Saturday: Bob Dylan at Earls Court.

Well I certainly was wrong about this one. Dylan took over Britain for a week, sang wondrously well (only occasional lapses into his Rolling Thunder idle bellow), and was endlessly fascinating. The only bad words came from critics who'd made the wrong assumptions and never got to see him at all and otherwise I'd forgotten what rock criticism at its most self-conscious could be like. Dylan brought out the intellectuals, the lit crits, the what-theworld-means-in-1978ers. Dylanology lives and there's nothing much I can add except to agree that it was a one generational affair (c.30 years old) and an awed audience—quiet with private references, memories and favourites.

The concerts were Dylan's personal selections from a vast body of shared material (from which he seemed more distanced than we were) and we all spent the time thinking of the songs we hoped he'd do next which he mostly did, even if they didn't come out anything like the same. My high points were the simple reading of "I Want You," just keyboards and bass, and the intense, hard version of "Tangled Up In Blue." The popular favourite was "Like A Rolling Stone" and when its opening chords set going the shiver of expectation I reflected what an odd generation we are—greeting as our special song this mean, hurt:her-while-she's-hurt, male indulgence. Dylan seemed amused and certainly such nastiness didn't make sense of a sloppily sentimental crowd. Dylan remained the source of all the surprises. His band was an efficient rock band and all that but not wild, never out of control. No one to spark him there and no one to spark him in an audience so devoted that they'd have applauded a display of A. J. Weberman's garbage. That we didn't get any garbage was what made the whole thing so invigorating—the first concert I've been to for years in which the artist was more interesting than the audience; the most optimistic event of the year.

For low or momy, whichever comoi flr»t.

Thursday: Bob Marley at Bingley Hall.

Another day, another bam, another superstar. More like a high school hop, this gig, no alcohol and stale cake. Last time I saw Marley it was with a predominantly black audience, Haile Selassie backdrops, a spiritual event. This time he had a standard white rock audience and played a standard white rock set—precise lights, showmanship, an effortless display of hits. I enjoyed the concert for the band—I can't think of any other standard rock band as ruthless as the Wailers—and for the easy dignity of the I-Threes. Orthodox Rastafarianism involves as sexist values as orthodox Judaism but the impact of the I-Threes is powerful and proud— unlike that of Dylan's vocal trio, used in exactly the same musical terms but dressed up to provide a bit of uneasy glamour.

Saturday : Genesis/Jefferson Starship/ Tom Petty/Devo/etc. at Knebworth.

No I can't explain why I went to this except that a friend got us tickets and I wanted to see what 100,000 Genesis fans in a field looked like. But 12 hours together under a graying sky? Last time I went to such a do was 1972 and rock audiences have got much more professional since then: picnic bags and wind breaks and flags on flagpoles for landmarks and boxes and boxes of beer. Most of the day had little to do with music, more with sleeping, keeping warm, looking for the rest of the party from Skye and Bognor and all the other points of the compass. Devo came on and I could just see white coveralls and orange helmets and a shower of cans. They made jerky music which woke up people who didn't want waking up and got cross and rid of Devo and went back to sleep again and enjoyed Jefferson Starship who were dreadful. We spent the time looking for Grace Slick through a pair of opera glasses With a clouded lens. We finally identified her as the plump figure in a blue satin trouser suit, though the next day I read that she'd left Europe, left the group, long before. No one knew, no one cared until the sun set arid the bonfires got lit and Genesis stunned us with their light display. Everyone felt warm and friendly and I was quite moved though it must be said that Genesis could have played anything for the same effect and we'd paid a lot of money to spend time with a lot of other people who'd spent a lot of money and we lit our own fires and watched a display that was mostly impressive because it had cost a lot of money too. As Jonathan King once said, only the "intelligent" rock audience could be so dumb.

Sunday: The Exiles at the Rock Garden.

A hot sweaty overcrowded club, hot sweaty overcrowded music. After the spacey excesses of Genesis I enjoyed this no end: the nerves showed and the mistakes and the reasons why people do all these simple things not just for the money.

Thursday: School Meals at the Hand and Heart.

The best yet of Coventry's weekly punk gigs. School Meals are clever rather than punk with a sense of reference, an aesthetic of economy. The audience are stupid rather than punk—the D Squad, ersatz fpotball hooligans who kept falling over and grabbing the mikes. The band controlled the audience with studied good nature, the audience spurred the band with studied bad nature. Anxious laughter and no fear; I got drunk and decided this was everything a rock gig should be.

Tuesday: Black Slate/Penetration/ Tropical Harmony/Squad at Tiffanys.

A Rock Against Racism gig and the source of lots of local tension. Black Slate are Rastafarians and on record as opposing abortion more than racism. The feminists plan a picket and I arrive late with my carefully rehearsed reasons for crossing it—but they're drunk already, bopping to Bowie. I make my way to the front for Penetration, a Northern punk band of high repute who turn out to be heavy metal plus Pauline, a Wonderfully aggressive, icy singer, a real punk voice. Real punk fans, meanwhile, don't spit any more but take flying leaps—on each other's heads, onto the stage, on the amps. Bodies thump about, the roadies spend the set clearing the stage of limbs, the band gets edgy and Pauline just gets more contemptuous. I am awed and move back and Black Slate appear, late and disorganised. The politicos dance, the white kids prowl, the black kids huddle. Relations remain much the same as they were before we began.

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Thursday: Magazine at Tiffany's.

I'm knackered, fall asleep before Top of the Pops even, can't move. Friends go instead and report that Magazine, the Great British Hope of 1978 after their splendidly malevolent debut album, Real Life, are, in real life, great and British and hopeful. They've already got mini-Genesis-style lights, mini-David-Bowie-style style and, in Howard Devoto, a mini-Eno-style forehead. An insistent band. Someone sp$t it seems and Devoto snarled and swung his mike a bit and drew up to his small height. Next year he'll be taller and people will scream. Guaranteed.

Sunday: Thin Lizzy in the living room.

I vowed today to give up beer, cigarettes and rock for the summer (season's over anyway). When I need a dose I'll play Thin Lizzy's Live And Dangerous, a double album testament to Britain's leading cock-rock working class heroes. Liver than I've ever seen them in person and the best statement yet of Phil Lynott's theory of live rock as poetry—not a recording of an event but a recording as an event. Rock lives, I'll sleep.