Talk:Concert 2007-10-11 Pittsburgh

Concert review by Meandthemajor

I was lucky enough to see the legendary pairing of Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan perform together a few nights ago. We missed Amos Lee, but that's okay because I'm not familiar with him.

It was a bizarre crowd. Most of the audience seemed to be middle-aged. Like, they were hippies at one time, or they wanted to be but never actually were. And there was a drunk guy dancing crazily near me, and I kind of hoped that he would fall down and stop. But the crowd was definitely there to see Dylan.

On the other hand, I was more excited about seeing Elvis Costello. I like Bob Dylan, but I sort of lose interest in his music after he went electric. I prefer the non-electric folk music.

Elvis was on first. It was just him and his guitar. His voice is beautiful, and I think it's gotten better with age. The venue was pretty big, and the volume was too loud, that's my only big complaint. We also had great seats. He opened with "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes." I've loved that song since I was a little kid. And maybe because I've been hyper-emotional lately, but the opening chords made me tear up a little. He played a pretty good mix of old songs (from My Aim is True and Armed Forces), a few from The River in Reverse, and at least two brand new tracks. He was engaging and silly and talked about his kids and how much he hates Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The band that plays behind Bob Dylan is fantastic. I think Dylan has a strange voice, and I think it's become stranger as he's aged. It was really loud and he sounded like he needed a cough drop. He only played guitar for the first two songs, and when he did it was amazing. But after that, he switched to this little keyboard, and you couldn't hear it very well, and I was confused by that. I didn't like the more rockish and less folkish arrangement of "It Ain't Me Babe." He played a mix of old and new songs, but I found myself bored at certain parts. Something that I fond strange was there was no interaction between Dylan and the audience, he introduced his band after on of the last songs but that was it. However, I thought that Bob looked really well given his age, he seemed fit and was well dressed. They did a great job on "Highway 61 Revisited," and the encore made his set worthwhile.

- Meandthemajor, October 14, 2007.