out of the blue, into the black, they give you this, but you pay for that

This week was the week of concert epic-ness. For those of you paying attention, the Universe loved me enough to bless me with consecutive Neil Young-then-Bob Dylan concerts.

On Wednesday, Nicola, Michele, Shannon and I went to go see Neil Young. Our seats were balcony, our view was as such:

and that's with the camera on zoom!

but the concert was absolutely phenomenal. It's a cliche, I know, but I can't put it any other way: He just plain fuckin' rocked. Thrashing around, spastic guitar solos, pissed-off wails...I have so much respect for him, but I had never really thought of myself as a "Neil Young fan". No more! The hightlight? Probably the epic cover of "A Day in the Life" for the encore. Any Neil Young fans should check it out here. There was a fierce intensity behind his second "I love to turn you on", and at the end of the song, he starting ripping out his guitar strings and mashing them against his guitar, pressing it against the amps. In the video I linked, the strings start flying around the 6:00 mark, and its pretty damn rock'n'roll. He played for almost 2 1/2 hours too.The next day, we headed home to mentally prepare ourselves for seeing Bob Dylan.
In case you forgot, my friends and I had third row tickets. That meant we were pretty damn close.
Close enough to see ever time he smiled (about five times!! Be still my heart..) or nodded a cue to the band. Frankly, a lot of the songs he played were unrecognizable he changed the melody so much. This might be why the local paper gave him a poor review. However, it's not a Pussycat Dolls concert...you don't go there to be entertained by an "artist" trying ridiculously hard to sell you something you didn't know you needed. You go to bask in his glorious presesnce, to gaze upon his unearthly being with your very eyes, to swoon over his clumsily graceful stomping pseudo-dance.
I had seen Bob Dylan before, but I hadn't seen him play guitar, so I was elated when he played guitar (instead of keys, which he played for the rest of the show) on "Just Like a Woman".

Both concerts were also a study in Baby Boomers Behaving Badly. Bending over to toke up where the security couldn't see, trying to sneak into seats they didn't have, getting ridiculously wasted and flailing around...the over 50 set clearly thought they owned the place solely due to their proximity in age to the artist. While us teens and young adults watched in quiet, respectful awe, the Boomers were having the time of their lives. It was a joy to behold.
In forty years, that will be me, drunkenly dancing offbeat while a grizzly old Alex Turner mumbles "I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor" from onstage.
I can't wait.