Bob Dylan Concert Reviews: Clipper Magazine Stadium, Lancaster, PA, 19 June 2005
It was night of the living morons at Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster.
It was night of the living morons at Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster. And I had trepidations about going for many reasons. Not the least of those reasons was the Camden show was so good and so much fun. But someone made me an offer I couldn't refuse and so it was off to Lancaster to this stadium buried somewhere in the middle of this Pennsylvania city. And everything went smooth, the ride out, finding the place, finding the people we were looking for, it all worked out.
Well, it all worked out until I went to get inside. This was one of those places were the women went in one side of the entrance and the men went in another. Well, the security guy looks at me and says, "No pens." "No pens? You must be kidding." Nope, no pens. Well that was almost enough to make me turn around right there. Now keep in mind the previous show was in Camden, New Jersey. Camden, New Jersey is not a nice place. You basically don't want to get out of your car in most parts of Camden. You don't even want to be in Camden. Camden's a good place to be if you like to get shot. But at Campbell's Stadium in Camden, there was no boy's and girl's line. There was no search or pat down. In fact, you were actually greeted by very friendly people who told you to have a good time. But I went inside and someone else had a pen. I'd heard of no binoculars, and all kinds of no's to bring to concerts, but no pens took the cake.
Well we finally found some stairs that actually led down to the field and there in the middle of the crowd was some guy with an easel and paints - and I couldn't bring in a ball point pen. So we started the trek to find some sort of vantage point to the right of the stage and it quickly became apparent we were in the middle of the loudest, most drunken, annoying and downright stupid group of people I've ever encountered anytime anywhere. I started thinking about how some people say, "Well, Pennsylvania, there's Philly and there's Pittsburgh and then there's the hellhole of your choice in between and suddenly it became quite clear why Rick Santorum and Arlen Single Bullet Theory Spector are the senators and why this country is in the shape it's in.
There were the tumblers and the rumblers and the prancers and the dancers, and then there was the 21st Century Acid Casualty who probably wasn't 20 and had a huge knapsack on his back complete with one of those foam things sticking out that you put a sleeping bag on, and I couldn't bring in a pen. The acid casualty would scream every so often at the top of his lungs while jumping up and down, and when he wasn't doing that, would mumble loudly to no one in particular things like "cell phones, radiation" and other pleasantries, while also jumping up and down. We managed to get away from him. But it didn't matter because there were hundreds more just like him and I started remembering that Lancaster ain't all that far from where 3 Mile Island went down and you know that stuff gets in the air, and there were those three-headed goats and stuff. The Greencards came on and said the exact same things they said in Camden about how good looking the crowd was. I decided they were annoying, and it didn't make any difference because you couldn't hear them anyway.
Willie Nelson's announcer came on promoting Willie's book "that he wrote himself," Willie's two or three latest albums that aren't out yet and Willie's "Dukes of Hazard" movie, and threw some CDs into the crowd. Some woman kept picking up beer bottles and tossing them over to where the security guys were supposed to be, but they weren't there. I guess they were in the crowd looking for ball point pens.
The announcer came on and introduced Willie Nelson and just like in Camden, no one took the stage. Ten or 15 minutes later, Willie's band came on followed by Willie, with sister Bobbie back on piano, which I already figured out because there was a grand piano onstage, but more importantly no kids. No Lucas, no Micah, which may have been why Lucas got to jam with Bob Dylan three nights before. But it didn't make any difference to the crowd that Willie Nelson was onstage except that they could talk louder and hoop 'n' holler, and push and shove some more and climb on people's shoulders.
They barely knew what song he was singin' except for to answer the god awful "Beer For My Horses" thing he keeps including in his shows and oh yeah, this girl behind found it necessary to shout "Georgia" at the top of her lungs when Willie did "Georgia On My Mind." Basically he did the same set he did in Camden, though it wasn't anywhere near as good, the main difference being that the instrumental, "Down Yonder" was back so sister Bobbie could show off her piano style which basically reminds me of grade school assemblies where whatever teacher could play piano did on the hymns or patriotic tunes or whatever they forced you to sing in assemblies in grade school.
So finally Bob Dylan and his band come out and this time he's wearing a white cowboy hat with the sides of the brim rolled up so it kind of looks like a hot dog in a roll on his head and he's into "Tombstone Blues." And he's kind of snarling and growing it out, and I was hoping he'd kind of do what some people refer to as "the wolfman" so like maybe some of these people would just leave and Dylan fans would emerge and all of a sudden it's the John the Baptist and Commander in Chief verse and Bob is nailing it and there's no doubting the sneer in his voice when he sings, "The commander in chief answers him while chasing a fly."
"Lay Lady Lay" came next and it was okay and Donnie Herron is not taking his eyes off Bob while he's playing the all important steel part and Bob's voice is starting to hint at the wolfman and I think somewhere in there he laughed at something and Denny Freeman is kind sticking in these rhythmic jazz fills near the end that maybe sort of work, and then it's into "God Knows" which was okay. And then came what should have been a highlight, "Visions of Johanna" with Donnie on electric mandolin but this audience doesn't know what "Visions of Johanna is." Not only that, it doesn't know what visions means and it never heard of no Johanna. And Dylan's up there singing about the all night ladies and escapades on the D Train and people are talking and talking and looking at their cell phones and somewhere in there the upsinging has begun, and then Donnie takes this solo on the electric mandolin and he's got something turned up somewhere because there's a lot of sustain and a bit of distortion and it's definitely on the way to be being sort of Hendrixian mandolin and then Dylan comes center stage for a harp solo and the song ends.
They then tried to get things moving with "Most Likely You Go Your Way" and Kimball's got a cool sound happening on his Strat but when they go into the bridge, something somewhere isn't quite right and then Denny takes a solo and they're back into the bridge and something ain't quite right again and Bob comes to center stage for a harp solo. They then went into "Million Miles" in sort of half jazz/half blues arrangement that's been happening for the last whatever and the band is nailing it and it would have been great in some smokey jazz club but not in a baseball stadium with a field full of morons who insist on being so close to each other that you don't have room to lift your arms to clap.
This led into "Memphis Blues Again" and Dylan is in full speed ahead growl mode and the band is kind of doing this semi bossa nova beat and Denny's doing these jazz fills and he takes this solo that just had nothing to do with anything, but the pay to get out of going through all these things twice really rings clear in my brain along with that this song just has never come close to the studio version ever. "Trying To Get To Heaven" came next and one guy who was right at the front, who I've seen at a few other shows knows what song it is, but this version is upsinging supreme with whip cream and cherries and nuts and chocolate syrup on top. The only line that is sung, well the way the melody kind of usually goes is before they close the door at least for the first couple of verses, but then suddenly it's before they close the DOOR. And this idea comes into my mind that maybe this starts to happen when Dylan thinks the audience isn't paying attention or he just doesn't like them, because he started this show laughing and smiling and he's not exactly doing that now.
"Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" came next and one of the best things about it was Stu Kimball started doing these Robbie Robertson 1966 guitar breaks. This led to a positively dismal "Positively 4th Street" and well, it was kind of like Dylan's voice was like a seesaw and every time the end of the line appeared that ol' seesaw went up, "You've got a lot of NERVE, to say you are my FRIEND and so on throughout the whole song. Then came this piano thing that I should have recognized except the woman behind me decided to forget totally how to act in public, but the person with me said, "New Morning" and sure enough it was and it rescued the night briefly, with Herron playing what once was the Al Kooper French horn part on lap steel, and Dylan is deciding to really sing and suddenly he's really there for the line "this must be the day that all of my dreams come true." And then they started "Summer Days" and I have to find the other person I'm giving a ride to, and my car is way in the back of some hideous parking lot that appeared to have one tiny exit and we kind of hear the beginnings of "The Times They Are A-Changin'" as we exit the stadium and even though it was a pretty long walk to the car, we were gone thankfully before "Watchtower" started. I sure was glad to get out of there alive.