Bob Dylan Deja Vu
By Michael Erlewine
It had been raining all day, raining when I woke up and through the night, and still more rain at 5 PM when we left our home to drive 50 miles to Grand Rapids to see Bob Dylan live at Devoss Performance Hall, probably the last time I will see him.
Dylan is two months older than I am, both of us hitting 85 years. As I have told folks, in 1961 Dylana and I have traveled together, hung out in NYC, and hitchhiked across the New York and Massachusetts. Later I helped put on one of his first concerts in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
So, when I realized he was coming to Grand Rapids on April 2nd, 2026, only 50 miles away, I made a snap decision and checked online and saw that the tickets were flying out the door. I went for it. And I didn’t just go for front row seats, which were going fast. I went for the box seats, some 20 feet in the air and kind of leaning toward the stage. And they were wickedly expensive.
We had to arrive early to pick up our actual tickets from a booth on the street, and it was too cold to stand outside for an hour until the performance hall opened, so back we went to the car and sat. I include a photo. Here we were looking out of the care and across the street was the hall.
Although the advertising for the show said that small binoculars were allowed, when we showed up, they said no binoculars nor cell phones allowed and we had to leave, and go all the way back the parking structure to put them in the car, and this was after we went through the line and checked out our small messenger bags at the metal scanner. Also, the very important thermos of water was also not allowed, and that had to go back as well.
The only water was sold inside at $5 for a small plastic bottle of water was allowed. Hmmm. There might have been a water fountain.
When we finally were shown to our seats, it was in a box some 20 feet above the main hall. We were kind of hanging on the edge right out in the air, so there was a sense of vertigo, which was actually kind of spacious. Of course, I am not used to box seats, and it was kind of dreamlike.
I had no idea what to expect. I assumed Dylan would have an opening act, but there was none. It was pure Dylan from 8 PM until around 10:30 PM, straight with no encore.
At 8 PM, the lights slowly came up but remained dim. It was Bob Dylan, with a lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, and a drummer. When Dylan walked out on stage, I could immediately see he was having a little trouble walking and was moving slow. I tried not to see that, but that was the way it is.
I had seen Dylan at concert at Interlochen Center for the Arts years before, so I knew from that he would do exactly what he wanted and was not much interested in what his fans wanted to hear, but time has passed and he seemed even less concerned what fans wanted this time.
I can honestly say that I did not recognize even one song Dylan sang, although Margaret recognized two. Between that and not seeing his face due to his wearing a hoody, it was kind of a challenge.
The band was tight, and I mean tight like the best blue bands can be tight. Dylan was the sole and complete master of the beat, and it was tight like that, which is great.
I know something about that kind of playing and Dylan leaned into it hard. And his voice, traditionally always a bit nasal, tended to string the words together until, as mentioned, I could not even figure out what the words were, much less what song it was, and to my total surprise, where the singing used to be now it was the voice of his piano that came through.
His whole band kind of clanged, and rang sometimes almost like chimes or bells, hard notes striking tone, and this clanging sound laying out almost a second bass line, powerful and invoking my attention.
Here was what used to be Dylan’s voice but coming from a different instrument. Here was his creativity but on a piano, an electric piano where different sounds were possible other than piano sounds.
And it was in these piano solos and piano accompaniment that I found the Dylan I hoped would still be alive and there. And he had matured, deepened, laying down some very serious music, not with his words but with his piano, IMO. While Dylan’s vocals now all kind of ran together, raspy and sandpaper like we have become used to, it was his piano playing that sang a different tune, one welcome to my ears and with that he was still walking point, still leading the way.
The crowd was very quiet, taking it all in, rising and swelling like the tides, with ripples of excitement running through it like the marbling in good beef. The crowd was far better than me at recognizing which song it was, and the two times he played some harmonica, my Apple watch woke up and said a dangerous level of decibels had been crossed.
Meanwhile I was glued to Dylan’s piano playing, in always every tune, much like to one of Bach’s bass lines or his counterpoint. This was what I came to hear even though it was not what I expected. Almost every song was punctuated by these piano lines played staccato-like with great force and insistence. This was Dylan’s melody line, his song so to speak, and certainly a tune more in line with the soberness of current events.
Running through all the songs of Dylan’s entire set, like a rosary or string of beads, these piano lines together kind of pieced together sang out a theme as modern as the time we live in.
At the end, Dylan got up, stepped forward, thanked the audience, and slowly walked off stage.
Once we got to our car, waited to pay $18 for parking to a machine in a line of cars, and got out the Grand Rapids, it was like a nightmare from hell driving the 50 miles to our home in Big Rapids, Michigan. It was still raining and there was intense fog so you could hardly see the road and each exit ramp was almost impossible to see and seemed like the actual road.
With considerable prayers and mantas, we went slowly on the homeward trip. So glad to be home around midnight. I wrote this before I crashed out. I am reminded of an introduction I wrote a book on the great groove master jazz guitarist Grant Green many years ago. Here it is, and I quote:
“To get your attention and make clear that I am saying something here, consider the singing voice of Bob Dylan. Early on, a lot of people said the guy can’t sing. But it’s not that simple. He is singing. The problem is that he is singing so far in the future that we can’t yet hear the music. Other artists can sing his tunes and we can hear that all right. Given enough time… enough years… that gravel-like voice will sound as sweet to our ears as any velvet-toned singer. Dylan’s voice is all about microtones and inflection. For now, that voice is hidden from our ears in time so tight that there is no room (no time) yet to hear it. Some folks can hear it now. I, for one, can hear the music in his voice. I know many of you can too. Someday everyone will be able to hear it because the mind will unfold itself until even Dylan’s voice is exposed for just what it is — a pure music. But by then our idea of music will also have changed. Rap is changing it even now.” End-quote.
Well, as a coda to the above, as mentioned, the words no longer carried the tune as I heard it. It was his insistent and intense piano playing that punctuated the air and reminded, at least me, of the Bob Dylan I knew way back when. He is stronger, in that sense now, than he ever was and what he is singing with his piano now struck deep into the heart of the times we live in. Just my two cents.
[Cellphone photo by me.]
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