To the great George Receli, who gave me an autograph that morning.
It was a thing of beauty listening to Bob Dylan sing about “trying to get to heaven” right in the middle of Sin City, officially known as Las Vegas, Nevada, this past Sunday.
The concert took place at The Joint, a venue for 2,000 people located inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, one of the most compelling arguments about rock & roll being nothing but a money machine.
Well, it was in that cultural desert, built upon an actual desert, that Bob Dylan decided to give the best concert I’ve seen of him since November 2001, when I started to go to every show that my time and money allow (this was my 47th, if I’m not mistaken.)
The night before, Bob took center-stage –as he has been doing since guitarist Charlie Sexton rejoined the band a few weeks ago. Without the protection of the guitar across his chest nor the safety net of his keyboard trenches, Dylan had only one resource at hand: his singing voice. And, by God, does he know how to use it.
This is going to sound crazy for people who only like the sound of pristine vocal cords, but Bob Dylan is one of the greatest singers in the world. His voice is incredibly expressive and evocative, and he can really interpret a song and transmit images and emotions through it.
The night before Vegas, at the Arizona State Fair in Phoenix, he sang “Workingman’s Blues #2″ with all his might, making it the perfect song to describe these hard times. The lines “Some people never worked a day in their life/ Don’t know what work even means” had a very deep resonance with that evening’s audience of farmers and agricultors whose governments tell them that “low wages are a reality if we want to compete abroad“.
But it wasn’t just the right time and place that made the song so powerful. It was the way Dylan sang it, with great feeling and masterful technique, modulating his voice from notes of deep melancholy to dry indignation.
His very expressive hands added the right amount of drama to the song, making the singer look like the working man of the title and also, at times, like a scarecrow in an abandoned farm, telling the whole story to no one but the wind.
But I digress. We are again in Las Vegas this past Sunday, at THE concert. It began with business as usual, with an ass-kicking “Leopard -Skin Pill-Box Hat”. The extremely good looking and extremely talented Charlie Sexton is the frontman. Bob is on the right of the stage, playing keyboards.
Half of the jewelry-incrusted collar of his shirt is inside his jacket, the other half is not. (I mention this because in every single concert, in between songs, Dylan is constantly tucking his curly hair inside his hat and/or straightening his clothes.)
But this time he doesn’t seem to mind the asimetry of his look. In fact, I don’t think he could care less.
For the second song, he takes center-stage again. But instead of the sadness of “Workingman’s Blues #2″, he sings “The Man In Me”, one of his sexiest creations. What happens then is hard to describe without superlative phrases: Dylan swings and croons the song, he smiles at the audience in complicity, he moves his hands with masculine gracefulness. He sounds like a Dust Bowl Sinatra, like Dean Martin’s smoother brother, like a pale Sammy Davis, Jr.
In other concerts, Dylan in Vegas was an oximoron. But on Sunday, he was as in place there as Bugsy Siegel at the Flamingo.
In “Forgetful Heart”, the haunting ballad of Together Through Life, Dylan became Sinatra again. The darkest Sinatra, the Wee-Small-Hours-Of-The-Morning Frank. At that moment, you knew that behind the tinsel, we were in the middle of nowhere, rolling around like tumbleweeds.
In “Spirit on the Water”, Dylan sang that he “can’t go back to paradise no more” ’cause he “killed a man back there“. And later on the show, he tried “to get to heaven before they close the door“.
The truth is this: in Las Vegas, the city closest to hell, everyone who went to see and hear Bob Dylan on Sunday was accepted back in paradise and got into heaven, at least for a little while.
Omar De la Rosa
/ October 21, 2009Looks like I missed the best concert of the two. But I got to experience Dylan live for the first time in my life, and it was in the GODDAMNED FAIR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GODDAMNED DESERT.
And it was a beautiful experience, like Bruce Springsteen, one that i will never forget.
Thank you my friend. For everything.
Omar De la Rosa
/ October 21, 2009Oh, and it also was WITH MY GODDAMNED BEST FRIEND AND ROLE MODEL.
Be listening to you soon.
Amaranta
/ October 21, 2009Me encantó, porque a mí tambien me ha pasado que escuho un cd, veo una peli o algo y empiezo a pensar en inglés, no lo hablo y la neta me dá reteharta envidia por no poder escribirlo.
Lo que si es que en inglés la frase “he moves his hands with masculine gracefulness” se lee mucho pero mucho mas gay que en español jajajajaja
Besos Zurita
KRRIE
/ October 21, 2009jajaja hacia un rato que no escribia aqui pero esto lo amerita.
no manches, creo que es la entrada con menos comentarios, respuestas o como quieran llamarlo, no cabe duda que la mayoria de los fans no mastica bien el latin vulgar y pues por obvias razones menos el ingles.
buena resena para aquellos que admiran a Dylan, x para gente que no admira a Dylan, y divertida para que gente como yo que disfruta riendose jajajaja
agradezco de antemano las mentadas de madre que me lleguen jajajaja
Alex U. Fragoso
/ October 22, 2009Serge…
a while a go i was dancing with all along the watch tower from dylan and the dead… and now this, just got me awake dreaming on blood tears and heaven…
thanks !
p.s.
great way to please dylan fans and separate from the bluffers
and.. i fucking envy you…
keep rocking!
QUIJOTE09
/ October 22, 2009Ya hacia falta una entrada como esta.
QUIJOTE09
/ October 22, 2009Por cierto, cuando el Sr Zurita escribe sobre Dylan siempre es mucho mas cuidadoso, como si temiera blasfemar. La reseña es muy bonita y muy buena, pero si extraña.
Diana Uchiha
/ October 22, 2009Hola sergio buen reportaje, me gusto mucho me da gusto que t hayas encontrado con uno de tus idolos, sabes me gusta mucho como escribes eres una persona muy talentosa, bueno me despido cuidate, te quiero y admiro mucho, aahh y estoy segura q tu nuevo programa sera tan bueno como tu….byee
Ana Lilia
/ October 24, 2009HEY THANKS FOR EXPLAIN… I THOUGHT IT WAS WEIRD A POST IN ENGLISH BUT NOW I GET IT, CONGRATS ON GETTING TO THE PAGE YOU WANTED TO BE PUBLISH, Y ESPERO ANCIOSA ESCUCHAR TU NUEVO PROGRAMA.
pd: la taquilla apesta sin ti.
pejefan
/ October 27, 2009The truth is this: in Las Vegas, the city closest to hell, everyone who went to see and hear Bob Dylan on Sunday was accepted back in paradise and got into heaven, at least for a little while.
PENDEJOOOOOOOOOOO
THE CLOSEST CITY TO HELLL, is the correct way to write it down, you big motherfucker…also there is a phrase which could describe better what you wanted to do it….it’s called Hell’s kitchen, but it’s used to certain zone in NY.
Grace
/ October 27, 2009Y se enciende la alarma que dice: ¡naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!! Perdon Zuri pero asi, porque es de nacos escribir en ingles cuando este espacio esta principalmente dirigido a personas que hablan español, ademas segun mi opinion escribes infinitamente mejor en tu lengua natal que en English.
O sera que no le entendi?, con eso de que solo hablo 2 idiomas: español y mal español.
¡¡Spanish is one of the richest languages all over the wolrd, don’t forget that!!!! my Search
Salomón
/ October 29, 2009Jajaja solo puedo decir que escribes de la cola en ingles, peor que un egresado del Harmon Hall, patético, pobre michoacanin aspiracional, tu mama no te cargó de chiquito verdad? eso deja vivir con tus abuelos ….
Joel
/ October 30, 2009What a big asshole the pejefan beginng with his nickname, idioms are up to each individual if he want to use them or not spetially when this blog in not ment for a specific city but whole different people anywere, plus your spelling was wrong, hey Zuri just write as you like is not written in stone the way we want to express ourselves and if it is redneck to writte in english spell your nickname in spanish Grace.
eerlijkheid, zelfs als het pijn doet.
Vegetal
/ November 2, 2009Assholes. Every time, everywhere, every language. Cool review Zurita, it will be read by Dylan, I’m sure. Regrets!
Regia
/ November 3, 2009Me encanto tu reseña en ingles, quien te viera, nomas la cara no te ayuda, pero eres listillo
Aline
/ November 5, 2009Pues le falto más a tu programa, tus compañeros lerdos con ganas, ni te entienden las bromas o eres mucha pistola para ellos, tan evidente la de camilo septimo, la reportera es la típica que se la pasa buscando la gatadita de oro, qué es eso de la polemica del funeral criastiano del señor Vargas ¡¡¡eso que!!! a poco si importa, la música de fondo ni de error aparecio por el programa. Corrigelo plis los cambios son para bien.
marcela
/ November 6, 2009Asi es, tus colaboradores en el programa, sin chispa, no agarran la onda, no entienden ni que dices, y se ve que cargas con todo el peso del programa para divertir. Para que eso resulte tienes que rodearte de personas de exito, que hagan bien su trabajo, por eso funciona La Taquilla.
El casting es primordial y creo que eso lo sabes mejor que muchas personas que se dedican al espectaculo. Sólo es un consejo. Piensalo.
Nadia S.
/ November 14, 2009Zuri tu ya sabes que te adddoro y siento debilidad por tí y las tonterías que dices; no sabes como te extrañé cuando nos informaste que ti ibas de La Taquilla, pero el día que finalmente escuché tu nuevo programa…ni fu ni fa.
Está bien feo!!! no tiene chiste y lo peor es que es como si estuvieras ahí solito sin nadie que te dé juego. Fausto creo que tiene remedio, supongo que será cuestión de ritmo y acoplamiento, pero la chava, carajo, es de esas viejas que nada más hablan para que la gente se acuerde de que están ahí. Como estará la cosa que ya hasta revaloré La Taquilla, que ya me tenía hasta la m….!!! por culpa de René!!!
Coño que te consigan un equipo más interesante no?
FABIOLA
/ November 21, 2009Hola Sergio, Te noto como nervioso y por eso haces tonterias como el haber seleccionado a esos chavos, les estaba dando tiempo para ver si sobre la marcha se acoplan a tu ritmo, pero la verdad no aportan nada al programa, extraño mucho al George, a Lupita o a Villalobos, y creo que tienes una gran oportunidad que te mereces desde hace mucho tiempo, ya era hora de tener tu propio programa ya que Ren´e desde que se casó enloqueció y lo perdimos, y ahora está peor porque hace programas feos, pero creo que los segudores de Zuri merecemos que te rodees de gente divertida. Bueno te digo eso porque soy tu fanss. te adoro. bye P.D. YA CORRE A ESOS …. CHAVOS
LUIS
/ November 26, 2009Sergio, Te escribo por que siento una gran admiracion por tu trabajo, sin embargo al leer tu resena en ingles me causo un gran desencanto debido que la mecanica y la edicion en Ingles no es la misma que en espanol y se deben de llevar diferentes ordenamientos en los escritos. Espero que estos comentarios los tomes en cuenta para cuando quieras volver a escribir en Ingles ya que seria fantastico leerte en la lengua de Shakespiere.
mico
/ December 8, 2009lo que más me chocó de ésto es que hiciste que los que no saben inglés pero creen que pueden escribirlo se pusieran a insultar en idiomas extraños a los demás que no son pretenciosos
salu2