I bought my ticket in March, hoping that I could still be able to pay for the cheapest one, but I had to settle for the one just over. I was so excited because Bob Dylan is a part of my thesis and to get the chance to hear him alive was once in a lifetime opportunity...at least for me, anyway.
And all of a sudden, I was just days ago from the main event...and then, of course, I had to take care of something that I had not considered: how to get to Movistar Arena in Santiago, Chile. My sister Fernanda did not pay her plate license, so she was out of the picture. Looked at public transportation, but didn´t get me as near as I wanted to...I just had to call for a cab.
Called a cab company and it was settled that a car would come by my apartment at 7:00 p.m. No problem there, but then got stuck on traffic and had to take an earlier exit and we missed the right entrance to Movistar Arena. Luckily, I still had plenty of time to get there since it was nearly 8:15. The cab driver would meet me back at 11:00 more or less at the same spot where he left me, so we got each other cell phones´number.
I bought a cap as a souvenir for the concert and then I bought a can of Coke Zero and chips and something sweet. I got on the line and on the speaker someone was saying that no food or drink could come from outside, and that they would be looking for people who would try to sneak it in.
I just could not believe my eyes when I saw the line of people ahead of me, it was incredibly long through all the doors. A woman´s voice said to go to the other entrance that was empty and we had a better chance of getting in faster. And well, she was right! It was empty compared to the other one. They took a piece of my ticket, searched inside my purse and my bag and managed to get inside with the things I bought. I won´t believe if anyone of you hasn´t done that same thing before! Prices are way higher inside and have no guarantee that you will find what you want unless it´s a soda or popcorn or hot dog or something of the kind to eat and/or drink.
Went up a flight of stairs, then to the bathroom and called mom to say that I got to the Movistar Arena all right.Then to find my seat and relax for about half an hour before things started stirring up on the stage. Some guitar player would come on stage to tune up his guitar and then would leave to make the big entrance. The show started around nine o´clock. The band and Dylan were playing a bluesy-country-folk-rock and rolling kind of music, all mixed up in a blender with a twist of arrangements that got my feet and my body moving. It was just so amazing! Of course, I couldn´t really make out almost any single word out of Dylan´s mouth but somehow figured that some of the songs he played that night were "It Ain´t Me Babe", "Ramona", "Desolation Row", "Like A Rolling Stone" and "Blowin´ in the Wind".
And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Dylan took out his harmonica and the music was so amazingly good. Felt like I was cruising through the clouds or something, it felt like magic and just couldn´t wait until I would be able to hear a little bit more.
Suddenly it was half an hour and then forty-five minutes and one whole hour straight of playing non-stop with big clapping after each song was finished, while people highlighted some of Dylan´s way of moving around his songs and others simply looked at facebook and posted (apparently he or she was bored, but then I thought what the hell! You just can´t be at a Dylan concert and not enjoy the music or you just don´t know what you got yourself into. Sorry if someone feels like I´m kind of crazy but that´s what I think and I should not apologize for stating what I thought at the time).
The band with all the guitars (this time, I´m sorry that I can´t tell you whether they had six, eight or twelve strings because I was far enough from the stage to be able to distinguish one from the other), the cello, the piano, the harmonica and ocassionally, the drums brought the music alive and then you had to make sure you could get enough attention to see whether you could figure out what song were they playing. It´s hard to describe what I felt, because it was a sense of happiness, freedom, flying, rocking, having a good time, thinking of ideas on how to present my thesis in a "Dylan kind-of-way", of enjoying every note from the harmonica, and tapping with my shoes, and saying whooo and clapping and man, that was some atmosphere!
I could just close my eyes and imagine being back in the 1960s listening to Dylan in a small coffeehouse/bar somewhere small and not too and that sounded so good in my mind as I was experiencing his music on the 21st century. I was just seating there and thinking that Bob is so true to himself that he just goes along with what he´s feeling at the moment and somehow makes us catch up to him, because at that exact moment he decides to go on a different path. Always changing and maintaining his music alive through the decades is what makes him so special, so hard to categorize and yet a challenge for all of us to figure out where he´ll be headed next.
I heard through Dylan´s speaker that he was saying the band member´s name along with the instrument they were playing in a very low voice..., it was just only a few minutes before the final songs.
The lights went out for a couple of minutes as Dylan slowly left the stage, but I knew it was not over yet because I could see someone placing some instruments, and that he would come out for one last time and then the concert would be over. Lights on and there we were listening to "Blowin´in the Wind". Lights out and people tried to see whether Dylan would come out again, but then people below were walking toward the exits and as lightly as his music sounded, the light started to expand so that all of us could get out of the Arena safely.
As I went out I found myself singing pieces of "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Blowin´ in the Wind" as I walked through the concrete and grass as I moved to the gates of the park. I noticed that a couple of people were talking about the fact that Dylan didn´t seem to interact with us, and I said that it was just the way he did things. And that´s what I had been expecting but got so much more than that, I got a really good experience and some music to remember in my ears until the end of time.
Waited for my cab as I watched the whole bunch of cars trying to get out with the traffic and carefully watching out for any person on foot. Gates closed and then my trusted cab driver showed up and he drove me back to my apartment.
What an incredibly amazing experiencing! As I was writing this I listened to a couple of Dylan´s songs online and felt even more inspired to keep on writing and feeling like I was back at the Arena...something really hard to forget, I still somehow can listen to Dylan notes on his harmonica in a dreamy kind of way and feel all the excitement and enjoyment I had last week. And it took me this long to write about my feelings at the moment, so I hope you like it.
Look forward to any comments...maybe feeling like writing this one in spanish as well (let me know if you want to or not, won´t hold it against it you if you don´t)....
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