the constant skeptic

Well,

upon our arrival at Merriweather, we parked got out, and I stuffed my video camera down my pants, and slipped the strap through my belt so that it would be held suspended and not fall down my pant leg as we walked into the arena.

Not only were there signs that said NO PHOTOGRAPHY OR VIDEO at the winding entrance, but there were three or four ‘workers’ shouting as the throng moved, ‘DON’T EVEN TRY IT, IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING THAT CAN RECORD OR TAKE PICTURES, LEAVE IT IN YOUR CAR’…. I was surprised at the level of brutality in their voices… but I guess electronic devices could be bombs, so from a homeland security perspective this made sense, until I saw the professional cinematographers  setup with their uber equiptos probably making a DVD to sell on Columbia Records website and in your favorite starbucks…. so that is why they didn’t want people bootlegging…. ahhh corporate protective measures, now that makes more sense.

First and Second Acts:

Amos Lee was first on; he and his band were actually very good, a cross between Traveling Wilburys and Bob Seger. I wished I could have taken pictures, but since we had front row seats to the right front of the stage, we were being eagle-eyed by security constantly… I couldn’t unzip my pants without them taking notice as to whether I was going to take a pis or pull out some equipment for some nefarious activity.

Either way, Elvis Costello was up next, and it was the first time I had ever listened to his songs, and I can say he was impressive. It was just him and his full bodied acoustic. His slapstick picking style and bellowing voice did wonders for my ear drums. I noticed the scale of the stage to this round faced man and the support structure of lights and wires. It was intermission after an hour of his music and Dylan anticipation was high.

Food note:

Food at the Merriweather was extensive. That is a good word for it. Besides the regular carnival fare, like fries, burgers, beer, etc.. there was also crab cakes, shrimp on a stick, and even sushi. We had a few margaritas and some fries and that was it.

Bobby….

Disappointing right from the start as this bumbling slight man rattled off the first song and played some chords with HEAVY backup guitar from his three other guitarists and bass player. This was the only song he used his guitar on, the rest of the night he stayed sideways on the keyboard and let his ‘band’ do all the heavy lifting while he mumbled incomprehensible lyrics. All I caught was ‘desolaatiioon rooowww’. The rest of the song sounded like a bluesy version of a pop song with mumbles like ‘gita go and thisaway’ and ‘higersumboygofreeshum’ which was mumbled fast into the mike and whispered, not sung. So that was disappointing.

It was neat to see that he still had some sort of strange stage presence of a quasi-cool cat in his zoot suit and flat top hat. He stayed classy, and the seats were great so can’t really complain about this once in a lifetime experience. I just wish he would have played more of his classics instead of just ‘desolation row’ and ‘blowin’ in the wind’, both of which were strange jazzy versions that were whispered way too fast and off tempo from the original. Apparently he played masters of war, but it was so jazzy I couldn’t tell.

It appears almost scary that maybe Columbia Records is keeping Bobby alive to milk another tour out of him before he fades away into the long goodbye. A videomentary is coming out in theaters about him, I posted the youtube preview previously here.

To get some more opinions from the concert go to this thread here….

Overall, the emperor of folk rock has lost his voice… sorry America. Another great lost into the hazy twilight. Who will rise up to replace him to speak to this generation?