Oh Mama, I Hope It Never Ends: Salvation on the East Coast with Bob Dylan

I stood on the shores of Saint John, New Brunswick, and looked out at the Atlantic Ocean.  Waves crashed against the docks, throwing distant echoes up into the city streets.  What hell was I doing out here?  A thousand kilometres from home, tickets to see Bob Dylan in concert for three consecutive nights in my pocket, and hotel reservations in Saint John, Moncton, Halifax . . . it felt like a dream.

There was no question, what I was escaping from was my job.  The grind of bureaucratic life had worn me down until I wasn't even sure who I was anymore.  The boy whose favourite film in high school had been Brazil had succumbed completely to everything he'd said he would never be.  And so he ran... ran east until there wasn't any more Canada left to run to, just the vast expanse of salty ocean waters opening up before him and offering... what?

Photo by Frederick Hidell

Someone once said to me, "It's as though you want works of art to save your soul," and it is probably true.  I really do believe that art can save your soul, but salvation is a heavy burdern to place on the shoulders of a sixty-seven year old performer.

I'd missed Dylan's performance at Ottawa's Bluesfest in the summer of 2007; hadn't cared at the time, didn't know who he was.  When I fell in love with his art mere months later while wandering the foreign streets of another continent in the waning days of 2007, the Bluesfest performance began to weigh heavily on my mind.  HE had been there.  Him.  Dylan.  Bob Dylan had been in my own home town, and I'd let it pass me by.  What if he never came back?  Worse yet, what if he died?  I couldn't stand the idea that I'd thrown away my one and only opportunity to see him live.  I would regret it always.

When I saw that Dylan's Never Ending Tour was making a Canadian East Coast jaunt in late May 2008, I bought up tickets to the Saint John, Moncton, and Halifax shows.  The Bluesfest mistake would be corrected!

These concerts couldn't have come at a better time.  Things were crumbling at work.  They had been broken in a way that will never be completely mended.  I'd been humiliated and humbled, torn apart and sullied, not by any one individual, but by the faceless monolith of dehumanizing bureaucratic protocol to which I'd sold my soul.  The bureaucratic machine had ground my confidence down to nothing and washed away my idealism, leaving me utterly disillusioned.

Salvation is a heavy burden to place on the shoulders of a 67 year old singer.In the dark night of mediocrity that is their jobs, public servants cling to a singular hope: retirement. But I needed something more than just that faint glimmer of hope on the distant horizon of life if I was going to survive.  I was hoping that Bob could give it to me.

As I stood in the crowd at the Harbour Station concert venue in Saint John, my fear was palpable. It clung to me like rich mouse.  This whole trip could easily go so very wrong.  Several people had gone out of their way to warn me before I'd even left town.  "He's not what he used to be," they said.  "His voice is gone," I was warned.  "It's a boring show.  He just stands there," noted others. Try as a might to push these voices to the back of my mind, they lingered at the front of my consciousness.

Is it possible for a man's sanity to be determined by the outcomes of a concert?  Would a poor performance by Dylan push me headlong into full-on suicidal abandon?  Would a good show save my soul?  I was about to find out, but first . . . a trip to the bathroom.

While I washed my hands at the sink, two men conversed next to me.  One was dressed in a well-worn orange hoodie, a souvenir from some earlier leg of the Never Ending Tour.  The other man had long grey dreadlocks.  They spoke like colleagues.  Not friends, per say, but casual acquaintances.  Fellow travelers.  Dylan followers that had passed in the night like this before in stadium bathrooms across the continent.

The dreadlocked man left, and the orange-shirted man turned to me and asked, "When was the last time you saw Bob?"

"This is my first show," I admitted. "I've got tickets for the next couple nights. Moncton tomorrow, then Halifax."

"Of course, of course," he said, nodding. "Are you heading to Newfoundland for the two shows in St. Johns after that? I've got great seats for both those shows."

"No," I said. "Just the three."

He looked quite sad for a moment, but then he smiled.

"Well," he said, reaching out to me. "We do what we can. Right, man?"

I took his hand in mine and we shook.

"We do what we can," I said.

Less than twenty minutes later, Bob Dylan is on the stage singing, "Oh mama, can this really be the end? / To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again," and everything is right in the world.  Joints are being lit and passed around, people are cheering, others watch on in rapt ecstasy, and Bob sounds absolutely wonderful.  Full and rich and alive.

About twenty seats in front of me, almost in the front row, I can see an orange shirt bobbing up and down, joyously dancing to the music.  Did the man in that orange shirt know why he was there any more than I did?  Was he escaping something as well?  It didn't seem to matter anymore.  Whatever it was we were all looking for that night, we had found it.

Frederick Hidell is a freelance journalist and self-published novelist.  He can be contacted through his editor at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Comments (2)

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Sveinbjorn Thorkelsson

August 13, 2009

Votes: +0

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I´m with you

Your text brougth smile to my face, my experince was somewere along your lines.... in the States, Atlantic City and Hersey - june 2007 - and my hometown is Reykjavik, Iceland.
- But still my first concert was 1990 in Reykjavik and my second 2002 in Rotterdam, Holland. Thank your for a good article.

jerelynn

August 13, 2009

Votes: +0

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thoughts

salvation is on your own shoulders but isn't it more accessible during a Dylan song?
Enjoyed your article. Saw Dylan July 18 in Bethel Woods NY, original location of Woodstock. Great concert, probably the best of the 7 I've seen since 1978. I also wasn't so interested in his music until I reached 25 yrs.... and it's been a constant love ever since.
Have fun!

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