hasta la victoria siempre

As promised awhile ago here's some information on my night with Bob Dylan (I really should have written this the night of the concert as now this is more of a chore than it would have been writing out of the pure bliss which was experienced during and following Bob).

The day of I got super excited for the concert and ran out and bought this cd (which I quite enjoy) and subjected my co-workers to an all day dylan-a-thon.

In any case, the evening started with a massive struggle (hence the blog title) between the chair sitters and the standees (us). This is my third year attending Bluesfest in Ottawa and every year I forget the ridiculousness that is the battle between those who chose to sit in chairs and those who want to stand. It is absolutely insane and really needs to be resolved. Every year there are even letters back and forth in the Citizen from chaired or standees bitching about one another, seriously! It's one of the stupidest things I've seen. Though, says a lot about the city when this is the big conflict in Ottawa. In any case, this year was no exception. I was with Gen and her friend Jen and Gen was (not surprisingly) all about pushing our way through the chair section - which she (we) legitimately thought was going to end way way before it did. No such luck. So, after my fill of middle-aged-women literally screaming in my face we made it to the other side (about 20-25 people back from the center-left of the stage). I was full of rage as were my friends who had waged through the struggle. We found people in front of us bitching about the same thing, and, I in my typical fashion (much to Gen's amusement) made friends with them - we exchanged the set list and pictures with one of our newly found comrades. After we settled in our spot, I sent what I thought was the most witty text message about this to our other friends who were all seeing City and Colour at the other stage (apparently it was only really that funny to us on the writing end). In any case here it is:

"We are guerrilla standees in the land of the chaired. Fear not, our cause is just - we won't be broken. We've found comrades in the struggle against angry house wives."

Anyways, that successfully relieved some of my rage. The whole show was absolutely amazing - and the chaired and standees came together to share in a truly once-in-a-lifetime-experience. I had received the tickets as part of my birthday present from my Ottawa pals. As I had told them (thanking them for the gift):

"I've been listening to Bob Dylan since I was 5 years old when I'd come home from Kindergarten at Katherine Breen's house and put Bob's greatest hits album on the record player I had inherited from my dad ... this thursday, I fully intend on channeling the excitement of my five year old self this Thursday (minus the anxiety that I used to have around Bob Dylan then as I was petrified that my older sister would again crash my world by telling me that Bob Dylan had been dead since before I was alive - she took great sadistic pleasure out of doing this with both John Lennon and Jim Morrison)."

Consider that mission successful, except this five-year-old-in-twenty-six-year-old's-body had a nalgene full of rum and coke too!

Our view was great but, making it even better was the fact that I made friends with the scary chair woman (who was now standing) beside us who had been there since 3pm (we were kinda jerks) who also had binoculars. Gen, Jen and I got to borrow them and see Bob Dylan's face. It was: a-m-a-z-i-i-n-g. Will never forget that. (He looks old, go figure). I got anxious Gen would never give the binoculars back and the chair woman would stab me. Thankfully, I was being overly anxious.

What else?
Gen and I almost had emotional overloads during Don't Think Twice It's All Right

Oh, all the haters who told me that Bob sucks in concert can kiss my ass. This show was insane! I was so euphoric the whole time. It wasn't just me. He played guitar in the front/center of the stage (I guess he sooooo rarely does this) he spoke once to the audience (again, never does). Etc. set list (below) was fan-fucking-tastic too. I think his voice sounded fabulous (considering) too. I also felt, at least the people around us, were being very un-Ottawa crowd-ish (i.e. there was dancing and signing) which I was proud of.

All in all, amazing. Will not soon forget it. I will post on my two Joely shows in one day (HEAVEN) soon.

Bob Enters - playing Rainy Day Women #12 & 35


After I saw his face!


During the crowd-pleaser: Tangled Up in Blue.