Dylan is a revelation all the time.
Right or wrong, good or bad the experience might be, there's always
something different you can smell in the air.
Yesterday it was revelation.
Because I finally understood three things I had never realized so clearly
before.
  1.. Live Concerts (especially big ones) are not my cup of tea
  2.. Dylan is an artist, not a rock singer/performer/entertainer
  3.. Bands are important as couches in soccer (nought, that is)
Stra (no accent/stress on the only wowel, american friends, no Strà, simply
Stra) was quite indifferent to the event.
The streets were crowded with the same people of an ordinary crowded Friday
Evening, at least further on up to Villa Pisani entrance.
Lots of people there, yes, but still a tidy queue.
................*Maria Sharapova is in Wimbledon finals, how old is
she?........................*.I don't know exactly, sure she's such a
cutie*....................... *I got my *patentino* finally, yesterday the
police almost caught me hands in the cake.*.....................
These people look really young, sure younger than me,
hey, where's my generation?
Well, on the other hand, if one happened to be 40 when Blowin' In The Wind
was released, now he has good chance of being knock knock knockin' on heaven
's door.
Life sometimes must get lonely even though somewhere in this universe there'
s always a place you can call home.
But Stra's no home today for us, it seems.
The weather has been inclement for the whole day and it doesn't look it
feels like making exceptions for BobDylan.
So the people start gather round the place before the flood, the gig kicks
off in a hard rain, it gets halfway in the drizzling rain and when the night
comes falling from the sky we go home soaked wet and starving, to boot,
unless one had felt so naive to get a sandwich and a beer for 20 euro, as if
we were in a Danieli Hotel Room
We used to say that Stra is a little Venice, we knew we know better!

The songs?
Well, the usual.
Some *nashville skyline* tired numbers, some *time out of mind* ordinarily
displayed numbers, some
*i -want-to-choose-the-worst-song-out-of-that-masterpiece-album* numbers
like *most likely* and *seeing the real you* and some scattered good things
like *I Believe In You*, in spite of the chorus in which Dylan is replaced
by Leonard Cohen, the acoustic moving rendition of *Girl of the North
Country* and the honestly unchanged L&T songs and some bad things as *If
Dogs Run Free* where it's really difficult to understand what Dylan finds so
attractive in this bored faked-jazz arrangement.
The first sign of oncoming revelation comes in with *Summer Days*
Stu Kimball has revitalized the stage, I know
Freddie Koella did not groove with this band, i know i know.
But I know also a bad solo from a good solo and the solos I heard in Stra
were mostly of the first type, both when played by Campbell and when played
by the new guitarist *in person*.
And the band had already lost the pace several times, during *honest with
me*, and *cold irons bound*, for instance; and before the end of the show
they'd do even worse on *forever young* and *watchtower* with some real
*outtimes* badly masked by Campbell_Garnier_Dylan winkings.
So what?
I'll tell you what: Kimball's solo in *Summer Days* was one of the greatest
I ever heard.
Hope the bootleg won't let me down, but I'm postive it won't.
Ok , I said a great solo, what's the fuss?
I don't know exactly, but I feel there's something different in *this* solo.
But at the moment I still didn't know exactly.
Ok, let's move on: a pleasantly unexpected *forever young* before the
*lars/watchtower* closing number and then we fold our soaked rain jackets
and walk away.
We're still in the playfield when one of my friends asks me:
*How comes he did LARS that awful way? I couldn't singalong to it!*
*That's why Dylan is not Vasco Rossi* (awful italian rocker)
And here came the ultimate revelation.
That is exactly the point, how could I possibly have not realized it before?
Dylan is no Vasco Rossi, Dylan is not *a* performer, otherwise he would know
*how* to perform his songs to make them *enjoyable*
Dylan is not a *great* singer, otherwise he couldn't accept to sing *I
Believe in You* one octave lower than it is.
Dylan is an artist, period!
And a  real artist is much more than a performer, much more than a painter
or a sculptor or a singer.
An artist doesn't even know  what kind of an artist he is and what he's
doing, most of the times.
Like Leonardo drawing his *Uomo Vetruviano* or Joyce writing *Ulysses*
Is Ulysses a novel, Uomo Vetruviano a picture, Dylan a poet?
Artists are not even aware of the greatness of what they do, like Beethoven
or Maradona.
So why should I demand *awareness* from  Bob Dylan?
It'd be like going to meet DaVinci and asking him *Excuse me, sir, could you
just draw a picture of me right now?*
*I don't do sketches from memory*, I hear someone suggesting me he would
say.
It'd be like going to watch McEnroe playing an exhibition and complaining
because he hasn't played the very same point he scored in the glorious
tiebreak of Wimbledon '80.
Dylan has scored his glorious points already, he does not need to reiterate
them , because they aren't *ordinary* points; even if they aren't played
twice, it's alright!
The magic of *Like A Rolling Stone* cannot be reproduced, because it's real
art, full of roughness, inaccuracies and improvisations but real art.
Otherwise it wouldn't  be *Like A Rolling Stone*, it would be *Tell Your Ma
Tell Your Pa Our Love Is Growing Strong Whoo Ah Whoo Ah*

So thank you for another ordinary concert, Dylan.
This time I won't tell my friends as I usually do: *good gig, but his voice
is not the same*
This time I know better; I'll tell them. *You don't have an opinion on
Beethoven's Ninth when you listen to Muti directing the Ninth, you can just
ask me about Muti's direction. I went to see five guys performing the work
of one the greatest artist of this century; one of them happened to be the
very author*
And paraphrasing one of RMD reviewers, now I know why I don't go so often to
see Bob Dylan. .
Because Dylan  doesn't need to be *seen*, he needs to be *got*
And I got it.
I already got it.
I got Desire, Hard Rain and Blood on The Tracks.
Desire is on the Cd player right now while Maria Sharapova is winning
Wimbledon finals.
Beauty and Art
Perfection.
I could go out and buy some yoghourt ice-cream to go with it, and then I
could die happy.
But I'm too lazy to go out, so I'll stick to Dylan and Sharapova and carry
on living 'till God knows.