Bob Dylan Touring New Zealand in April 2011

Recent acclaim for Bob Dylan:

“A performance filled with gusto, never afraid of restructuring the classics, Dylan succeeded in delivering another stellar live show in his ‘Never Ending Tour’.” Hot Press live review July 2010

“Dylan’s voice is actually the star.” New Musical Express (NME)

“The album’s a gas, a riot, a hoot.” (LP Together Through Life), Uncut Magazine

“His third straight masterwork.” (LP Modern Times) Rolling Stone – 5 stars, and ranked #1 album of 2006

Mr Bob Dylan – celebrated poet, artist, singer, writer, actor and radio announcer – will send legions of fans back once more to all those wonderful songs and albums, as he returns after close to four years for one show only, at Auckland’s Vector Arena on Saturday 30th April.

The man with more than 50 recorded albums, a career spanning six decades, listed in Time Magazine’s ‘100 Most Important People of the Century’, Grammy award winner, and Academy award winner – presents a deceptively simple proposition. To keep performing where he is most comfortable: on stage year after year on his ‘Never Ending Tour’.

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In fact, Mr Dylan turns 70 years of age shortly after he leaves our shores next year. Not bad for a gent who has played roughly 100 shows a year for the last 22 years – never quite the same.

But some clues: Speaking about a 2010 concert, influential music journalist Jim DeRogatis said in the Chicago Sun Times, “Among the standout high points: a revved-up "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum"; "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again," which was turned inside out and upside down; a rollicking and rambunctious "Highway 61 Revisited," and a tense and dramatic "Ain't Talkin'.”

Meanwhile Irish music staple Hot Press reported after a July 2010 Dylan show that, “He sang passionately and buoyantly… generous guitar riffs and exuberant keyboard playing set the bar for what was to be a first-rate concert. ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues’, a frequent inclusion in live shows, was as heavily rearranged as ‘Lay Lady Lay’ and ‘Just Like A Woman’, much to the crowd’s enjoyment… the gruff lyrics of ‘Ballad Of a Thin Man’, were as raw and pertinent now as they were in ‘65.”

With landmark recent albums like Together Through Life (2009), Time Out Of Mind (1997), Love and Theft (2001) and Modern Times (2006) – not forgetting the charming 2009 album of popular Christmas songs, Christmas in the Heart – Dylan’s legacy only seems to grow. His ever popular Bootleg series of rare recordings have also cemented the legacy – the latest being another revelation of very early material: The Bootleg Series Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964.

Martin Scorsese’s penetrating and brilliant 2005 documentary No Direction Home no doubt also helped fuel a popular resurgence that shows no signs of slowing down and deftly crosses each and every generation.

With a string of albums throughout the 1970s and 80s that were alternately revered (Blood on the Tracks, Desire, Oh Mercy), or criticised (Self Portrait, Saved), it is of course Dylan’s work from the 1960s which established him as an unparalleled force in popular songwriting.

For many, Dylan's mid-'60s trilogy of albums — Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde — represents one of the great cultural achievements of the 20th century. In noted writer and cultural commentator Mike Marqusee’s words: “Between late 1964 and the summer of 1966, Dylan created a body of work that remains unique. Drawing on folk, blues, country, R&B, rock'n'roll, gospel, British beat, symbolist, modernist and Beat poetry, surrealism and Dada, advertising jargon and social commentary, Fellini and Mad magazine, he forged a coherent and original artistic voice and vision. The beauty of these albums retains the power to shock and console.”

This Bob Dylan concert is destined to be one of the year’s major shows and a musical event of depth, grace and greatness. Make sure you secure your tickets as soon as possible to avoid missing out on being dazzled by a true songwriting master and concert performer.

ENDS

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