Bob Dylan at UMass

I was thrilled to hear Bob Dylan and his band tonight at the University of Massachusetts.

I had never heard him in concert, though he has been a favorite of mine since the 1960s. It's a bit late, I concede, but nevertheless an impressive and moving experience. Dyland's voice was incredibly gravelly, and barely intelligible. Yet the band played marvelously, with a constantly varying set of beats. They played a number of familiar songs, though they sounded utterly different (nothing new there). I adore the harmonica on his early acoustic recordings--fortunately he did play it every so often tonight--holding it against a mike, but in an almost staccato style.

We sat considerably to the left (fortunately not on the other side), and so this view is looking across the stage, with Dylan playing at the keyboard (as he did for a fair part of the evening). I have to say I most enjoyed some of the purely instrumental passages, but then again it all came together for a couple of the oldies--"It's a Hard Rain," and "A Rolling Stone."