On Tuesday night my buddy Buzzard and I went to the Mark Knopfler and Bob Dylan concert at Rexall Plave here in Edmonton. This was my third time seeing Mark Knopfler in concert, once with his old band Dire Straits and twice solo and my tenth time seeing Bob Dylan in concert, and second time this year seeing Bob.
With Mark Knopfler opening the show, the crowd of 6000 were for the most part seated early. Knopfler is touring for his most recent album Privateering. So we were going to be sure to hear some new stuff on this night. Mark had an eight piece band backing him up that included, violin,keyboard,flute,whistles,stand up bass and such. I found his set to be celtic influenced, which would have gone over better in a soft seat venue or at a folk fest setting, at the Coliseum I was hoping for a more rocking set. Knopfler closed his 75 minute set with the only Dire Straits song of the evening with 'So Far Away'.
Here is something you will never hear or see at a Bob Dylan show, a sing-a-long. One reason being that a lot of people have no idea what the hell he is singing, and the other is that Dylan never plays or sings a song the same way twice nor does he play the same set twice. Bob has a new album out called Tempest that was just released this summer, I was hoping to hear maybe a few new songs, but nothing from the album was played on this night. Dylan opened the show with the song 'Watching The River Flow' in which you could understand him sing. Having seen Dylan so many times and being such a fan, I knew what to expect, which is the unexpected. Dylan did one song that I had no idea what it was. After checking his website, I now know that it was a Gordon Lightfoot song called 'Shadows'. Bob only played the guitar once during the show and that was for the song 'Tangled Up In Blue'. Dylan did stand for three songs in a row, playing the harmonica and singing in his raspy voice. The rest of the night saw Bob at the grand piano. Sometimes it takes half a song to figure out what it is that Bob is playing, but that's what makes a Dylan show so interesting. The stage was very dimly lit for him, which made it hard to take a decent picture, also there were to be no pictures taken at the show, and security were doing their best at enforcing it too.
The seats I had for the show sucked, so I decided I was going to try and get closer to the stage. That's when I ran into someone I know that works at the Coliseum, well he was nice enough to upgrade me to the players bench, which were damn good seats. For the last song of the night, which was 'Blowin' In The Wind' I went to the upper section and tried to get a few pictures from up there. All and all a good evening of music. And for those that walked out on the Dylan show complaining, well you obviously know very little about how Bob Dylan performs, he rocks to the beat of his own drum. Both bands did a 75 minute set. Good times!!!
Bob Dylan setlist for the Edmonton show.
Watching The River Flow
Love Minus Zero, No Limit
Things Have Changed
Tangled Up In Blue
John Brown
Mississippi
Summer Days
Nettie Moore
Highway 61 Revisited
Shadows
Thunder On The Mountain
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Like A Rolling Stone
All Along The Watchtower
Blowin' In The Wind
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