DYLAN concert 2022

 

I saw Dylan at the Breahead arena Glasgow  in 2011 and I can’t believe its so long ago now!

He was on good form and he even danced a bit! At the SECC Glasgow we saw him in and he sat hunched over his keyboards mostly and never spoke. I don’t think he’s keen on those bigger impersonal venues. But he’s still a journeyman on the road!

 

I notice this gig 2022 is mobile phone free, how will we survive? He doesn’t like recordings or photos taken. 

 

 

His set list from this gig below – my song favourites are, Tangled up in Blue, Things have changed,  Simple Twist of Fate, It Ain’t me Babe,

 

There is a site for Dylan's set lists and lyrics (thanks to the fan beside me told me about) called boblinks.  - http://www.boblinks.com/

 

Set List FROM 2011

1. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Bob on keyboard) 

2. It Ain't Me, Babe (Bob on keyboard) 

3. Things Have Changed (Bob center stage with harp) 

4. Tangled Up In Blue (Bob center stage with harp) 

5. Cold Irons Bound (Bob center stage with harp) 

6. Simple Twist Of Fate (Bob on guitar) 

7. Honest With Me (Bob center stage with harp) 

8. Desolation Row (Bob on keyboard) 

9. Highway 61 Revisited (Bob on keyboard) 

10. Blind Willie McTell (Bob center stage with harp) 

11. Thunder On The Mountain (Bob on keyboard)

 12. Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bob center stage with harp)      

 (encore)

13. Like A Rolling Stone (Bob on keyboard) 

14. All Along The Watchtower (Bob on keyboard)

 

Band Members
Bob Dylan - guitar, keyboard, harp
Tony Garnier - bass
George Recile - drums
Stu Kimball - rhythm guitar
Charlie Sexton - lead guitar
Donnie Herron - electric mandolin, pedal steel, lap steel

 

https://www.sec.co.uk/events/detail/bob-dylan

 

 

Bob Dylan Breahead arena October 2011

 

Dylan revisited his favourite sons and as the familiar song refrains start it's like going home again.  

I went with my guitarist son, and he was nearly as overwhelmed as I was! Dylan performed more than I expected. At the SECC Glasgow in 2006 we were further back and all I remember was Dylan hunched over the keyboards. Happily for this gig he even smiled a few times as he faced the audience at the mic for several songs when he squatted slightly and seemed to enjoy himself. It is simply inspiring to hear and see him live...  

 

I noticed the admiration and awe of his band as they strove to embrace his music. His lead guitarist lent forward towards Dylan at the keyboards as if to draw from his wisdom. His band did excellent work of expressing the songs.  

I could feel the reverence of the crowd at the front and this is serious business being a Dylan fan! Few are drinking. Most have travelled to many Dylan gigs and have seen him ten or twelve times at least. One fan beside me saw him in the 60s at the Edinburgh Playhouse when Dylan was 24 and had just gone rocky.  And yes he was seventy too, the same age as Dylan is now. 

 

Highlights Songs - Full Set List below. Songs: It Ain't Me Babe, Tangled Up in Blue, Simple Twist of Fate, Desolation Row. For his encore Dylan sang Like a Rolling Stone, and All Along The Watchtower. Mark Knopfler supported (think Dire Straits and Money for Nothing ) and he gave a very accomplished and uplifitng performance. I'm not sure what it is like supporting a master craftsman like Dylan and many artists of any calibre must feel second rate.

 

Dylan's songs and stories tell of the contradictions in life as they hit reality square in the face with his hard-hitting lyrics, voice and tunes. When he moved from Duluth Iowa to Greenwich village New York, Dylan soaked up many diverse influences for his music. Dylan has piercing eyes and a cracking, scorched voice just like the blues singer Robert Johnston he so admires.  

 

He takes us to the other side of his songs. Perhaps we hope he might take us to that promised land? Going to see Dylan live is like a pilgrimage and you meet many other dedicated disciples on the way there and on the way back. 

 

You either get Dylan or you don't - and you have to go to him he doesn't come to you. 

 

None of the usual descriptions can really apply to Dylan.  Music is his life.  How can I possibly write that his lyrics are colourful or deep when these words sound such simple clichés.  Dylan has opened my eyes, perhaps he shows us the promised land is possible. 

 

It is wonderful to be alive in the time of a poet like Bob Dylan.  A comment from Rab Noakes -

'I can't imagine my life without Dylan in it.'  Bob was on great form last night. Good-natured, good song-choices, good band especially Charlie Sexton.'

 

Edinburgh Book Festival 2022!

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2022 returns

with 600 events, 550 authors, 50 countries – under the banner “All Together Now”.

 

EIBF returns with a full program this year and hopes to recreate that buzz, after the Lockdowns. To build on the hybrid format developed over two years of pandemic – with live, in-person events also available to steam online.

 

For the first time since 2019, nearly all events will be live on stage in Edinburgh and will add a new venue at Central Hall - a 700+ seat theatre space in the heart of the city and a 5 minute walk from the Festival Village at Edinburgh College of Art.

 EIBF has re-located from its Charlotte square site (since 1982) – to save the 120 trees, the festival has been hurting their roots with the amount of foot fall: this has been an ecological decision. The festival’s new home will be the Edinburgh University Future’s building which will offer both enough indoor and outdoor space and a village green space.

This year the festival takes place at the Edinburgh art college Lauriston place.

 

*EIBF director Nick Barley  - “We’ve learned a great deal since 2019 – the world has changed immeasurably with the pandemic and war in Europe – but we’re also beginning to imagine what a better future should look like. Exploring these issues in inspiring conversations with scientists, historians, poets and novelists is exactly where the book festival comes into its own.

 

Ruby Wax

Nile Rodgers & Irvine Welsh

AUTHORS for 2022 – Ali Smith, Alexander McCall Smith, Julian Barnes.

Nobel peace prize winner Maria Ressa, Outlander Diana Gabaldon, linguist Noam Chomsky, director Armando iannucci. Meg Mason and many more.

FM Nicola sturgeon in conversation with Louise Welsh and Brian Cox (of Succession fame)

 

The festival plans to be more inclusive with Stories and Scarm – for all to tell our own stories, such a Syrian refugees. The festival has been encouraging people from all backgrounds. 

PLUS Val McDermid with her new book 89, which charts Scotland history via a thriller;  Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet, her new book set in the Medici Renaissance. 

Douglas Stuart, author of Young Mungo, in conversation with Ian Rankin, 

Music – Martha Wainwright, Jarvis Cocker, Vishti Bunyan, Ricky Ross, Stuart Cosgrove.

Alan Cummings

Also discussions on the role of Europe, impact of war with Ukrainian historian Sarhii Plokky.

**PLUS the large Children’s Book Festival with its

Baillie Gifford program – Julia Donaldson, Cressida Cowell, Michael Morpurgo. And new super heroes, Little Badman and Stunt Boy.

 

'Come together' for conversations with storytellers, musicians, politicians, actors, chefs, illustrators and more this August. Attend live in-person events in Edinburgh or watch events at home, 

**Tickets  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk

 

John Byrne

Ian Rankin

Alexander MacColl Smith

Seamus Heaney

Rab Noakes at Milngavie folk club

 

Noakes performed SONGS: Branch, Gently Does It, Together Forever, Oh Me Oh My, Out of Sight Out of Mind. 

 

This evening at the Milngavie folk club was to celebrate Noakes 75^th birthday and still going strong.

 

Rab spoke of all those significant people he has worked with over the years. Rod Clements, Gerry Rafferty, Brooke Williams, Jill Jackson, Barbara Dickson, And praised the women’s voices - and the all women in his band he had backing him at Celtic connections 2019.b

 

For his interview with 

He spoke of his respect for women’s voices - Helen Forrest, thanks for everything. The gorgeous voice, Jill Jackson, Jo Stafford, unforgettable, And of working with the young Scots singer Iona Fyfe and he spoke of her harassment and Equalities award. 

 

Rab spoke of his influences, such as the Everly brothers, his depth of interest in the song, and of Studio B Nashville, and his experiences travelling in the American south. He spoke of Bob Dylan’s 2021 album 'Rough and Rowdy' ways, a terrific place of work, and quoted from the song 'False Prophet' - I’m the enemy of treason, I’m the enemy of your meaningless life.”

 

He spoke of his style/ image he enjoyed Italian suits and aspired to be a teddy boy, winkle pickers, He likes to keep things smart. He said he was less political then he was, as it gets in the way, He was asked if he might write s book of his experiences, and replied that authors are very disciplined

 

He took some audience questions – How much was he influenced by Gerry Rafferty, back in1969 with the band Stealers Wheel? He responded that Rafferty had been a stimulus rather than inspiration. 

 

Noaeks was asked about the best song ever written - he dipped into his back catalogue for the song Westerin Home 1952. He talked of the great Michael Marra and his writing of his Fife connections, and said its good to write songs where you live, to write local. 

 

Rab’s been through some tough years with illness and loosing his wife Stephie last year from MSA illness. “When I had throat cancer, and Stephie got sick, He spoke of the pain but that “I don’t let myself get dragged into dark places, times getting short.” He spoke of writing songs with Stephie which influenced and channelled into his music, with the Treatment Tapes and Water is My Friend. 

 

He keeps his spirits up with music and friendships keeping him going – as do his long time supportive fans! Rab has often played house parties. I hope he keeps writing and being inspired by his musical heroes, such as the legend genius songwriter Bob Dylan! 

 

Noakes’s influences are broad from Americana, folk and blues. His songs express personal and memorable storytelling, matched to his intricate and melodic guitar style. 

 

http://rabnoakes.com

I will never forget singing in harmony his early songs on folk nights many years ago…

 

 

The Glories of the Scots Kings

 

James IV and Margaret Tudor

In film and TV, Scots Royalty is often portrayed wearing drab cloth is dingy castles, and as backward or out of touch heathens! These images are totally untrue! Recently Stirling castle has been renovated to reveal a highly colourful and richly decorated ceiling in the Great hall.

The Scots Crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny were hidden after the incursions of Edward Longshanks.

The Scots welcomed Charles II back and  he was crowned at scone, after he promised to protect the Scots Presbyterian religion. But he went back on his word. 

For centuries Scots had close trading routes to Flanders and were highly influenced by European materials, style and fashions.

 

The Reformation, while bringing enlightened thought and education, also meant much of Scots Art was destroyed. But one remained hidden in  abasement according to artist Lauchlin Goudie.

 

This suppression of another nation’s culture and language is a way of destroying that nation. Russia presently in the process of flattening Ukrainian buildings but its also about crushing Ukraine’s’ culture and language. 

James V

 James V wears a gown with sleeves of cloth of gold, a fabric woven with expensive gold thread. Such a material, which could be melted down to release the precious metal, was a conscious demonstration of wealth and kingship. The collar is encrusted with hundreds of pearls – a style of which the Scottish king appears to have been fond. His wardrobe inventory of 1539 describes a gown with a hood and collar ‘stitched with 49,500 pearls’. The large-scale undulating design seen on the sleeves falls into the category of motifs later classified as pomegranate. Pomegranate patterns for fashionable clothing were increasingly replaced by smaller-scale designs during the sixteenth century, although later artists such as Anthony van Dyck continued to use them as backdrops in their portraits.  #¥esScots