Bob Dylan was photographed in another enigmatic ‘backstage’ outfit.
And the only things missing were his leopard skin boots.
His white Godfather-style Homburg was angled to look rakish and a little roguish, his white T-shirt emblazoned the message Godspeed to You across his skinny chest, black too-long baggy pants flapped like black crows around his legs.
And he finished off the impromptu fashion show with a pair of battered lace-up working man boots.
Somebody had actually brought him his boots and shoes… but his Leopard skin boots would have gone far better with that hat…
His gait too – strong, striding-out and determined – belied his deliberately (I think!) doddery appearance at the beginning of his post-covid Rough and Rowdy Ways tour in America.
Right at the beginning, last November in Milwaukee, he held on to his piano for support and looked unsteady on his feet as he crept towards the centre stage mic. He was often bent in the middle, his white David Burn jacket was too big … but juxtaposition was in the air.
Bob was presenting a new voice to the world. He was singing like a good’n, like the musical maestro he is.
Bob, 81 years old, was also using ancient stage techniques. His face, in the first half started to take on a Mephistophelian quality as the under-stage lighting brought a brittleness to the concerts and the images of the rock n roll hero and his band.
But this wasn’t Bob as the geriatric renegade who bashed out off-key piano riffs and major key cacophonies from the ‘safety zone’ behind his upright piano. This wasn’t the Bob who spent the first ten years of his ‘time out of mind’ comeback confirming to world that his voice was a phlegmy, croaky, up-singing mess.
No. This is Bob – as old as a proverbial dinosaur – coming out of his shadowy kingdom of creativity and serving up a smoke and mirrors, rather bonhomie performance where he (deliberately) gets younger as the concert gets older.
Playing the old man and then rising like a hip Lazarus is something Alice Cooper has been doing fabulously for years… but now it’s part of Bob’s act too. And he does it brilliantly.
Yes, he has, now and again, plonked himself on a bench on stage while performing. But a nice sit-down and a bit of sing-song is fine when you’ve already played 75 venues in a few months.
This photo was taken in Los Angeles a few days ago, as he prepared a soundcheck at Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. Bob is expected to wrap up the North American leg on July 6 in Denver.
But then there is the rest of the world beckoning to him.
And, me for one, will be standing in line to see him.
#bob #bobdylan #roughandrowdy #LA #hollywood #godfather #homburg
