Never before have Dutch pop critics unanimously written so negatively about a concert by the now 81-year-old Bob Dylan, this week in Amsterdam. Disappointment dripped from the reviews.
Jan Vollaard showed himself in NRC the most deeply disappointed reviewer. “Because Bob Dylan’s concert, with ticket prices that skyrocketed, was incredibly disappointing. […] I would have gladly given three balls out of respect for who Bob Dylan is and what his work has meant for three generations. But oh, how disappointing this concert was.”
Other reviewers still try to see bright spots, but still call the concert “a bit boring” (de Volkskrant), refer to Dylan as “musically the weakest link” (AD), saw on stage “sometimes quite a mess” (The watchword) and found “that the magic of Dylan’s music breaks through too sporadically this time” (Fidelity).
Are these cases of “negativity sells”, as writer PF Thomese’s unfavorable review in NRC about his new novel Swansdale in de Volkskrant explained? Negativity, “that’s the sport”, according to Thomese. I do not agree with him if he means art criticism. In the Netherlands, this is generally mild, especially in relation to large reputations.
These pop critics would rather have praised the great Dylan than cracked down, but the enthusiast in them was too disappointed for that. Vollaard found Dylan as a singer “staggering”: “He has never sounded so scrappy ugly, so clumsily atonal.”
Never before? I get a strong déjà vu feeling with these qualifications, especially where Dylan is described as a singer who hardly seeks contact with the audience. I myself saw Dylan in 2003 for the first time – and for the last time – in Afas Live, then still called the Heineken Music Hall. I wrote about it in a column at the time: “Bob was the little, charismatic man in black who was rattling a piano on the left. He stayed like this all evening, half turned away from us, as if we were a little stank […]. His vocals sounded like a bad imitation of Tom Waits, and in his old songs he made so little sense that he quickly rushed them.”
Bad vocals, bad performance – it hasn’t improved much in all these years. The public takes it for granted, because Dylan is a living legend and you have to see him at least once in your life. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a shame if the legend starts to act like a legend too. For most pop critics, that’s enough. “This is the end of the Never Ending Tour,” wrote Vollaard.
Too bad it had to end like this. Dylan remains one of the best songwriters of his time, but as a performing artist he goes on for too long. He’s not alone. In 2015 I also saw a mediocre performance by Jackson Browne in the Heineken Music Hall, who was already 66 years old at the time.
So a matter of age? No, well, there are exceptions. For me: David Crosby and Graham Nash, both 63, in 2005 in a sold-out Melkweg – one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended. “You write a song in ten minutes, and see what happens,” said Nash with satisfaction after the applause for ‘Our House’. Maybe Dylan still feels that satisfaction and that’s why he keeps going.
A version of this article also appeared in the October 19, 2022 newspaper