THE SCHLANSKY FILES: Those Summer Nights

“Summer days, Summer nights are gone.” Bob Dylan said that, on his 2001 album Love and Theft. And every year, around this time, he’s proven right. This was a pretty good summer for The Schlansky Files, and not just because I got to stand 15 feet away from my idol, Bob freakin’ Dylan.

“Summer days, Summer nights are gone.” Bob Dylan said that, on his 2001 album Love and Theft. And every year, around this time, he’s proven right. This was a pretty good summer for The Schlansky Files, and not just because I got to stand 15 feet away from my idol, Bob freakin’ Dylan.

I was charmed silly by Shelby Lynne; sometimes you just go to a gig, not really knowing the music, and get a perfect evening of entertainment for your troubles. I saw my beloved Breeders twice-once at Webster Hall, where the Kim Deal karaoke going on behind me nearly ruined it for me, and once at McCarren Park, where I drank complimentary whisky drinks and fulfilled my dream of taking in a show from the side of the stage. Here’s what I found-while it’s pretty sweet, there’s no substitute for being front and center in the crowd, so that’s where I ended up. I also saw a performance of Hair in Central Park. (What great songs! What sick bass lines!) Everybody remembers “Sodomy,” but my favorite song from this evergreen 1960s musical is “What A Piece of Work is Man”-lyrics by William P. Shakespeare.

Before we go any further though, let’s talk Bon Jovi. My first concert was Bon Jovi with Skid Row at New Jersey’s Meadowlands. I had a panic attack in the middle of Bon Jovi’s set and had to be led out by the best friend of my best friend’s sister (I still feel guilty over this). We drove down to the show at 100 miles an hour in his sister’s boyfriend’s souped-up car. It was the first time I’d ever seen a radar detector. All around it was an awesome ‘80s experience. Fast forward to 2008, and Bon Jovi are playing a free show in Central Park. 60,000 people showed up. Why are there so many Bon Jovi fans again? After not listening to their music for 15 years, I came to this conclusion: Slippery When Wet? A stone-cold classic (for the genre, anyway). New Jersey was their Abbey Road-like swan song. After that, they went out in a blaze of glory, and were reinvented as the cheesy people pleasers they are today.

Speaking of New Jersey, I took the ferry there to see Radiohead headline the first night of the inaugural All Points West Festival. At this point, what other words can you use to describe a Radiohead concert besides “awesome” and “brilliant?” They were brilliantly awesome.

I almost didn’t go to the Bob Dylan show in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, though I used to live right next to it. In fact, I had resigned myself to the idea that I would never see Dylan live again. When I saw him in 2004 with my dad on his tour of minor league baseball stadiums, Dylan spent the whole night using the same three notes to sing each song. This vocal tic has been re-named “upsinging” by fervent fans of Bob; it nearly drove me mad.

I’m glad I changed my mind. The ex-girlfriend, who used to work sound for the park, got us tickets that got us into the catered VIP section-which enabled us to stand on the side of the stage, some 15 feet away. The band came out and launched into “Rainy Day Women,” and there was my idol, singing with gusto. It was a kick-ass concert, better than the last three I had seen put together. I wasn’t even disappointed that Dylan’s back was turned to me the whole night, as he laid into his keyboard, which meant I mainly stared at his ear and the back of his head. It was more iconic that way. Really. You can’t just stare into the face of Bob.

Two nights later I was with the same ex-girlfriend, only this time we were in McCarren Park again, watching Wilco. Her favorite song is “Heavy Metal Drummer,” because she used to like heavy metal, and she still loves drummers. It was a beautiful night at a beautiful venue. During “Spiders,” Jeff Tweedy cajoled the crowd into clapping along, then paid us a compliment at the end. “We played that song a lot of times. We’ve played it all around the world. But you ‘free thinkers’ are the first ones to change the beat. Very impressive. It’s like my dad said when he saw Bob Dylan. ‘I don’t know what he’s smokin’…but he sure is a free thinker.’”

Summer days, Summer nights are gone. I know a place where there’s still something going on.