de sombrero y traje frente a mí y saber que tienes frente a ti, al mismo tiempo, a quien revolucionó la música contemporánea, quien se atrevió a desafiar a los puristas en Newport con una guitarra eléctrica, quien fue el primero en atreverse a salir maquillado como un mimo en una gira multitudinaria, quien ganó el Principe de Asturias, y doctorados Honoris Causa en muchas Universidades del mundo, quien infuenció a los Beatles y a tantas otras figuras del rock, quien es nominado al premio Nobel desde hace más de diez años, y finalmente, quien es una leyenda viviente de la música que hizo historia.
A night that, no doubt about,I will never forget que nunca olvidaré.
The tickets to Bob Dylan shows in Argentina and Chile is already on sale. Theres no indications, until now, about how to buy them online, this operation can be done only inside their territories. Here the prices:
Chile ( San Carlos de Apoquindo Stadium)
Tickets on sale from tuesday january 22nd de with 20% off if yo u buy with Ripley Card, throug PuntoTicket system:
campo vip 1 a 380 pesos, campo vip 2 a 330 pesos, campo vip 3 a 280 pesos, platea baja preferencial a 220 pesos, platea baja a 170 pesos, platea alta a 90 pesos general con acceso a campo a 75 pesos.
Errased from the artistic and musical map, here it is a resumé about who pass only next to us
Carla Vanessa
For a reason or another, or maybe for the same reason (we are not business place for big artists) Peru is always outside of the cultural map of the world. When an importantsinger or band looks to South America to plan a visit, they only see Mexico, Argentina, Brasil and sometimes Chile, like possible places to perform. Curiously the countries who form the Andian region are put aside.
Here is a list of artist / groups who have come only nex to Peru. Maybe you, dear readers, can complete it:
U2 (and with an embarrassing story ; the showed in their big screens, in a concert in Buenos Aires, a list with all south American countries, with their flags and all, except Peru)
Paul Mc Cartney Queen Coldplay Rod Stewart (he cancelled at last minute) Michael Jackson (personally i hate his music but I include him because he represent the pop music and culture of the 80s – also cancelled at last minute)The Rolling Stones Bob Dylan (He came to Chile in a anti – Pinochet concert in 1993, in a Rolling Stone tour as invited artist in Buenos Aires, 1998m and If my memory doesn’t fail me, performed in a Rock in Rio concert).
Bob Dylan the great american songwiter has trascended the limits of the music. Nominated to the Nobel Prize of Literature and winner of Principe de Asturias Prize, Dylan has mixed song and poetry in a masterpiece that determinate thesentimental educationof millions of people. Also he has been a reflex of a spirit of an era that looks for the answers in the wind.
Dylan is not only a musician and songwirte but a poet and writer and his lyrics became in a catalyzer of the social concerns of America in the 60s and wascrownded as one ofthe referents of the pop culture in the last fifty years.
Bob Dylan will start a south American tour and Peru can’t miss that chance. The fans of Bob Dylan in Peru are more than thousands of people. The point is that, this people have a good cultural formation, lots of them are opinión leaders and selective with their musical choices.I t’s true that Bob Dylan is not a massive artist here, but he can gather a lot of people who will be ready to pay even to hear some words from him. Let’snot forget that he is a living legend of the folk rock.
We won’t haveanother Dylan and maybe Peru won’t have another chance to have him in our stages, singing and playing his wonderful lyrics: God hear to us and bring us the great Bob
A soft voice, an angelic face sided by black curles and a thin body appears to take the next turn: is Connor Lamphier, and almost-encarnation of that shy Robert Zimmerman who went to the Greenwich Village to make his first steps in the 60’s. And "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" was what he sang.
