Bob Dylan and his band played a brilliant show on the Green at Shelburne Museum on June 20th. In an expansive choice of material, every song seemed to have meaning for the Nobel Laureate and, backed with aplomb by his quintet, he instilled as much reason as purpose into the ninety-minute presentation.
That decisive attitude was apparent from the very opening number as “Things Have Changed,” served to remind that there are times to take a Dylan song at face value. Bob and his band then proceeded to interweave select vintage numbers of his, of a piece with the core of 2012’s splendid Tempest album, in addition to some classic American songs the likes of which have populated his last three studio albums. It’s worth noting that tunes originally recorded by Frank Sinatra (“All or Nothing At All”) and Tony Bennett (“Once Upon A time”) spoke as loudly as “Pay in Blood” or “Long and Wasted Years,” the latter sung at center stage like those aforementioned standards, as if to suggest a comparable excellence.
However stoic he seemed, Dylan took obvious, infectious delight in his performance. On the lighthearted reading of “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright,” Bob’s quick mimicry of his caricatured vocal style wasn’t the only time his singing hearkened back to the 1966 tour with the Band; he flashed it again in short order on the raucous, high-speed gallop through “Highway 61 Revisited,” which in itself sounded like nothing so much as homage to late Texas guitarist Johnny Winter who, in the course of his career, made the tune his signature song.
Not surprisingly, these familiar numbers elicited the appropriately rowdy response from many attendees, except those in the audience who seemed so disinterested otherwise (or those so prickly they took issue with those standing up and dancing in their line of sight while they preferred to lounge in their lawn chairs). Most of the night Bob sat and stood at a baby grand piano stage right, the ideal spot from which to set the tempo for the band and direct the improvisations that took place within the carefully-orchestrated setlist. Positioned this way, Dylan was then right in the middle of the rollicking “Duquesne Whistle” as well as the playful, bluesy romp of “Summer Days” (a nod to the picture perfect weather this night in the Green Mountains?) at which moments the whole band took rightful glee in stretching out, even if only slightly so.
Lanky guitarist Charlie Sexton and the indispensable multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron were the most prominent soloists in the group, but they didn’t command that much more attention than the rhythm section grouped together across the stage. It was hard to take the eyes off George Receli’s hard-hitting discipline at his drums, particularly as he sat atop a riser right alongside long-time bassist Tony Garnier, whose staunch presence equaled that of rhythm guitarist Stu Kimball: the latter’s understated fretboard work, in addition to provides a subdued intro for the group’s entry to the stage (in place of the arch, pre-recorded melodrama of past years) added depth to the arrangements when he switched from his electric instrument to and acoustic.
The setlist Dylan and his band presented this eve of the summer solstice wasn’t wholly unlike previous ones on this tour, but they imbued their choices with a logic that elevated their impact. On a somewhat truncated “Desolation Row”and even more so during the climactic “Ballad of A Thin Man,” Dylan’s careful vocal delivery maximized the surrealism of the lyrics, at which moments he simultaneously left no doubt he can still sing with strength to spare, no matter how gravelly his voice can sound (as it did on Time Out of Mind‘s “Love Sick”).
Leading the band through “Blowin’ In The Wind,” exasperation equalled equanimity in Dylan’s phrasing. Yet the continuing and altogether remarkable evolution of relevance in this man’s songs makes it more difficult than ever to infer absolute meanings from such compositions, at least in comparison to how readily discernible was the well-defined sound mix on The Green at Shelburne Museum.
Apart from minimal stage lighting and matching attire for himself and his group, Bob offered no other overt concessions to showmanship and, in fact, he spoke nary a word to his audience all night, even as the musicians gathered center stage to receive the acclamation they’d rightfully earned. But then any such conventional repartee would’ve been redundant: virtually everything the man had sung and played in the previous hour and a half spoke volumes.
One Response
Just as I recall the night of Dylan at The Shelburne Museum!
Thanks for capturing the magic of this summer night!