Sat 1 Went to yoth club last night and it was Axis at the school because the other groups had gone to a BBQ at Wentwood. There were a dozen kids plus Mel and me and we played rounders all evening – all very competitive. When we finished I had to hang around till about 10.20 with some of the kids and so was there when they came back from Wentwood. They’d taken 41 kids with them in two minibuses and three cars! It’s a military operation these days.
HERE’s A REVIEW OF THE DYLAN CONCERT WE WERE AT ON TUESDAY. It’s from the Independent. Unfortunately, we were in front of two blokes who talked loudly all through the show until Rachel and I turned round and remonstrated with them. It wasn’t as loud as the other times I’d seen him – the sound was more country but I didn’t really feel these guitarists were as good even at that as Larry Campbell and the violin and steel guitar didn’t add much as far as I could tell.
“There were probably a few among tonight's audience holding out the vain hope that Dylan might premiere a few numbers from his forthcoming album, Modern Times, but Bob's wariness about bootleggers has long since put paid to such fancies: these days, he doesn't play a song live until it's shipped and stocked on the shelves.
Still, tonight's show offered just about everything a Dylan fan of any standing might want, even if we had to wait for the customary encores of "Like A Rolling Stone" and "All Along The Watchtower".
Okay, there may not have been a "Blowing In The Wind", but there was compensation aplenty in a "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" fitted out with a closing guitar duet in fluid Les Paul style, and a "Girl From The North Country" rendered in a stately descending chord structure that served to emphasise its poignancy. There was even a rare outing for "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again", featuring one of Bob's best vocal deliveries, sly and conspiratorial, as if recounting an absurd secret.
The set-up was familiar from recent years' shows: Dylan in stylish black at his electric organ, side on to the audience, whilst his grey-suited band spread across the stage, with the new pedal steel guitarist just behind Bob on a dais. All save the pedal steel guy are wearing hats - maybe he's on hat probation? They ease into the show with an easy-rolling version of "Maggie's Farm", Dylan shaking the hoarseness out of his pipes but still managing to infuse the line "They say sing while you save, but ... I get BORED!" with a certain fire.
Boredom is what drives him, of course: the fear that things may stay the
same, that there may not be a new wrinkle to add to his old material, that
there may come a time when it has no resonance with the present.
Dylan's organ technique is just as fitful and quixotic as his lead guitar stylings used to be, and never more so than on "Positively 4th Street", where it verges on the utterly random. As a result, the song morphs out of shape, tugged one way by his organ, and another way by his equally bizarre vocal. By contrast, his delivery of the excoriating "Ballad Of A Thin Man" is superb, recalling blues extemporiser Lightnin' Hopkins in the way he hangs the hapless "Mistah ... Jones" off the end of the chorus, running it into the next verse like a schoolmaster tugging a wayward pupil by the ear: "See! This is what it is, Jones minor!"
The newer material is, as a rule, less subject to Dylan's alterations than his old standards. Both "Love Sick" and "Summer Days" are crisp and slick, and "Cold Irons Bound" is quite stunning, with a hypnotic, stealthy tread that, in the show's most expertly wielded dynamic, becomes predatory and, finally, darkly majestic.
Something similar happens with the set-closing "All Along The Watchtower", which bulges with barely reined-in power as Dylan bites off the staccato syllables two by two - "ALLa-LONGthe-WATCHtow'r ... PRINces-KEPTthe-VIEW...", like a sculptor chipping away doggedly, trying to find exact form. It's an awe-inspiring process to witness, one of the few surviving wonders of the Great American Experiment, as enduring in its own way as Mount Rushmore, Citizen Kane or Charlie Chaplin. Catch him while you can.”
A big day at the world cup. England went out on penalties as usual but it’s all in the mind for them now. One of the commentators said the law of averages should allow them to win one! Well, here’s some news – it isn’t a game of chance and as I said, it’s all in the mind now as one after another they shoot and hope for the best. France went through with a magisterial display by Zidane including a centimetre perfect free kick onto Henry’s boot. We listened to the French commentary but it was about a second ahead of the TV and even that tended to spoil it.
It’s probably time to post this song again about what I was doing when England won the world cup forty years ago:
30th July 1966 to the tune of ‘Who would true valour see’ (Is
it ‘Monk’s Gate’?)
For gold at Wembley
Mam and me and Auntie May
Went up for wimberries.
When stirring tales are told,
Worth more than cups of gold
When you are six years old
Are cups of wimberries.
Chorus When
stirring tales are told,
Worth more than cups of gold
When you are six years old
Are cups of wimberries.
Moore and Banks that afternoon
Grabbed my attention
And to learn their secret soon
Was my intention.
One thought possessed my mind:
To clamber up and find
Moors of a mossy kind
And banks of wimberries.
What a treat when our elite
Performed the hat trick!
We completed greater feats
Than even that trick.
In sweltering single file
We hiked for half a mile,
Climbed over knobbly stiles
To get to wimberries.
Auntie May said, ‘Best beware,
Some sheep have been here.
Other colours can be seen
Than blue and green here.
You’d better put them down,
They make a juicy sound,
They’re round and smooth and brown
But they’re not wimberries.’
Auntie May has passed away
And mam is ailing
And the English football side
Is used to failing.
My fancy flees away
To blazing Summer’s days
And through a lazy haze
I’m picking wimberries.
© 2003 Robert Atkins
Fri 7 A tremendous
amount of work is going into organizing and preparing for the holiday club.
It’s on an Egyptian theme and there’s lot of painting and hieroglyphics to be
done. The name of the thing is Pyramid Rock and it’s about Joseph. Looks
promising.
We went to Llandenny
to check out the organ for Dennis Majer’s funeral service a week today in the
church there. I think I’m going to see if I can borrow Julie’s piano because it
involves playing La Mer, Hymne a l’amour and Fur Elise and beethoven’s minuet
in G as well as the hymns and all of that is not easy on the organ down there.
Tue 11 A busy weekend. One of the highlights was a
concert given by Huw Chidgey and Catherine Handley in the Trinity church hall
in Abergavenny. A very nice conversion of that room. There were tables set out
and a little row of lights set into the ceiling to define not the stage exactly
but the place where the attention should be. There first person I met was Kevin
Cecil – aka Kev the Rev from just outside Monmouth and it was good to chat
about our musical projects and some common experiences with the homeless and
international students. The concert was great as usual and I even enjoyed
‘Wings’ – a song I don’t usually think much of. They sang ‘Writ in Water’ and I
found it very moving on this occasion. Unfortunately, after the concert I had
to drive all the way to St Weonard’s to pick up Rachel and Elen from a party.
Long drive later at night.
The service was good
on Sunday morning with a terrific contribution from Jon Lindsay about the away
weekend. He looked colourful too! There was a power cut about three quarters of
the way into the sermon so that was a new experience of explaining powerpoint
slides with nothing to show.
In the afternoon, the
cream tea raised £187 for Send a Cow but Rachel and Lauren went missing after
it and there was a lot of toing and froing and phoning before they turned up in
a barn not too far from Janet and Francis’s house.
World Cup final in
the evening. Decided on penalties once again. I think I’ve already mentioned
here that as soon as it goes to penalties I lose interest. I think they should
feed a mass of statistics – time in possession, time in opponents’ half, shots
on target, corners, fouls, bookings, anything they can think of – into a computer
and have a suspense filled and public calculation going on until finally the
result comes up. As it is, the penalty shoot out is just a way of making sure
that one poor guy’s life is ruined as is the case for Trezeguet at the moment.
Fri 21 Preparations
for the Pyramid Rock holiday club have been taking nearly al our attention
recently. Catherine and Jon have been working all day every day for some time
to get the place set up.
I’ve finally got
around to recording my ‘Footprints’ song. It’s set to the tune of O Danny
Boy/Londonderry Air and can be heard at www.myspace.com/frostatmidnight
I got the backing track together on Wednesday and then had Huw Chidgey over to sing
on it yesterday. Some tinkering this morning including combining features of
different takes and now it’s ready. I began to write this as we were struggling
to climb the Pylar Dune near Bordeaux one holiday. This is the highest sand
dune in Europe and is so easy to run down but not in the other direction. I
began to make up a version of the Footprints text as a joke but soon realized
that people would like to be able to listen to it and even sing it. This has
been sung in Australia and the Usa but
I’ve had it for about five years without recording it, largely because no
singer wants to sing this melody four times in a row – that leap up to a high
note is risky!
Upon
the shore, I walked with Him at even
And I
looked back upon the path we’d trod
And in
the sand I traced our way at even
And I
was glad I’d walked through life with God:
For
side by side we’d journeyed through together
All
through the world’s wide wilderness of care
And
side by side we’d journeyed through to even
Safe
at his side the Lord my God had brought me here.
But in
my joy I caught a strain of sadness
To
give me pause when thinking of my way
For on
the shore I saw he’d left me lonely
When I
had most the need of him to stay:
When I
was tried he’d left me worn and wandering,
He’d
left me lone when I was fighting fears
He’d
let me tread the steepest slopes in solitude
Before
he came back to my side to dry my tears.
But
then the Lord drew near to me in comfort
And in
his tenderness he made it plain
That
in the times when dread and darkness threatened
He was
my shield and shelter from the pain:
For on
his shoulders he was gently bearing
And on
his shoulders I from harm was free:
The
single trace of footprints of the
Master,
The
single trace of footprints shows he carried me.
So on
the shore I walk with Him at even
I face
the latter days of life secure,
For if
my pilgrimage reserves me sorrow
The
footprints show that He is strong and sure:
If I
am near the gates of heaven weary,
No
longer strong enough to stride alone
The
footprints show that he is there to carry me:
The
footprints show the Lord my God will bear me home.
Thu 27 I’m well into my Summer regime now which is to get up shortly after six and get the paper and then go up and sit in the garden at the Fellowship Centre reading the paper and the Bible or some other improving book – at the moment ‘Free of Charge’ by Miroslav Wolf. I must admit that I’ve never yet been able to find out what time the Paper Shop in Raglan opens because it’s always open when I get there.
Dispatches from the Front – we’re nearing the end of the Holiday Club which this year is ‘Pyramid Rock’ based on the story of Joseph. There are 50 under 17s on the books so that’s a great success. We’d prayed for 30 actual club age kids and we had 31 on the first morning so that was great. It’s been enjoyable but tiring as usual with songs, talks, craft activities etc.
Lona brought the Welsh translation of our song ‘La Glaciere’ this morning and it looks pretty good but I don’t know when we’ll be able to record it or even learn how to sing it.
I popped into the Fellowship Centre on Tuesday to pick up a book and found some people wandering around in the grounds so I offered to show them round the chapel and it turned out they’re looking to move into the village so I’m glad I met them.
Mon 31 The Pyramid Rock holiday club was a triumph from start to finish. I tried to thank everyone at the service yesterday morning but almost certainly missed more than one person. When they put up the list of helpers there were . . . TWENTY-FOUR helpers alone!
Just a laugh to finish the month. I’m doing some talks for the BBc at the moment and one of them is about the holiday club. Could I take out the reference to Pyramid Rock, please (advertising). Yes, no problem. Now, Rob you’ve got this sentence, ‘It takes a lot of sqash to cool down a big gang of children on a sweltering day’, do you think people are going to know what squash is? !!!!!Etc etc. Me: I’ll change it to ‘drinks’ but do you think people will assume that refers to alcoholic drinks.