Starting in 1993 and continuing through 1999, when Charlie Sexton joined the band on lead guitar, and reaching an apex in 2001 with the release of Love And Theft, Bob Dylan had one of his great bands and his concert performances were amongst the best of his career: the wanderlust that caused Dylan to spend the 1980s rearranging his classic material was finally paying serious dividends and his highly volatile setlists had fans not knowing what he would perform next. But either, as Dylan has claimed, because he couldn’t get anybody else to do it, or, as others have said, because his knees were shot, Dylan moved to keyboards from 2003 to 2006 ending one of the greatest extended periods of live performances in his career.
In the following years, Dylan had his moments, though a 2009 set was a particular disappoint, and while who wouldn’t want to play “hey look it is a living legend” it translated in only fair concerts. Till Jones Beach in 2013 (here) , with Sexton back in the fold, Dylan’s Americana set found the septuagenarian teaching the youngsters a thing or two and if that tour might have been an exception, last night at the Beacon Theatre, the first of a five night residency wrapping up an Autumn tour, found him more than up to the task of being consistently exceptional.
There were changes, however. No opening act at all (this from a guy who has had everyone from Joni Mitchell to Merle Haggard perform the task), the 135 minute concert was broken in two with a half hour intermission. The two sets were extended commentaries on each other. “She Belongs To Me” in the first set countered by “Blowin’ In The Wind”, “Tangled Up In Blue” by “Simple Twist Of Fate”, the drone blues of “Pay In Blood” by “Scarlet Town”, “Workingman’s Blues #2” by “Spirit On the Water” -it is like the two sets were signalling to each other, Dylan readying and then releasing the songs so you could relate them together subconsciously… it’s like Jung’s “Twelve Dreams”, he readies you for things and deepens both songs when you get them. The first set opened with a gong, the second with a lone acoustic guitar: they were both just suddenly there. To say the setlist was thought out doesn’t quite capture the detailed conceptualism; remaining steadfastly in the first person present tense, and playing the same set every night for the entire tour, Bob was coming to grips with the past 15 years and especially TitanicTempest (6 of the 19 songs) and he was invigorated and urgent.
Dylan was also beyond prompt, on stage at 8pm and when they say sharp on your ticket, they mean sharp, and off by 1015, he opened with a rejiggered “Things Have Changed”, changed into a country waltz and followed it with a “She Belongs to Me” the first of several to find Dylan stealing the music with a beautiful harmonica. Dylan’s acoustic piano playing might have been indifferent, but his harp playing was a thing of great detail on song after song, not the chuga chuga country rock harpoon, but pure melodic grace and on an evening that found Donnie Herron all over his steel guitar and never venturing far from it, the harmonica is what you took away. The songs were country, blues, waltzes, the usual unusual, his singing exactly what you know it is. The band were excellent and Dylan has lost nothing except his vocal range -and he fought against even that here and there. The stage wasn’t the usual darkness and shadows,it was brighter than I’ve seen it in years, and Dylan’s hat was no ten tonner, you could see him. Standing in the middle of the stage, his legs open wide, hand on hips, he was full throated and into it always, he prowled the stage, sometimes ending up behind his piano, always a performer, a lead singer.
“WorkingMan’s Blues # 2” was completely rewritten, it was the one song of the evening you couldn’t tell at all from the melody, but Dylan has gotten better with his new arrangements. He used to sound like Garth And Kat of Saturday Night Live, improvising melodies on the spot, but he doesn’t here. Towards the end of the evening, “Soon After Midnight” became a looping lick iterated, “Tangled Up In Blue” played hide and seek with the melody line till the harp carried it away, “Blowin’ In The Wind” reformatted for piano. While re-writing “Soon After Midnight” is not as dodgy as re-writing “Tangled Up In Blue”, it was a very good musical twist. And Dylan even rewrote the lyric to “Tangled Up In Blue” while he was at it, hardly for the first time, giving it a shine and not the cultural heresy he has been known to dole out; the same as it ever was on the couples never ending trip in and out of each other’s lives not unlike the Never Ending Tour itself, most of it kinda different but the same but how about this illuminating doozy? “You look like someone I used to know, she said, someone I used to trust”.
The first set was just about flawless but the second set had its doubters. My friend, and a big time music guy, Ken Davis, defined the setlist as “meh”, claiming the songs maintained the same tempo for an hour and had him nodding off. How you reacted to the set depended on two songs, “Spirit On The Water” and “Scarlet Town”. If you didn’t love “Spirit On The Water”, you couldn’t forgive him the seriously misplaced “Scarlet Town”, one of three mid-level Tempest tracks taking you to the encore. Interrupted by some guy jumping on stage (when you’ve had somebody disrupt your Grammy performance, this sort of thing ain’t gonna faze you and Dylan ignored it), “Spirit On the Water” was the best song of the evening, an old time soft shoe lifted to whole other areas of brilliance on the last verse; played very very straight, Dylan let his song about the rebirth of sexual love and desire lead him to his apotheosis and while it always has done so, he sang the fuck out of it: “You think I’m over the hill?” he taunted her (and us) “You think I’m past my prime? Let me see what you got, we can have a whoppin’ good time” his voice jumping up. You know how sometimes, occasionally, in a concert there will be a moment that makes you happy beyond reason.It made me happy beyond reason.
It got me through “Scarlet Town” and the two last songs, both of which were better than I remember them from Titanic. The encore was a fine “Blowin’ In The Wind” and a much better leading straight on to his next album cover of the Sinatra song “Stay with Me”.
Usually a long term artist, a Springsteen or a Stevie, bring a lot of history with them when they play. But with Dylan, it is us who brings the history and it is who have the back story and as an artist Dylan has fought against our expectations and it has lead him, as a live performer I mean, down some dead end streets and back alleys. But at 73 years old he can manage our expectations and if you care and if you want to care and if it matters, you can leave your baggage behind and enjoy a vibrant important artist performing living, breathing pop music.
Grade: A
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