Day: July 5, 2007

Categories
Concert Reviews

Review: Bob Dylan – Bluesfest

Onto some important stuff…like the actual show!

I don’t know much Bob Dylan songs…just the hits really. We all were pretty worried about the set as we had heard he tends to mumble and doesn’t have much stage presence at all.

After navigating the gauntlet which was the crowd of lawn chairs, we ended up losing the entire crew and Karilee and I made our way through the crowd. This required some ingenuity on our part – her leading the pack as I had my giant backpack with me and when I got to a point where people wouldn’t let me go by, I would just point her out and said that she was my girlfriend. A little fib here and there brings me a long way through a crowd.

On my way there, there was a taller fellow who had stopped in front of me and we were trying to figure out how to get a little further.

Lady with her lawn chair (to the tall guy): Hey! I’ve been here 5 hours and now you’re blocking my perfectly good view!
Tall Guy: Sorry! We’ll be on our way.

Because there was a holdup of people in front of us, we couldn’t walk ahead yet…

Lady with the lawn chair: Hey, come on! I paid good money for these tickets! Get the hell out of my view!
Tall Guy (who was trying to be polite and finally lost it): Hey lady! Guess what? You’ve been here 5 hours but I showed up 30 minutes ago and look who has the better view!

I had a good laugh at this and at that point the crowd got moving again so we could go on our merry way.

We ended in the middle of the crowd after 45 minutes of navigating through the crowd. It was a nice spot we found – one with some room to move around in (surprisingly).

I was impressed with the show. Whoever said anything bad about Bob Dylan was wrong. He sang clearly but there wasn’t much stage banter going on. I recognized the classics – Like a Rolling Stone, Masters of War (!!!) and All Along the Watchtower as the closing track.

Setlist: (taken from this site):

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
Watching The River Flow
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
Girl of the North Country
Rollin’ and Tumblin’
When The Deal Goes Down
Honest With Me
Spirit on the Water
Tangled Up in Blue
Masters of War
Highway 61 Revisited
Like a Rolling Stone
—-
Thunder on the Mountain
All Along The Watchtower

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Uncategorized

Bon Voyage!

Recollecting my thoughts to July 1st…

I awoke to a haze of disarray as I realized that Vero was leaving today. Uh…this sucks. But at the same time, a relief since we managed to score a couple of nights at a hostel.

I think Vero and Brad left with these romantic notions of Europe and thought they would backpack across Europe and camp everywhere. While this is an awesome idea, sometimes it can’t be the case unless you either a) Camp outside of the city or b) Sleep in a city park. 😉

Who am I kidding, I had these same notions before going to Europe. In our culture, Europe is hyped up to be some magical wonderland. I’m not saying it isn’t cool, it is! But it’s just like everything else in a way – it still has cities, there’s still maps to follow and you still pay to get around.

ANYHOW, I spent the better part of the day listening to the new Pumpkins album which had leaked that day on ‘The Net’. EXCITEMENT! 7 years since their last album…it is killer.

Vero came over and we watched the bungee jumping video and did some errands before picking up some St. Hubert before heading to the airport.

The airport was pretty well dead and we hung out there for an hour before she decided to go to the security checkpoint. Random memory – someone taking a picture of their friend in front of the checkpoint and the security guy coming out and telling them to leave. Woops!

Seeing Vero was hard but it wasn’t until she actually went through the checkpoint and I couldn’t see her that it kinda hit home for me. I think all along while she was leaving I was putting up this reassuring exterior to myself so that she wouldn’t freak out too much. I would be freaking out if I were in her shoes…so I just put on my ‘It’s going to be alright” hat for the time being. But as soon as she was gone all her fears kind of set in upon my mind and I was thinking “Holy mackerel! She’s going to Europe!”

It wasn’t until I got an email from her a few days later saying she was alright that everything settled back down in my mind. Now all I’m thinking about is how I’m sitting in an office all day, going to school at night, while she gets to explore a different country. JEALOUS!

After the airport, I headed over to Carrie’s where a game of Family Feud was going on. We then headed out to the karaoke bar which ended up being CLOSED (on Canada Day!) so we headed over to Local Heroe’s where we played a few games of pool (where we all won by default. We suck) and I had a decent montreal smoked meat sandwich. Highlight of the night included me dropping the cue on the edge of the table and it smacked me right in the nose. The guys had a good laugh at that!

After that, we cabbed it home once again and the next day we moseyed around the house until Eric showed up and we filmed my school project all day long. We said goodbye to the guests around 3PM as the caravan brought all our vehicles back from Carrie’s place. We managed to finish up filming around 8PM that night. I’d like to send a shout out to Mike, Annie and Eric for helping out during the day of filming. So far, I’m would say I’m 80% done done the project which is pretty good since it’s due in a week from now. All I need is a few academic narratives and think about the need for a soundtrack.