The Willie, John Mellencamp and Dylan show

Last night we went to the concert of Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Bob Dylan in Stockton. It was uneven. I last saw Willie Nelson in the late 1970s - he is now 76. In this performance he did a lot of the standards and some new stuff. He did a couple of Hank Williams songs. His performance lacked the impact of thirty years ago - but he clearly is still a dedicated performer.

I saw Mellencamp last at the Concert for New York after 9/11 - he added a mix of some of his old stuff and examples of his new songs. He brought out his 14 year old son at the end to play a song. Mellancamp has evolved in many good ways. From my perspective he was the best of the three.

Dylan was announced with something to the effect that he influenced a generation. I think that is a bit much. Of the three performers he was the most disappointing. What was edgy in the 1960s has turned arrogant in this time. Dylan was never much of a vocalist but last night he seemed to growl his way through numbers. The other impression was that all of his stuff sounded the same - rhythm and pitch were all pretty much equivalent. One of the attractions of Dylan early was his willingness to experiment - from last night's performance he seemed to have lost that inspiration and relied on a presentation style which relied too much on our ability to pay homage to his past glories.

This concert was at the new baseball stadium for the Stockton Ports - Banner Island. Whoever set up the venue for the concert did not think much about how to do it. The sound booth was set up right in the middle of the field so for most of the crowd in the seats immediately behind homeplate could not possibly see the stage from their $68 seats. As I was coming in I was told that no cameras were allowed. I find that offensive. There were tons of cameras taken in - many of the small digital ones (my G-10 was easy to carry in) - but I would have preferred to be able to shoot some shots with my SLR. We were back far enough so you really could not distinguish who was on stage. Had they said no video, I would have complied, as it was I did a lot of video from the G-10 and my iPhone.