Bob Dylan in Lloydminster

In August 1990 I was living in Edmonton. Bob Dylan came to town and performed at the Jubilee Auditorium with opening act Sue Medley. I remember it was very loud, Dylan had no interaction with the crowd, his lyrics were at best unintelligible and my general feeling about the whole thing was disappointment. Like many who are familiar with Dylan's most famous works, we have this picture in our head of what we think the concert should be like. Predominately we like to imagine him, alone on the stage, just a harmonica and an acoustic guitar, singing the songs of protest we have come to love. It is surprising then to realize that most of the Dylan work we are familiar with was written and made famous very early in his career. Blowing in the Wind came out in 1962 and much of his great work had been produced by about 1965, meaning that Dylan was only in his early 20's when fame came to him. With his controversial switch to electric I do not believe he ever really looked back. Those folksy roots were a very small part of his long career.

Flash forward 20 years. My wife had bought me tickets to see Bob Dylan perform in the border city of Lloydminster, Alberta. Of course I was not going to turn them down or raise a fuss. However after my previous experience I was reluctant to get my hopes up too high and decided to attend with an open mind. The first thing I had found out from some recent concert reviews was that Dylan tends to spend most of his performance at the piano. He did perform "Simple Twist of Fate" standing with the electric guitar, but there were no acoustic performances. There was no opening act.