Divisions

The organisers of the festival of which the Dylan set was part divided the audience into two sections. You could pay more and get into the exclusive bit up front where you actually were given a chair to sit in. Or you could pay what was still a small fortune and find yourself on the wrong side of the barriers keeping you from the blessings of the First Circle and, thus, quite a way back from the stage.

This had an odd effect. Most of the folks up front were old gyppers (like myself) who could afford to shell out the green stuff (unlike myself) on a bit of exclusivity. So whilst there were quite a few who abandoned their chairs and pushed up to the stage to groove, quite a number, who seemed to be there for the alcohol or just to tick off a Dylan concert as one of the items on their itineraries of things that should be done in life to prove you actually lived, hung back and paid precious little attention of any sort to the actualities of the concert. I think they regarded the music as background to the fascination of whatever it was they were rabbiting on about.

Then behind then were the mad enthusiasts like myself (but generally quite a young crowd I'm pleased to say) hanging on Dylan's every last rasped syllable and fixated by the brilliance of the band. Unfortunately right in front of us were those odd souls who didn't seem to understand that in order to enjoy a concert it's useful to listen. It's a strangely dislocating experience to be plunged into aural ecstacy whilst a chap stands two metres in front of you doing odd things with a handphone oblivious to it all.