Bob Dylan Live in Shanghai, China, April 8, 2011: Summary and Review

We arrived at the show at Grand Stage (Shanghai Indoor Stadium) about a half hour early. In the subway, scalpers were everywhere, waving heavy stacks of bills. Procuring tickets at the gates would have been easy, anyone willing to wait a few minutes after the concert started could have gotten some killer bargains on those 1961 RMB ($300) tickets I'm sure. As it happens, many floor seat tickets were left empty, though the seating arrangements were not as bad as Beijing- a reasonable amount of floor space was dedicated to actual seats, albeit empty ones.

I personally did not witness any heavyhanded security. There were metal detectors at the gates but visitors bringing in SLR cameras or food were not stopped. There were police officers around of course but not an overly large amount. The much talked about laser pointers only flashed through the crowd a couple times early in the show.

Outside the central arena, a modest numbers of concessions sold popcorn, Starbucks coffee, Haagen-Dazs ice cream, promotional posters and copies of "The Essential Bob Dylan" CD set. There were also clapper sticks- which, thankfully, only a handful of people purchased- and binoculars. I picked up a cup of coffee and my wife bought a pair of the 30 RMB binoculars. We would have been better off with a pair of the large 80 RMB ones.

Entering our section, I felt a quick twinge of regret that I hadn't brought a camera- it was immediately evident that taking pictures would have been quite easy, though there were several announcements before the stage that "filming" would not be allowed. There were a few SLRs nearby and the light from point-and-shoot and cell phone cameras across the arena the whole evening looked like a sea of lighters or candles. In all honesty, Dylan was but a speck from where were sitting- near the front and directly center on the upper deck. It would have been difficult pulling off a shot even with a 200mm lens. There are a number of videos circulating on Youku for people looking to relive the concert highlights.

Over half the spectators were foreigners and many seemed to be European. I suspect there are many reasons for this, of which I'll toss out a few: 1) Bob Dylan is not well known among Chinese youth (although there is a subset of avid fans, 2) Almost all tickets cost 480RMB ($70) or more, 3) Due to issues with government regulatory agencies, tickets only went on sale two weeks before the show- this after a similar concert announcement was canceled last year.

There was a false start where the lights went down, then they came back on and the actual show started 10 minutes later. The actual show began at 8:15, only a few minutes after the ticket time. Dylan came out wearing a white or cream colored cowboy hat and took up a position on the right side of the stage by the organ keyboard with a five-person backing band surrounding him, including a core group of players who have been performing with him for many years now. The first song left a lot for cryptologists to discuss- "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking." The original lyrics on Slow Train Coming went:

Gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna put my good foot forward
And stop being influenced by fools

So much oppression
Can’t keep track of it no more
So much oppression
Can’t keep track of it no more
Sons becoming husbands to their mothers
And old men turning young daughters into whores

If memory serves correctly, Dylan started off the song like he had begun it in Beijing, using instead the lyrics from an alternate version released in 1993 (this is the version he normally does in concert):

Change my way of thinking, make myself a different set of rules
Change my way of thinking, make myself a different set of rules
Put my best foot forward, stop being influenced by fools

I’m sittin’ at the welcome table, I’m so hungry I could eat a horse
I’m sittin’ at the welcome table, I’m so hungry I could eat a horse
I’m gonna revitalize my thinking, I’m gonna let the law take it’s course

He seemed to lay special emphasis on those two opening stanzas and the song's closing stanza, which repeated the first one, being careful to articulate the lines, "Gonna change my way of thinking, make myself a new set of rules." The lighting was set up so a shadow silhouette of the performers hung large behind Dylan and the band throughout the evening.

From there he went into a beautifully sweet rendition of "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright."

For the third song- perhaps with a wink toward the many articles this month quoting the line "I used to care but things have changed"- Dylan and the band dove into "Things Have Changed," a song off the Wonder Boys soundtrack.

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

This place ain’t doing me any good
I’m in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood...

Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove

Lot of water under the bridge, lot of other stuff too
Don’t get up gentlemen, I’m only passing through

In the anthemic "Tangled Up in Blue," Dylan croaked, "There was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air."

"Oooh sexy," L. squealed next to me as he played the harmonica, a joking reference to the "Bob Dylan- the only man who could make the harmonica sexy" group on Facebook. He sang the song lounge style without guitar. Throughout the night he alternated between the keyboards, electric guitar and harmonica, with perhaps most emphasis on the keyboards.

Next was the hard rocking "Honest With Me" off the Love & Theft album.

I’m not sorry for nothin’ I’ve done
I’m glad I fought—I only wish we’d won...

You don’t understand it—my feelings for you
Well, you’d be honest with me if only you knew

The guitars on the song were changed, with the signature donnana donnana after each chorus replaced by other arrangements. He sang the song almost like a schoolyard taunt.

"Simple Twist of Fate" was presented in a simple folk style and "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum" followed with jangling bluesy guitar accompaniment, cutting into rockabilly style in the middle. The mystical "Blind Willie McTell" was the only representative track of Dylan's burnt out big rock star 80's period.

See them big plantations burning
Hear the cracking of the whips
Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
See the ghosts of slavery ships
I can hear them tribes a-moaning
Hear that undertaker’s bell
Nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell...

Well, God is in His heaven
And we all want what’s his
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I’m gazing out the window
Of the St. James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

Dylan finished the song with a long harmonica solo before moving onto a rap-tap jazzy version of "The Levee's Gonna Break": "If it keep on rainin' the levee gonna break."

The highlight of the evening was Desolation Row (see video), sung differently than I've ever heard it done before (the musical arrangments were similar to this version from Bucharest, but the vocals have changed). For several lines, Dylan the notes for far longer than usual, breaking his voice out toward greater power than the speak song style he usually maintains, e.g., "And puts her hands in her back poooooockets/ Beeeeeetteee Davis style." It was like he was making it a new song. It reminded me a bit of Velvet Underground songs like "Sweet Jane." The instrumentation was also more jaunty than the contemplative  guitar on the original recording.

After conducting half the show with a sparse set, the lighting designs on the curtains were turned on for the first time for "Highway 61 Revisited," which featured an extended organ solo.

"I'm wild about you girl," sang Dylan on "Spirit on the Water," a jazz-inflected teeny-bopper-type song from Modern Times (or was it gal?). "You think I'm over the hill/ You think I'm past my prime/ Let me see what you got/ We can have a whoppin' good time."

By "Thunder on the Mountain," audience members were out dancing in the aisle. Dylan sang the song in a high nasal pitch, half incoherent. I glanced at the stadium architecture, which resembled a planetarium or a strange spacecraft from the 1960's.

With the lights down low, Dylan concluded the main portion of his set with "Ballad of a Thin Man": “Something is happening here but yaaah don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?" This song brought loud cheers from the audience.

As encore, Dylan returned with a lush version of "Like A Rolling Stone." "Thanks everybody," he said, speaking for the first time of the show. He announced his band members by name while playing the organ. The last song was "Forever Young."

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young

There were loud cheers for a second encore but he didn't return. The show concluded right about 10:00.

Comments

[Ron Brandstetter]

I had a bad Dylan obsession from about '63 to '71, but dropped off with the first Christian period. Clearly the great composer (and performer!) has evolved and matured.

Sounds like a wonderful night, wish I could have been there.

No more obsessions, but I find some of the old songs rising up in my memory, unbidden, re-arranged for today and better than ever. When I was young "she's an artist, she don't look back" was always my least favorite of his more popular early songs, now I can hear it freshly and like it.

[Drew]

Gonna Change my Way of Thinking is clearly a Christian song. Were religious themes excluded by the government censors?

[Breningstall]

At this point, no one knows what was excluded by government censors, if anything- only what Dylan played. The set lists for all the recent shows can be found at bobdylan.com. Note that Bob often changes lyrics during performances. We do know that five songs were excluded when the Rolling Stones came in 2006.

[Drew]

Nice job, by the way. Your coverage of this is thoughtful and intelligent. i've read some really irrelevant crap about Dylan and the censorship stuff. losers calling him a sellout because he let them censor his set list. sorry, but if you play on someone else's turf, you play by their rules. he wanted to reach his chinese fans and did what he needed to do. maureen dowd doesn't have the stature to criticize bob dylan. All these people who say he should have done this or that while over there should just go over their and get their own selves arrested.