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That is to say, Bob Dylan was memorable, as always. But memories are not always good. For instance, nobody needed Bob Dylan to cover "Brown Sugar." Rather, nobody needed his band to scorch through the thing while Dylan himself P.C.ed-up the lyrics and spat them out like a human machine gun, a trick not nearly as entertaining as it sounds. Dylan played the song early to open up the show a bit — the black curtain behind the band even opened to reveal a another curtain that was bright and silvery, suggesting that maybe the show was going to get happy. On this night, though, that didn't happen until about a half-hour from the end. Save for a few highlights — respectful if uninspired covers of two songs by the great and dying songwriter Warren Zevon, and an oddly chosen cover of Neil Young's gem "Old Man" — the great Bob Dylan dabbled at piano and guitar, and as usual disconnected his singing from his words, which comprise the richest treasure chest of lyrics ever written. The opening number, a blazed-through version of "Maggie's Farm," was a herald of things to come. This song about pent-up rebellion is so rich for the mining of meaning that it will never age. Yet Dylan made no effort to find a new angle on the kaleidoscope that is that song. He didn't even reprise some reliable read from having played it for nearly 40 years. He gave similar short shrift to "It's Alright, Ma," and "Drifter's Escape," and just about everything else. True, Dylan was full of energy — and that is always a surprise whenever it happens at his shows — but a quick listen to only a few bars of the original recordings condemns his recent readings. When this legendary artist focuses his energy on the song itself, there is — was — magic to be had. Not that there wasn't any magic out there at all Friday night. For the last third of the set, Dylan injected his aimless roadhouse energy into songs made just for that, rock-n-roll rave-ups from his most recent studio album, Love and Theft. The highlight of the main set was that record's "Summer Days," which he and the band attacked with genuine enthusiasm, beating rockabilly, boogie-woogie, and the blues out of their instruments and into the night. Yet any band of professional musicians could have done it. The chops of longtime Dylan guitarist Charlie Sexton aside, the only other thing that distinguished this band was the presence of Dylan himself, and that only in terms of mood and not in prowess. It is not hard to admire Dylan, but after years of sitting through shows like this one, it is hard to hide frustration. The getting-old guy rarely makes any attempt to add coherent expression to his singing. He just robot-rips through poetry that, mercifully, cannot be tarnished — and Lord knows most other writers' catalogs could not have survived so many years of sonic immolation. Dylan fans are accustomed to it by now. Very few complain, and for a lot of them it is sacrilege to offer anything other than unqualified praise for the legend most fans refer to simply as "Bob." There others on that blindness bandwagon, too. Since the acclaim for 1997's overrated Time Out of Mind, many music critics have been selling day for night when it comes to critiquing Bob Dylan. In no matter is this more true than the pointless praise for the sort of weak performance he delivered to cap his North American tour. Bob Dylan is either bored or he just doesn't care anymore, and critics (and fans, for that matter) don't help things by tealeaf reading grand purpose into some mumbled performance. That's not analyzing, that's making excuses. Surely Dylan has a few more classics to contribute, a few more temptations and teases to deliver as the most influential songwriter of the 20th century. But writing and recording is not performing. And to see Bob Dylan perform these days and then to pronounce it "good," let alone entertaining, is to allow memory to cloud reality.
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he last concert
of Bob Dylan's current tour of North America on Nov. 22 felt like prom
night because, much of the time, Bob Dylan and his musicians sounded like
a prom band: tight and adequate, but just slugging through it one more
time for yet another bunch of kids. The Patriot Center of the George Mason
University in Fairfax, Virginia only intensified the feeling. The place
is, after all, the prototypical prom-night venue, a medium-sized sports
facility permanently festooned with championship banners along the top,
and burdened with a concrete echo whose memory is twisted together in
most minds with the sights of graduation day and the skunk-on-fire smell
of cafeteria food.
