Chinese fans charmed and puzzled by Bob Dylan
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American music legend Bob Dylan on Wednesday night made a smooth debut in Beijing, heralding his long-awaited Chinese mainland concerts to mark the energetic artist's 50 years on the performance stage.
Dylan, who will turn 70 in May, played 17 songs ending with "Forever Young" to a nearly packed audience at downtown Beijing's Workers Gymnasium.
Hundred of mesmerized fans clapped and at some points danced to the beat as Dylan band played two encores including the popular "Like A Rolling Stone."
Dylan did not talk other than introducing members of the band throughout the two-hour concert.
"It is the most moving performance I attended recently. You had expected to see a living fossil but instead saw an energetic warrior," Chinese rock star Zheng Jun said in a post on his microblog.
Cui Jian, dubbed as China's "Godfather of Rock", was also spotted in the audience. But he declined to speak to media after the concert.
The audience are mostly young Chinese Dylan fans in their 20s and 30s and a significant number of older foreigners living in China. Fans were seen clad in Dylan T-shirts while one wearing a cowboy hat.
More than 5,000-plus tickets, with minimum price set at 280 yuan (43 U.S. dollars), were sold out one day before the concert, according to Gehua Live Nation Entertainment and Sports, the Chinese promoter.
The VIP tickets were sold at 1,961.411 yuan each, a number to commemorate the day Dylan played his first major gig in New York City on April 11, 1961, the promoter said.
But Wednesday's concert was not met with the same enthusiasm and passion typical for concerts starred by Mandarin-speaking pop singers or even popular Chinese rockers.
Some of the audience were apparently not prepared for the iconic unpredictability of set list, arrangements and vocal approach in Dylan concerts.
David Cantalupo, an American who has been living in China for 25 years, said he was not satisfied with the show and had expected something better.
"It could have been much better. For a local audience, he could be a little bit more accessible and sing his songs more like the recordings," said Cantalupo. "But that is Dylan. I am not surprised."
He said while Dylan is a music legend, he is very individualism.
Chinese music critics say Dylan can not be counted as popular in China due to the language and culture barriers.
Without the Internet and international promotions, Dylan's songs only entered China in the 1980s, with "Blowin' in the Wind" as an Engligh-learning material that later became immensely popular.
The first Chinese rock fans started to appreciate Dylan from the 1990s but they had to largely rely on CDs imported to China through underground channels. ` Dylan's name grew bigger in China with the popularity of the Internet downloading and the opening-up of China's music industry over the past decade.
"For a long time, Dylan was seen in China as an old-fashioned folk singer who played good harmonica," music critic Zhang Xiaozhou said on his blog. "Maybe people have heard of Dylan, but not many really know who he is."
Zhang said Dylan is like a "70-year-old young stranger" to China and his mainland concerts will serve more like "a lesson to catch up" rather than "a party to recall the old days" to Chinese fans.
Dylan is scheduled to perform in Shanghai on Friday before making his debut in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday. He will return to hold another concert in Hong Kong on April 12.
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