Bob Dylan Tribute: Great Tunes, Less Mumbling

Bob Dylan Tribute – Avery Fisher Hall – 11/9/06

If Not For You, Bob Mould
Make You Feel My Love, Joan Osbourne
Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, Natalie Merchant and Philip Glass
It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry, Al Kooper and the Funk Faculty
The Times They are A-Changin’, Spottiswoode and His Enemies
Like a Rolling Stone, Sandra Bernhard
Love Minus Zero, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Ballad of a Thin Man, Jamie Saft Trio
Positively 4th Street, Lee Renaldo (with John Medeski)
Don’t Think Twice, Lauren Shera and Warren Haynes
Buckets of Rain, Medeski, Martin, and Wood with Oliver Wood
Mama, You Been on My Mind, Allan Toussaint
Ring Them Bells, Jill Sobule (with Cindy Lauper)
I Shall Be Released, Warren Haynes (with Joan Osbourne and Kevin Kinney)
License to Kill, Rosanne Cash
Going, Going, Gone, Jay Farrar
Thunder on the Mountain, Phil Lesh (with Warren Haynes)
Masters of War, The Roots
House of the Rising Sun, Cat Power (wtf?)
Isis > Love Sick > Isis, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals
Dark Eyes, Patti Smith (with Tom Verlaine)
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot with Jennifer O’Connor (and Patti Smith)

Download The Roots’ Masters of War here…

John O’Marra had this eyewitness account to add:

The Roots: Masters of War — HOLY FUCKING MOTHER OF GOD! SONG OF THE NIGHT! Insanely good. Hairs standing up on my arms good. No question the song of the night. Just three of the Roots, the singer/guitarist [Kirk Douglas], ?uestLove, and a tuba player. What an amazing, intricate arrangement.

They started by doing the first verse close to a capella, to the tune of Star Spangled Banner. It worked amazingly well. Great fills by ?uestlove between verses, several teases of other songs, several changes of tempo and feel. At the end, it went into a full on “Machine Gun” jam.

Worth the price of admission for this alone. Would kill to hear this one again. Seriously, one of the most creatively done covers I have ever seen.

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals: Isis>Love Sick>Isis — Amazing! Close runner up to The Roots for song of the night. The biggest blast of pure rock and roll of the show. So happy to hear Isis, that’s the one tune I was hoping someone would play. Great driving raunchy version, and midway through, a feedback laden jam leads into Love Sick. I’m sure Ryan snuck that in, everyone else just got one song. Great Love Sick, then truimphantly back into Isis. Funny he did those 2 songs, they are the 2 Dylan tunes the White Stripes cover on a somewhat regular basis. And the band did sound like the common ground between the Dead and the White Stripes. Fantastic, I’ve never seen Ryan Adams live but will be sure to catch him next time he’s in the city.

Here’s a fuzzy video of Isis I found on Scent Weakly:

[youtube]uBWZlVYJBxY[/youtube]

Phil Lesh with Warren Haynes: Thunder on the Mountain — Nice for Phil eschew the semi-expected Tom Thumb’s to deliver the lead track from Dylan’s latest album. Pretty fun, sloppy as hell. Typical Phil vocals, I think the only lyrics I were able to decipher were the Alicia Keys references. Nice jams between verses. Great horns.

Patti Smith: Dark Eyes — Very beautiful, haunting, played with Tom Verlaine. I guessed she might play this, when I saw Patti open up for Dylan in ’96 they dueted on this every night. Lovely as expected. I was hoping for a rocker from Patti, though. My dream pick was her reading the poem “Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie,” anyone know that one? Not sure if that has ever been officially released, it’s a long sing song poem that Dylan recited at a ’63 or ’64 show, one of the coolest things Dylan has ever done.

Quick additions from Jeremy Welsh:

Medeski sat in on organ during Renaldo’s Positively 4th Street. He laid down a great solo, although he could have been louder (on the flip-side, Jay Farrar’s organist was too loud).

Oliver Wood, Chris’s brother, sat in on guitar and vocals for their wonderful rendition of Buckets of Rain. Possibly the tenderest/prettiest song of the night, if that makes sense.

The Roots’ ?uestlove posted the following on okayplayer.com today:

we did “masters of war”.

i can’t really describe the feeling….maybe it was lowered expectations or a lil doubt creeping in on some “mmmm wonder what a “rap group” is doing at a dylan tribute.

but i really feel like last night was a tipping point for us (we “white striped it” with just me and kirk and damon on the tuba from the jeff bradshaw brass band)

dare i say it was like motown 25. im not certain what the results will be but shit is not going to be the same on that set again.

we came out in all army fatigues.

and did a mars volta esque/zappa version of this protest song (lyrics are soooooo relevant for what goes on today)—incorporating in the gap band’s “you dropped a BOMB on me” and hendrix’s “MACHINE GUN” for added spice.

most of the renditions of the night were incredible in its silence. i wanted to go electric to sorta be the sore thumb in the acoustic at atmosphere sorta like newport 63 (ha ha).

for roots fans just imagine if there was a way to show a Riqless highlight reel of a roots performance to an older rock fan. take my drum solo, take kirk’s guitar solo, add theatrics and musicianship tricks, add some cover songs, add dynamics (we went from “s—-i—l–e–n—ce….to ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!! on this roller coaster version of this song)

i know for a fact that we won the respect of our peers that night (cyndi lauper just might be my new best friend—she was more hip to us than most vets….she LOVES game theory (“although the second half makes me kinda sad”—-lol!), jill souble was another longtime fan—-the reason im so amazed of these facts is because we are so out of the socializing loop (unless we do shows with other acts) i have no clue that mofos even know if we are alive or not. but the cats from the Allman brothers were cool as shit, Chan from Cat Power and i traded Memphis musician notes, joan osbourne (i think she was a lil miffed at me for this is the second album i said “no” to—time was of the essence and i couldn’t commit) Roseanne Cash called me a lik heartbreaker (lol) and once again Sandra Bernhart can never remember the story of when we first met in 1996 (she did the scared white lady in an elevator bit at some hotel we happened to be staying in that had 80 loooooooooooong floors.—when her assistant —who got on a few floors below—validated me then it was “oh he’s safe”. but the visual of a dark ass hotel hallway and then seeing this sinister monster inside changed her whole body language (face to floor, no eye contact. etc—i mean it was effed up but i “guess” i understood) even breaking the ice with a “king of comedy” compliment couldn’t break the ice….i was like “damn….how many rapists can quote classic scorcese filler?

anywho….

after the performance we got the only standing ovation of the night. and ….man i cant describe it. all in the streets people waiting for cabs and walking to the parking lot all had the same story “my kids are SO jealous you performing and they are not here to see it!”–i mean like this was rippling throughout the whole audience. we made a mark last night. i can really feel that something is gonna result of this.
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Sounds like an amazing night in Manhattan…anyone else catch this show and have something to add (or subtract) to this recap?