Present (XX) On Tour – Salt Lake City

       I have had to come to this city called Salt Lake and with a two-tier silhouette of jagged buildings set against a mountainous background sculpted with canyons, to reconnect with the desire that drove me to start this story three years ago. And last night’s Dylan concert at the Eccles Theater was something of a dreamlike movie, a film from another time edited upon a familiar soundtrack, embroidered with a host of little lights that shone like stars over the auditorium. It was I who added the final surprise to the plot.

     I had bought a ticket in the central section of the first row, slightly to the left of the piano, to see how, on yet another night, Dylan takes cover behind it as if cloaked in a glass robe. And with a bit of luck, to try to get a photograph of him with some rare expression. I waited until the second encore, and as the chords of the Ballad Of A Thin Man struck up, I opened the bag whose contents when I came in had caused such amazement at the security checkpoint. During the fourth verse, I put the top hat on.

      Several voices behind me complained, but I managed to stand still until, on taking centre stage for the “final bow”, Dylan spotted me. It would have been the perfect moment to take the perfect photo; that snapshot of time standing still and an expression of astonishment that took both of us back to that summer night in 67 on which a biblical bet allowed me to win that tall black hat. Then Dylan called me innocent, and idiot too. I don’t know what he must have thought last night on recognizing that old trophy on my head. When I began to raise it in a gesture of greeting, he had already turned round to leave the stage. I didn’t even get my camera out.

      Perfect pictures never get to be taken, not with any kind of device, but they are tattooed behind our eyelids. Like Dylan’s voice.

      Tonight I’ll go back to the Eccles Theater to attend his second concert in Salt Lake City, this time in the first box on the left. I’ll try to get a message to him beforehand, perhaps some of his favorite flowers too.

Oh, what a lonely soul am I,
Stranded high and dry
By a melancholy mood