Bob Dylan at Sheffield

Maybe it’s too late to start going to see Bob Dylan.  I can at least say that I saw him live, that it was an enjoy­able even­ing, and that he and his band make a good rock­ing sound.  But his croak is more croaky than ever and I really ony could make out the words on songs I knew already. And that was only once I’d worked out what song they were, as he keeps chan­ging how he does any par­tic­u­lar num­ber. That’s fine, and I quite liked the rock “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” and “Blowin’ In the Wind”.  But over­all there wasn’t much vari­ety in present­a­tion — he’s determ­ined to make a loud noise and has taken to play­ing the key­board as well as the gui­tar and har­mon­ica.  I did won­der at times if he was using the key­board to hold him­self up.  A lot of people at Shef­field Arena had gone minus their crit­ical fac­ulty, it seemed.  Bob’s still great — but he’s not as good as he was.