I just finished watching Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorcese. O, what a role that man has played in my life (Dylan, not Scorcese)! I used to tell my creative writing students that someday our society would look upon Dylan’s body of work the way we do Shakespeare now. Hyperbole, certainly, although he did win a Nobel Prize for Literature. But I don’t want to write about Dylan—I want to write about live music.
I came from a non-musical family—we didn’t create, but we did listen. My parents liked Broadway musicals, and me and my siblings know all the words to lots of them. Listening to us sing them (we’ve done that a few times on hikes) is definitely not a live music experience. My first memorable live music event was listening to a high school guy play guitar and sing around the campfire at a neighborhood block party in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania—turned out to be Jim Croce. I thought he was supercool before I even knew who he was.
Music exploded into my consciousness in the late ‘60’s, and, like everyone else, I wanted to see it while I heard it. Unfortunately, I was a poor young man with no fiscal sense, very little ambition, and poor job prospects. But I could save and scrape for the occasional special performance. My only claim to fame as a concert-goer in the Age of Aquarius is that I did get to see the dead ones: Janis and Jimi and Jim Morrison of the Doors. Through the years I’ve made it to a number of concerts, but the number isn’t large and it doesn’t seem to be growing. The last stadium I went to was to see Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp and Bob Dylan (Diamond Dell Park in Austin)—Bob was terrible, John was a true performer, and Willie was Willie. I won’t do stadium concerts anymore.
See, I’m doing it too. One of my objections to the big concert scene is the prestige factor. Is the biggest motivation to go just to say you went? Is your t‑shirt more valuable than the memory? I hope it’s my faulty judgment, but I’ve heard people talk about who they’ve seen at what venue as if it provides a boost to their self-esteem—like I just did.
It’s the curmudgeon in me. The real reason I don’t go to live music anymore is that I’m uncomfortable in crowds, I like recliners better than fold-up chairs, I don’t like smoke (are concerts still smoky?), and I don’t like to drive at night. My idea of a great concert is Austin City Limits on PBS. I am old, I am old, I shall wear my trousers rolled…T.S. Eliot said that.
But the Rolling Thunder Revue reminded me of something. There’s a chauffeur driving one of the musicians, and the documentarian is interviewing the chauffeur about the previous night’s concert. The guy admits he’s never gone to a rock music concert before, but he plans to go to more now. He says “…I thought it was a most unusual occurrence—I never noticed as a part of the audience..I never paid attention to a response between the audience and the people on the stage—that to me was a show by itself. It was like one battery charging another. You not only could feel the vibes, you could almost see them. There was a love affair between the performers and the audience…” I have known that feeling—and it was a sublimely wonderful experience.
Back in my hippie days, six or eight of us would gather in my friend Charlie Baum’s apartment. Charlie had a friend named Dan who wrote songs, played guitar and sang. We’d smoke some pot and Dan would start playing. There were no separate conversations or cellphones or any of that. We would just listen. His songs were riotous and satirical and insightful and uplifting. Old Dan remains high on my list of favorite live music events.
The true joy of live music is the connection—the artist and the audience. I guess that’s the same with any art—except that live music is different. There it is a shared experience—one nurtured by both sides. I think I will try to catch a few more concerts after all…maybe.
What?!? Then come see Jamestown with me in Aspen!