Jakob Dylan @ The Variety Playhouse
I have a good friend that I love spending time with and one of the things that we enjoy talking about is music. She told me that she had gone and seen Bob Dylan last year, and I was so jealous. It’s not often that you get to see a legend singing live on stage. So I told her that I had seen somewhere that Jakob Dylan was coming to Atlanta to play a concert. When I found the information later, I emailed it to her. I had earlier told her about the record player I bought after getting Shawn Mullins vinyl record (see 3/8/08 Blog), and let her know that any albums she had, I could convert to MP3’s or CD’s. So I get an email from her saying that she wanted to have some CD’s made of Bob Dylan albums that she had and that she had bought tickets to the Jakob Dylan concert and wanted to know if I wanted to go. This was awesome. She was taking a trip and wanted to have the CD’s for the long drive so she dropped the albums off to me on a Wednesday. I made the CD’s and gave them to her the next day. The Bob Dylan albums were amazing and in pretty decent shape. The first one was “Self Portrait” a double album from 1970. The 2nd one was “Desire” from 1976. It was cool to hear these albums since there were several great songs that aren’t on any of the compilations I have. The CD’s came out pretty good. There were a few skips, but that’s probably to be expected from 30+ year old vinyl.
The Jakob Dylan concert was at the Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points. Little Five Points is an eclectic place. It has always been since I started going there as a teen. It hasn’t changed too much. And what’s cool is everyone there gets along. We were able to grab dinner near the venue and walk down the street to catch the show. I had been to the Variety Playhouse back in November to see Shawn Mullins, so I recommended sitting in one of the sections off on one side. If we wanted to, we could aways go down in front of the stage. So we grabbed a seat and waited for the opening act. There wasn’t any notice of who the opening act was going to be, so we didn’t know what to expect. We weren’t sitting too long when 2 guys and a girl come out from back stage and announce that they are “Anna Kramer and the Lost Cause“. Once they started playing, my friend said, “Oh, we’re going to want to stand up for this”. So, we jumped up and ran down in front of the stage. They were amazing. It’s incredible how much sound was coming from this group of 3. The songs had tones of all types of music. It had a kinda rock-a-billy style. They definitely put on an rockin’ show. Not quite what you expect from an local group asked to be an opening act at the last minute.
We ended up just staying where we were for Jakob, since we were right down front, real close to the stage. After a short break, Jakob and his band came out. It was kinda neat how leisurely it was. Jakob’s performance was as if it was with a bunch of friends just sitting around. And since we were right up front, within feet of him, we caught a lot of the nuances of the performance.
Jakob’s set-list (as listed online and from what I remember):
*All Day and All Night
*Something Good This Way Comes
*Everybody Pays As They Go
*Here Comes Now
*Evil Is Alive and Well
*This End of the Telescope
*The Beautiful Side of Somewhere
*Here He Comes (Confessions of a Drunken Marionette) [Jakob alone]
*Mourning Train [Jakob alone]
*War Is Kind [Jakob alone]
*Three Marlenas
*Will It Grow
*Closer To You
*I Wish I Felt Nothing
*Empire In My Mind
Encores:
*From the Bottom of My Heart
*On Up The Mountain
*How Good It Can Get
Jakob’s performance was excellent. It was a really cool concert. Between songs Jakob would talk with the audience as if he knew the people. It was a pretty comfortable interaction. At one point he looked over and read what was written on two girl’s shirts saying, “There is love in my creation”. He first realized that they both had the same shirt and saying. Then he commented on how that was a great line and then he questioned them asking, “did I write that?” Then he asked what song it was. And was told or realized that it was from his song, “I Told You I Couldn’t Stop”. It was a pretty funny moment. Another moment someone yelled out that they loved him and he seemed to trip over the lyrics of the song. It was an amazing night of music spent with a great friend. What more could you ask for?
Posted by Tom under Jakob Dylan,Main Blog,Variety Playhouse | Comments (0)
