Whenever I do a phone interview with a country singer, lead or otherwise, the conversation always starts the same way. I answer my cell phone at the appointed time, and I’m greeted in song. Like this:
Me: Hello.
Artist: Aaaal-iii-so-oooon, I know this world is killing you. Ohh ohh, Aaaal-iii-so-oooon, my aim is truuue.
Me: Oh, hi, (artist name). God, I haven’t heard that one in ages. You should seriously cover that in concert. That was so, so good.
This is truly an epic-size tour. Fifteen life-size walking and bellowing animatronic dinosaurs will stalk through Nashville’s Sommet Center. The biggest of them is the 50-foot-tall Brachiosaurus. The Tyrannosaurus Rex is 45 feet long. The tour uses 27 tractor-trailer trucks and employs a crew of 68 people. The tour began in January in Sydney, played Australian dates through March and then began in North America.
This came about from the 1999 BBC-TV series, Walking with Dinosaurs, which was itself groundbreaking and watched by millions of people. Those dinosaurs were computer-generated, a process which was enormously expensive and complicated.
An Australian company decided to try building realistic, life-size dinosaurs and taking them on the road for an arena tour. The life-size creatures were built and “dinosaur drivers” learned how to operate them. Consider the cost. The movie Jurassic Park had about nine minutes of dinosaurs in it. The tour production of Walking with Dinosaurs runs around three hours. It’ll be in Nashville Oct. 17-21. The big screen videos I’ve seen of it and the accounts I’ve heard from friends who have seen this show tell me it’s well worth seeing. The script traces dinosaur development throughout the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods of the Mesozoic Era. And there’s one epic dinosaur battle.
I’ll tell you what. This is really about getting back to the roots.
Posted: September 21st, 2007 at 3:26 pm| By: Lauren Tingle
Going into the Bob Dylan concert at the Ryman Auditorium this week, I had very high expectations. But being a fan, one should always expect the unexpected at a Dylan show.
I got to my seat in time to watch surprise opening act Elvis Costello perform an acoustic set. I’ve seen him before and I thought that his previous performance was rinky-dink but he blew my mind onstage before Dylan. He intimately performed “Veronica” and others wearing sparkling boots while he sipped from a white mug, making the large auditorium feel like a small coffeehouse.
Then Dylan took the stage. He looked more fragile than the time I last saw him. He wore a Western suit with a rhinestone-studded collar. When he strapped on his guitar, I was relieved because I heard he had carpal tunnel and would be playing behind a piano the entire night instead of rocking out on his Fender. He played fan favorites like “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “Desolation Row” and opened with “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat,” but, to me, they were unrecognizable. Between his usual inaudible lyrical croaks and the instrument’s random microphone feedbacks, his most familiar songs became foreign. Even his closer, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” sounded unfamiliar.
I felt like Dylan was going through the motions as the set progressed. I expected a show driven by his punk attitude, while filled with a sincerity only a venue like the Ryman could capture. I was disappointed until Jack White from the White Stripes showed up. I was on the balcony near the soundboards to get a better look at Bob while he played electric keyboard. Jack came out with his back to the audience fixing his guitar strap on his shoulder before turning. Jack didn’t have to show his face for me to know who he was. Then I flipped out, “IT’S JACK WHITE! IT’S JACK WHITE!”
Bob seemed happy to see him too because he immediately strapped on his guitar again and grinned, as if playing with Jack made him feel 30 years younger. Jack’s appearance breathed new life into the show as they wailed together on “Meet Me in the Morning.” I felt like I was witnessing an encore performance of The Last Waltz and it left me incapacitated for the rest of the show. In the end, I couldn’t believe the night I had. Thinking about it still gives me chills.
Whenever I do a phone interview with a country singer, lead or otherwise, the conversation always starts the same way. I answer my cell phone at the appointed time, and I’m greeted in song. Like this:
Going into the 
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