He is Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan and his Band, Rod Laver Arena, Wednesday, April 20.

In the lead up to this event, my friends and I took great joy in partaking constantly in our new favourite game.

It was simple, and consisted only of one person yelling out rather obnoxiously to another in crowded areas; "Hey! What are you doing on Wednesday April 20 at Rod Laver Arena?’ and the other replying smugly; ‘Oh, you know, seeing God’, then proceeding to grin broadly at the other generally unenthused members of our generation surrounding them.

We took solace in this during the concert, for, though we were the only people present under the age of 30, we were also with my parents.

However, it became necessary to remember the sheer musical divinity of Bob Dylan, not only in light of his performance, but also when being barraged by the quite diverse opinions of the said performance.

Though the majority of his most noted works were released during the 1960s, ever since the late 1980s, Bob Dylan has been completing his ‘Never Ending Tour’, essentially, touring until demand or his voice eventually carks it.

Judging by the ridiculously gravelly, seemingly 700-packs-a-day evidence, I’d say his voice will be the first to go.

Sure, he eventually warmed up (and by ‘warm up’, I mean he eventually managed to sing a melody instead of simply speaking it), but many were disgruntled by their subsequent inability to sing along.

Furthermore, while the performance was listed as ‘Mr. Bob Dylan and his band’, it should have been ‘HIS BAND and Mr Bob Dylan’, such was the prominence of it. It was great to dance to (as displayed by the drunken middle-aged people next to us), ‘but’, the naysayers exclaimed, ‘I hardly knew what song he was playing!’

In addition, he didn’t actually acknowledge the packed stadium for the entire two hours, until, after making us work very hard for 10 minutes for an encore, he mumbled the names of his band members in our vague direction.

He wore a massive funny-looking hat and he seemed fascinated by anywhere that was not his clamouring audience.

Twenty minutes after the encore, walking back to the car, someone joked that he was probably in bed already, with no recollection of the night’s events.

This is all probably true. But it can be swiftly rebutted and beaten by four simple words.

It is Bob Dylan.

Of course he’s like that.

Of course he would refuse to digress into the placating ‘Greatest Hits’ machine once his ‘prime’ was deemed over.

Of course he wouldn’t be chatty, or dress in pleasing ways.

Of course he’d do whatever he wanted.

He’s Bob Dylan. People always forget that this same irreverence and complete enigmatic quality was exactly what made him so brilliant in the first place.

After the concert, I wasn’t disappointed.

I wasn’t bemoaning the lack of hits, still trying to decipher his snarl or strutting about in an offended manner after being so completely ignored by the man I paid $100 to see.

I went to see Bob Dylan. And in this facet at least, he definitely didn’t disappoint.