Two Nights in Paris (by Angus Gibson)

2024-10-24/25, La Seine Musicale, Paris, France

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Photo by Jean-Baptiste Willaume

As the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour winds towards its London conclusion in a few weeks, Bob Dylan played two nights in Paris this Thursday and Friday night. Angus Gibson, managing editor of the excellent journal The Dylan Review, reports in:

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‘I’d like to try something but I'm so far from town’ – Two nights near Paris with Bob Dylan

La Seine Musicale is located at the outer limit of the Parisian metro, on a tiny island at the tip of the Boulogne-Billancourt peninsula. Locals joke that tonight’s concert is at the end of the world: three miles from the Eiffel Tower. But it looks more like a plush suburb to me, only a stone’s throw from the glitzy Roland Garros tennis courts. Dylan opened the modern auditorium—all glass and concrete—in 2017. Back then, his American Songbook covers still dominated the show.

The Rough and Rowdy Ways tour first visited Paris in 2022, when Dylan played three nights at Le Grand Rex, an Arabesque movie theatre in the bustle of the city’s central Grand Boulevards. On those nights, Dylan suffered the indignancy of having to enter the venue from the street, in full view of his fans, paparazzi and perplexed tourists.

Masked and ALMOST anonymous, in Paris 2022

Perhaps that's why he's here tonight in the hinterlands, across the borderline of Paris’ 16th arrondissement, far from cameras and day-trippers.

On the first night at La Seine Musicale, I'm blessed with a great seat. Front row, stage right. France is the easiest and, relatively speaking, cheapest country to score well-placed Dylan tickets. There's no pre-sale codes or VIP nonsense. The briefs simply go on sale to little fanfare at a seemingly random hour in the late afternoon. Presumably whenever the local promoter can be bothered to hit ‘enter’ in between union-protected smoke breaks. With good timing and some schoolboy French, you can bag any seat for a little over €100. French ticketing is surely the last bastion of revolutionary spirit – liberté, egalité, fraternité. Ticketmaster could learn a trick or two from Napoleon.

‘Gotta get up near the teacher’

Dylan is best when you are close enough to see his eyes, his facial expressions, how he bends the words, as in the TV close-ups during Hard Rain’s “Idiot Wind.” I recall a show last year in Aix-En-Provence, when the French Ticket Gods again planted me in row one. Dylan spat out every word of “Crossing the Rubicon” with the same venom that intoxicated the lines “One day you'll be in the grave / Flies buzzin’ around your eyes / Blood on your saddle” in 1976.

Yet this year in Paris, Dylan’s singing is more restrained. It’s as if he's distracted by his piano playing. Or his new dance routine, where he takes three or four steps away from the piano at the start of the song, poses to show off his zebra-striped shirt, then darts back to the safety of his piano stool before he can forget the words to the next verse.

His singing is still very good, particularly compared to fifteen years ago when the wolfman bark had consumed all semblance of melody. The further we get from those years, the more I think the wolfman voice was an affectation, as much as the Nashville Skyline croon.

On the opening night, he sings softly and with care, considering each line with attention. None more poignantly than in “Key West”, where his tender delivery of the words in memory of “Louis and Jimmy and Buddy” feels like it contains genuine affection for these partially-named men.

But perhaps tonight this tenderness is at the cost of the fire and brimstone that often fills Dylan’s best vocal performances.

‘Someday everything's gonna sound like a rhapsody’

As with other shows on this leg of the Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour, Dylan opens night one on guitar, playing “All Along The Watchtower” and “It Ain't Me Babe.” His solos on each are short and choppy, mixing the pentatonic blues scale with a smattering of bum notes. Not as long or musical as those I've heard on earlier tapes.

These opening songs sound like a warmup. Dylan uses his staccato guitar notes like a conductor’s wand to jolt life into the band. (For the guitar nerds reading, it looks like a hollow-body Gibson Les Paul – I believe they made such a model a few years ago, branded the “Memphis Les Paul.”)

The performance really starts on night one with the third song, “I Contain Multitudes.” Here Dylan emerges from behind the piano for the first time, leaning nonchalantly on the woodwork like a latter-day Frank Sinatra, drawing cheers from the crowd.

But despite Dylan’s attempts to invigorate the band, they're still sleepy. Following “Multitudes,” Bob Britt starts playing the guitar riff for “When I Paint My Masterpiece” while the rest of the band launches into “False Prophet.” Dylan hits a heavy chord on piano to signal his disapproval, bassist Tony Garnier grimaces, and the error is corrected.

Like many fans, I've spent this year obsessing over Nightly Moth’s Austin tape, recorded by the bootlegger in April, during Dylan’s spring tour. It's an astonishing performance; a rare night when both the band and Dylan are peaking. The show’s centrepiece is the one-two punch of “My Own Version of You” and “Crossing the Rubicon.” In Austin, both songs were perfect; the band struck the perfect balance between being improvised and deliberate, finding a heavy groove while Dylan delivers the lyrics like he's discovered a portal to 1966.

But as ever, Dylan keeps moving. Only six months have passed since that performance in Austin, but here in Paris, Dylan almost entirely deconstructs those two songs on night one. In the case of “My Own Version of You” nearly to total demolition.

The band spends the first half searching for a groove, falling in and out of time as Dylan plonks on the piano. I fear the performance won't be saved. But Tony eventually struts over to the drum kit, locks eyes with drummer Jim Keltner, and wrestles the song into shape. Dylan responds by matching his vocal phrasing to this new beat and finally we have lift off.

“Crossing the Rubicon” is similarly messy. It's still the same Chicago blues, but it's sloppier. Again the band takes half the song to find the pocket.

It's very experimental. As close to hard jazz as Bob gets. Dylan is clearly trying to go somewhere new with his refreshed band, but I don't think he's there yet. I'm not sure what casual fans will think when the tour hits bigger venues like the Royal Albert Hall.

‘Suddenly shifting gears’

Where in Austin the heart of the show was “My Own Version” and “Rubicon,” now the set has a new core: the consecutive duo of “Desolation Row” and “Key West”.

Scholars greater than I will one day answer why Bob has chosen to play two of his longest epics back-to-back in the current set. But for whatever reason, this is where Dylan wrings the most emotion from his performance.

“Desolation Row” now has a driving beat, inspired by Bob’s wrench-tapping in Buffalo last September. Musically, it's similar to the MTV Unplugged arrangement, but Keltner’s constant floor tom pitter-patter gives it a forceful backbeat.

“Key West” follows. Its place in the setlist naturally makes you wonder what the two locations—“Key West” and “Desolation Row”—have in common. Presumably fewer people are expecting rain in the Florida Keys.

The highlight of the first night is the closing run of “Mother of Muses,” “Goodbye Jimmy Reed,” “Watching the River Flow,” and “Every Grain of Sand.” Dylan stands centre stage for several verses of these songs. It’s a striking visual. Dylan posing in his white shoes and rhinestone suit, Garnier plucking his double bass like some aging jazz giant, with the rest of the band huddled closely. It looks intimate, like a garage band rehearsing in a basement.

On “Watching the River Flow,” Dylan breaks out some impressive Jerry Lee Lewis piano licks. At several points tonight he shows off with ascending and descending piano rolls, dragging his fingers up and down the keys with a flourish. He’s clearly happy to have learned a new trick.

“Every Grain of Sand” closes the first night with Dylan again strolling to the front of the stage, playing gorgeous and focused harmonica. Dylan’s harp work is exceptional all night. He’s blowing more harmonica now than he has done in years. As with his new piano licks, he clearly takes delight in improving his mastery of the instrument.

‘Docteur Jekyll et Monsieur Hyde’

I spent the afternoon of the second show at Serge Gainsbourg’s house museum. The chanteur’s former home is preserved and exhibits hundreds of personal artefacts, ranging from handwritten sheet music to a pair of his white leather Repetto ballet shoes. I can't help but think of Bill Pagel’s herculean efforts to save Dylan’s homes in Duluth and Hibbing. I'm certain these will provide manna for archivists, fans and historians for a very long time.

It might be the bloody mary I drank at the museum’s wryly-named ‘Gainsbarre’, but I feel an energy in the second show that was missing in the first. If I can pen another Gainsbourg pun, it's a case of “Docteur Jekyll et Monsieur Hyde,” as Serge sang in 1968.

Last night's shaky songs are tonight nailed with aplomb.

I have a theory that you can tell what sort of show you’re in for from the first few minutes of the opening song. The Rough and Rowdy Ways shows usually open with a lengthy jam, tonight with Dylan again playing guitar on “Watchtower.” But where last night Dylan’s guitar playing was ramshackle, tonight it is deliberate and played with a tight groove. It’s reminiscent of the performance of “Things Have Changed” in 2009, at a TV tribute to Michael Douglas. My hopes for the rest of the evening rocket.

Unlike last night, “False Prophet” steams ahead without any mistakes. It sounds part Muddy Waters, part ‘72 Rolling Stones. The band dial up the rock ‘n’ roll as Keltner crashes his cymbals. It’s the best live version I’ve heard. Keltner is finally at home as the band’s new drummer.

Similarly, “My Own Version of You” shines where it wobbled on the first night. The improvisational Trout Mask Replica guitar parts are gone. Instead, a Spanish-sounding acoustic guitar holds down the chords, giving the song a solid foundation that it previously lacked. Dylan leans into the Vincent Price-esque lyrics with his spooky delivery.

As Dylan finishes the penultimate song, “Goodbye Jimmy Reed,” the fans in the front rows begin a respectful stage rush. Less rushing, more quietly creeping from seats to the front of the arena as if they dare not wake an elderly relative. I find myself hanging on to the lip of the stage, peering between the footlights as Dylan begins “Every Grain of Sand” six feet away.

It’s an astonishing performance. Dylan’s singing is so tender, and again his harmonica playing perfectly punctuates the verses. I look across the front of the stage to see a row of faces—mostly young—gazing in awe, jaws to the floor.

We’re all sharing this moment, listening to Dylan’s great prayer here at the end of the world. Or at least at the end of Paris’s furthest metro line.

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Thanks Angus! Read more of his writing at The Dylan Review (including a fun conversation we had back when my book came out) and find him on Twitter @gibsona07.

2024-10-24, La Seine Musicale, Paris, France
2024-10-25, La Seine Musicale, Paris, France