resurrection hall

Awaiting the legend

With another legend

 Bob Dylan always has a great band. In fact, I saw him with The Band on The Last Waltz tour. And the band at the Beacon on what has been known for years as The Never-Ending Tour was excellent. However every tune was pretty uptempo and unrecognizable unless you could catch some of the words, which were unintelligible. Either the miking was bad or the singing was bad, or both. However, at least Bobby didn't turn his back on the audience, as he has been known to do. (At Farm Aid he refused to let me interview him but gave me an autograph.) He played honkytonk piano and had good energy for a 78-year-old. He played encores too.
   I was there to see a legend, no matter how he sounded, probably for the last time given my age as well as his, but I also wanted to see the Beacon Theater, which was restored ten years ago. I hadn't been there since—maybe Billy Idol?—and in my memory it was pretty damn funky. I gather the restorers, who had to remove eight layers of paint over the original 1929 murals, redo the gold leaf on the Amazon warrior women and other Greek and Egyptian motifs—as well as replace all lighting, plumbing, weave new carpeting etc—also found it pretty damn funky. I am amazed that the work took only seven months, though I'm sure prep was much longer. But the former vaudeville/movie hall is impressive. I guess they have to cater to an older, more sedate crowd (Ed said there was a long line of the prostate-challenged in the men's room), but the Allman Family (?) still plays a date or two. The acts are mainly older, like Jerry Seinfeld who plays there a lot. Hannah was surprised to see seats. She is accustomed to concerts with none. Anyway, the resurrection  of the Beacon was quite impressive. Almost as impressive as the continuation of he-who-shall-not-be-defamed.