A Bob Dylan Fan’s Craziest Dream Comes True
Do you like eating alone? Do you like watching movies alone? Why would you even attempt such things, has our world become this lonely?
Often when I have insisted on eating alone I have been made to look like a sociopath, who in his lunch box might be playing with human eyeballs. Though I am not quite sure when eating became a collective affair and why, but contrary to popular belief doing communal activities alone can be fun. There’s a certain kind of pleasure one can get from watching a lesser-known movie and not wanting to reveal the name to many people. Not just movies, there was a phase in my childhood when I had gotten so used to playing cricket with a tennis ball rebounding off the door of my house that leaving it and going to the field had become a task. But that’s probably just me.
Swiss TV series Experiment Ensam (Experiment Alone) decided to test this group vs individual idea of fun, and after five experiments that were rather surreal by our societal standards reached Fredrik Wikingsson, perhaps the luckiest of all the participants, for the grand finale.
Wikingsson is a popular TV personality in Stockholm. He is a 41-years-old married man, and a father of two kids. He is also, he claims, the biggest Bob Dylan fan that there is. When he came to know what his friend Anders Helgeson, the director of Experiments, had in mind for the finale he could not contain himself.
“I had an endless series of meetings where I managed to convince people my extreme fandom made me the best candidate for the enviable task,” he later told the Rolling Stone.
But the situation was still pretty much unbelievable for Wikingsson. He was unable to come to terms with the reality that his childhood hero was actually going to be in front of him, performing for him alone.
But it did happen. Bob Dylan, along with the musicians, just walked on to the stage. Matter-of-factly, as if it was no big deal. He performed not one but four songs with his lone audience gaping at him in wonder. And it included Dylan in piano, Dylan singing Buddy Holly, and the most precious of them all: Dylan with his harmonica.
Wikingsson, now close to tears, could only utter a “You guys sound great.”
Two weeks after the concert when he was interviewed he accepted that he still wasn’t sure if it was all real. But he believes he has found a cozy little “Bob Space” inside him for the memories.
Watch the complete video here
H/t Rollingstone.