A Bob Each Way

In my teens I became aware that the inevitable hierarchical structure of youth culture was driven largely by music—in particular which artist(s) you followed. If you were of what these days is called the nerd persuasion you enjoyed The Beatles; the more rebellious were into The Rolling Stones, and if you were a “beat freak” Bob Dylan was your thang. The truly out there—and there were few enough of these—grooved to Bob Dylan’s backing band The Band. The Band was and is my favourite band of all time. However, I never saw them live and I never will; The Band exists only on record, video and memory, and three of its original five members are dead.

But Bob Dylan is very much alive and I have seen him live. Once. I would not go again. The concert of his I attended at Mt Smart lasted barely 70 minutes, he played most of it with his back to the audience, didn’t even try to structure a rapport or acknowledgement with that audience, and he gifted us only one of his more well-known songs—All Along the Watchtower. He, his concert and his forgettable backing band were worth neither the time nor the money.

So, Hamilton will probably get what it deserves. Bob Dylan plays two shows at Hamilton’s Claudelands Arena in early August. They are the first of a month-long Australasian tour for the aging artist. He may have changed, of course. As he himself wrote, of himself, Times Have Changed (Wonder Boys Soundtrack). However, to me, based on my experience and on the necessity of going to Hamilton of all places to see him, I do not think he is worth the risk.

I was mildly amused, however, by Ticketek’s showcasing of the Hamilton concerts. I received an email from them extolling the virtues of booking early. The subject line of the email is Knocking on Hamilton’s Door. That is either clever of clumsy. I think the latter. Yes, it is a play on words and homage to the Dylan hit Knocking on Heaven’s Door. But is Ticketek not aware that the only thing Heaven and Hamilton have in common is that they both start with H? In all other respects, Hamilton is more akin to Hell than Heaven—at least for those who have committed a career-limiting offence and been sent by their bosses to manage the Hamilton office.

Bob may well be going there of his own volition (and maybe the fact that it is the first of his concerts is significant because Rusty-Rob can’t do any harm in Hamilton) but none of the rest of us do. You hear that knocking on Hamilton’s door, Bob?  Mate, it is people trying to get out, not in.

Waltz With Me

Today we note the death of legendary singer-drummer Levon Helm. He died in his adopted state of New York, aged 71, after a decade-long battle with throat cancer.
Levon Helm is little known these days and even in his hey-day few outside of a hard-core group of fans knew him, but they knew his band—The Band.
Levon Helm was the group’s drummer and founding member. The Band started as The Hawks backing the hard-drinking-hard-living Rockabilly artist Ronnie Hawkins. Ronnie is purported to have promised Levon and the other Hawks—Robbie Robertson (yes, him), Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel—no money but “all the pussy you can eat.”
But it was not with Ronnie that they found their fame or even their infamy. It was with Dylan. They became Bob Dylan’s backing band when he went electric. Like him, they were the target of a sustained and vitriolic campaign by aggrieved folkies. Dylan didn’t care. Levon didn’t care. The Band didn’t care. They didn’t even have a name to that point, and wouldn’t have one until they launched their first album, the magnificent Music From Big Pink where Levon and the others were listed in the liner notes under the prosaic heading The Band. The name stuck. At least it did until The Band dissolved in a bitter battle between Levon and Robbie. Their swan song was the live concert movie The Last Waltz—generally believed to be the best movie of its type.
Levon was the only American in The Band. He came from Arkansas; the others were Canadians. He had every appearance of a hokey hillbilly, and probably that influenced the distinctive folk-rock sound of The Band, though it was Robbie Robertson who wrote most of The Band’s Songs, such The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and The Weight. Levon did lead vocals on most of them, one of the few drummers to take the lead—Phil Collins of Genesis was another.
The Band has always been my favourite group—I narrowly missed (by one week) seeing them when they toured Australia. That was post-Robbie and they were shadows of their former selves. But Levon was there, Garth was there, Rick (my favourite) was there and Richard was yet to hang himself—that would happen a month later. Only Garth and Robbie survive today.
So Levon is gone. And with him that ten-year cancer battle. There is mercy in that, I suppose. But for those of us with long memories, those of us who know the tragedy of the barely coherent Garth Hudson and the show-pony antics of the much despised Robbie Robertson we know that with Levon’s passing passed The Band.
This was our Last Waltz.



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Now playing: The Band - Across The Great Divide
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