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Comment by vikingcaffiene | Hacker News Reader

> played what he wanted to play > Didn't include most of his hits

I am always baffled when people expect a jukebox from artists of this caliber. When I go to see an artist I want a unique experience. Dylan is known to rework his songs on the fly live and you never know what you're going to get. He's got one of the best backing bands on earth who can go wherever he wants too. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Sounds like you might have caught the former which sucks but it's the nature the way he approaches live music. It's anything but safe and doesn't always work. That takes serious guts IMO and it's much more exciting that seeing some geriatric geezer punching out his hits and "collecting his fee".

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I'm long-time Dylan fan and I've seen him live quite a few times.

I can honestly say he puts on one of the least coherent concerts of any famous musician. Yes, he reworks the songs nightly but he can barely sing anymore and no one can tell what he is saying anyway, so the results are unpredictable. But sometimes it can be great.

He's been doing it like this for decades so it's just part of the deal. Take it or leave it. I think it's fair to call it out and fair to enjoy it.

There was a question in this interview where the interviewer asked what role improvisation played in his performances, and Dylan said absolutely none.

I was a bit surprised by this answer but too it at face value. I am a Dylan fan but haven't seen him live. Now that I have heard a description of live shows, I assume the response to the interview question was pure sarcasm.

I am a big Dylan fan and also of improvisational (jazz, jam bands like Phish and Grateful Dead) music. I don't need/expect anyone to "jukebox play the hits". Your comment states a few generalities trying to discredit parent, but I don't think they apply here.

I saw Dylan a few years ago and it was a nightmare. He played 3 Sinatra covers IIRC. He'd recently done an album of that. No idea why, the whole point of those songs is to be a really good singer / crooner and he isn't. The band was good of course but he was not engaged. When he did Tangled Up in Blue I didn't recognize it until the second verse. Changing a song is cool, but couple that with detached incomprehensible singing and it is not good at all.

> I am always baffled when people expect a jukebox from artists of this caliber

Plenty of artists of his caliber perform shows with regular renditions of their hits. But some artists just do things differently.

And the argument goes both ways: I don't, personally, want a "unique" experience when I'm paying several hundred dollars to see an artists whose songs I love (particularly the way they were recorded). There shouldn't be anything baffling about that.

Don't call them artists if you're expecting them to give the audience what it thinks it wants.

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