Melanie [] and I saw Bob, as in Dylan, last week at White River State Park, downtown Indy.  Many of you know that I adore Dylan, although I would argue that I am a mere fan compared to some bob-obsessed fanatics that I have met.  I went into the situation knowing that Bob is old, he’s kind of ragged, and he has a tendency to change all of his older songs beyond recognition.  He was all of those things.  But he’s also Bob fuckin’ Dylan.

On paper, the setlist looked AMAZING.  Some of it was — like, “Lay Lady Lay,” and “All Along the Watchtower” were pretty cool.  “I Shall Be Released” was totally unexpected and fantastic, and I had forgotten how I liked “Nettie Moore” off the new album.  But then you have songs that you don’t recognize until a couple minutes in, like “It Ain’t Me Babe.”   And Melanie and I looked at each other and gasped when we discovered Bob was singing “It’s Alright Ma (I’m only bleeding),”  ONLY because he mumbled “It’s alright ma,” albeit barely audibly.  The theme seemed to be this: any song that was originally slower (like It’s Alright Ma) was done uptempo…any song that was originally fast (Tangled Up in Blue) was played slowly, moodier.

Then again, my favorite Bob phase is the cheeky asshole-Dylan of the Don’t Look Back era, where he was a total dick.  Bob Dylan is not the type of guy whose going to play the songs you want to hear, the way you want to hear them.  He’s not going to indulge you in a sing-along of Highway 61 Revisited. That just wouldn’t do.