Rainy Day Dylan No. 11

This could be the last time
Baby the last time, I don’t know
-Rolling Stones

The last time I was in the Midland Theater aside from last night was to see Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, and, if I may indulge you all for a bit, it was there that at the literal height of the Sugarplum Fairy’s pas de deux some fool’s cell phone went off. Tickets have always been pricy at the Midland probably because of its exquisite décor which sadly is in a state of deterioration: Ragged seat backs, dusty chandeliers, crowded aisles and passageways, and seats crammed under some acoustically challenging architecture. The dusty construction around the theater caused some concern as access to the event was only allowed from two directions, but all of this “wrecking ball” ambience, as one writer for last night’s concert alluded to, fit the occasion just fine. Merle Haggard’s dusty old crew and Dylan’s dusty old songs melded right into the building and the crowd.
Merle’s set justified the price of the ticket as the man from Bakersfield played pure country gold. His sound engineer hit the acoustics just right bringing out the vintage characteristics of his voice and the country charm of his band, The Strangers. A couple of times during the set he would stop the band cold and say something to the audience. “Wait a minute, fellas, wait a minute. Hey I want all you people to know that we are an old bar band and we aren’t used to playing this early. Where are all the drunks? I haven’t even had my orange juice yet. OK fellas, start over.” He has a lot of drinking songs and those are ostensibly fun to hear until you absorb the sadness and reality of what he is singing about. “I think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink” and “Working Man’s Blues” were good but my favorite of the night was “Going Where The Lonely Go.” Merle and the Strangers got a standing ovation and “As Time Goes By” was as fitting an encore as any.
Bob should have hired Merle’s sound tech because it was obvious that his own was as acoustically challenged as the daunting cavern the Midland presents to those who must try to satisfy each and every ear. Sometimes the sound was clear and Dylan’s voice or harp or keyboard would penetrate every space and sometimes it was muddy and you had to struggle to recognize the song at first and then continue to struggle along with it. It must have been nearly impossible for those who were not familiar with the songs to even begin to appreciate them in this venue. The young mullet-headed man next to me slumped in his seat for most of the night while his ‘50 ish parents sang along with most of the songs.
There was a strange situation with the stage setup and Bob could possibly have billed this one as Bob Dylan and the Stranger, the Stranger being Stu Kimball. Picture the stage as a rectangle with Denny Freeman, Tony Garnier, George Recile, and Donny Herron on the back side with Bob in front of Donny, the six of them in a relatively tight grouping. Now picture Stu up front in the corner, stage left, by himself several feet away from Bob. His monitors are turned toward him and away from the rest of the band. He is playing rhythm guitar all night, watching Donny take nearly all of the leads and rarely getting the nod from Bob. At one point my rider, an astute musician in her own right, says to me, “Somebody is seriously out of tune.” Stu is then seen furiously trying to tune his guitar, stomping on the foot control and shutting down twice before literally throwing the guitar into the rack and grabbing another. He was obviously distressed. Was this a setup, could he have picked up the wrong guitar? Who knows, but I will venture to make a bet that he does not finish this current tour with the band. The weird thing was that he was so very out of tune but nobody in the band, Bob included, acknowledged the fact.
Before the encore, Bob introduced each band member in a sing-songy fashion and at the standing ovation brought them all back out to acknowledge the accolades of the crowd and giving a thumb’s up before exheunt stage right. For me it was a good concert, not a great one, and, who knows, this could be the last one.

Stephen Darjeeling
Louisburg KS