Dylan and His Band:
A Review of Concert in Madison, WI

November 3, 2006

I should admit right off that this was the first Dylan concert I have ever walked away from with disappointment. I first saw Dylan live at the Hollywood Bowl, co-headlining with Paul Simon. I liked Paul Simon, but walked away thinking that Dylan was historic. It is that sense which has continued to motivate me to see Dylan. This time it felt different..

Part of the problem was that I am not being surprised musically by Dylan. It is hard for a Dylan fan not to take a sidelong glance at what Neil Young is up to, and it is striking how shifting his musical sets are. In the last few years we have been treated to Young playing with Crazy Horse (Greendale), then settled comfortably into a country setting (Prairie Wind), and finally singing political protests with Crosby, Stills, and Nash (Freedom of Speech Tour). At each stop it seems like Neil enjoys surrounding himself with different people and being challenged by new players. Dylan is on a different path, which we might call the "Neverending Tour" path. His touring band has revolved and changed cast members, but provides the same setting night after night.

It was not always so for Dylan. The 70s saw Dylan with about the same level of musical change that Young shows right now. He played with the Band, worked in the studio, came up with a wild tour with a broad supporting cast, then in successive albums worked to build a bigger and more diverse sound (climaxing in the gospel of Saved). That kind of changing sound is a thing of the past.

It could all work out pretty well.. and has worked out well. I am right now thinking about putting into the CD player our bootleg of the Atlanta Philips Arena concert from a few years back.. and that was a great concert. But I think I detect now a bit of tiredness in the whole set-up. The music went straight ahead and very fast. The songs ceased to breathe and open up, as the band ripped through the set. The sound was plenty loud, but not big.

The close of the show (before the encore) has been "Summer Days" (from Love and Theft). I always love the sinewy guitars, which any Dylan fan will recognize.. but the pleasure of the song depends on space.. you have to enjoy the play of the guitar, and sharp solos come out of that space. In this concert it all seemed truncated and mashed together.

"Summer Days" also carries the lyrics which I think are most typical of the late stage Dylan that we are seeing now. "Summer days, summer nights are gone/ I know a place where there's still something goin' on." I always translate that in my head as an admission of loss: "the sixties are gone, na na na.. there are still some sparks in these latter days.." That is the chastened Romanticism that I love in later Dylan.. a part of his broader work of mining the American folk tradition for motifs to re-use in a modern setting. You can't repeat the past.. no, of course you can.. kind of.

The encore has now expanded to three songs: "Thunder on the Mountain" (from Modern Times), and then "Like a Rolling Stone" and "All Along the Watchtower." At the start of the encore the background of the seeing-eye falls down behind Dylan and his band. The words inevitaby come:

Thunder on the mountain, rolling like a drum
Gonna sleep over there, that's where the music coming from
I don't need any guide, I already know the way
Remember this, I'm your servant both night and day

I hear hints of Moses in those lines (and elsewhere in the song).. It is the great gig on Mt. Sinai. Dylan is our servant night and day, and we might just be part of that army of tough sons-of-bitches recruited from the orphanages.

I can't help but think this is somewhat out of touch with where the world is right now.. and that is my deepest problem with Dylan. My mind runs continuously to the election that is coming up this coming Tuesday, exactly a week after we saw Dylan. But he is still out there with the same band doing the same thing. I am not asking for protest songs or anything particularly active.. but just a tone that goes with our now times.. and that tone should come through in concert, if anywhere.