Concert Reviews

I had the good fortune to hear live music twice during the past 2 weeks and I'd like to offer up some opinions. The first concert that I attended was Bob Dylan at the Jones Beach Theatre, and the second was titled "Moscow on the Hudson" at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, NY.

To review the Dylan, some background is necessary. I heard Dylan (could it have been in '65?) when he went electric for the second time in history. This concert was at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium (the former site of the US open.) The first time Dylan played a Fender Strat was at the Newport Folk Festival. I thought that the Forest Hills concert was unbelievably good. I enjoyed it so much that I was motivated to buy my first electric guitar. Cut to June 30 of this year. A good deal of what Dylan played at that first seminal concert at which I heard him was repeated at this one! The differences? It took at least 3 verses to figure out what he was singing! "Don't Think Twice It's Alright" was done as a rap! Some of his older songs deserve much better treatment. The guy's voice is worse that it's ever been. The musicians in his band were totally average. It was a major disappointment.

The NY Philharmonic, on the other hand, was total bliss. As you might infer from the title of the concert, these were works by Russian composers. Among them were Tchaikovsky, Glinka, and Prokofiev. The sound of live, unamplified music is a total turn-on. "Capriccio Italien" was beautiful, as was "Ruslan and Ludmilla." "Peter and the Wolf," narrated by Kevin Kline, was a real treat. All-in-all, a thoroughly captivating evening.

Oh, by the way - sound quality. The Dylan was awful. Stacks and stacks of Marshalls so overloaded the open-air theatre that one word in the lyrics was hard to distinguish from the next. The NY Phil was beautiful. Even though Lincoln Center is not the highest rated acoustic space for classical music, I thought the string tone from where I sat (25th row, center) was beautiful. When I got home, I dug up some old vinyl recordings of the same material. These were on the Sheffield label. The sound through my Summits was very creditable. Although it was not quite the same as live, I was very impressed with an electronic facsimile of the same material.

Seth, Glad to hear that at least one of the two was enjoyable !!

I'm looking forward to next May when I'll be going to hear the Phila Orchestra perform Mahler's "Symphony of a Thousand" @ Kimmel Center in Phila.

EC is GOD

Earlier this year I saw Eric Clapton play at the Arco Area in Sacramento, Ca. EC was as good as ever...the sound was so-so...mainly because of my seats...to the right side of the stage. He had a guitarist with him that was also excellent...I bought the program just to find out who he is - can't remember his name at the moment.

Robert Cray was the lead off band and he played a couple of songs with Eric at the end. He wasn't listed to play...the concert time was 8:00pm...arrived about 7:30 and he was already playing!!!! Talk about being peeved!!!

Having heard Dylan's latest album, I would never see him live. He sounds awful.

Brian Wilson is a different story. Wilson's band is as tight as a drum and other than the very highest falsetto notes, Wilson sounds far better than a 64year old man should sound.