Bob Dylan in Shanghai

So a couple of weeks ago I returned from my short visit to the US.  Landed here at 10:30AM, went home, showered and then off to the office to meet my boss who was in town.  Worked the rest of the day and then a group of us went to the Bob Dylan concert here.  The concert was literally right across the street from my office so that made things easy.

This was only the 2nd concert he had ever given in China.  The first being 2 days previous in Beijing.  It also happened to be that the date was nearly 50 years to the date from his first ever show!  So yes he has been at it a long time.

Here's a view of the arena and stage before he came on...

Looks more like a small college arena than anything but still it's Dylan right?  We were ready for anything.

Above is with him on stage (sorry for the poor iPhone quality photos).  Unfortunately there was no large video screen to see what was happening up there.  Dylan is now 69 years old.  His song writing skills are brilliant but at this point his voice is pretty much gone.  He played a two hour set but not until the encore songs did I even recognize one of them.  That was because the Chinese gov't strictly controlled his playlist.  In fact he tried to come to China last year but was refused entry by the gov't.

All in all it was a fun experience and I'm glad I got to see him especially saying that I saw him in China.  But given I had arrived that morning on a trip that took nearly 32 hours from start to finish I could have used a show that was more upbeat to keep me fighting the jet lag!