Set List, Bob Dylan 11/1/12 at Verizon Theatre:
Watching The River Flow
Read more: http://www.bobdylan.com/us#ixzz2BbGs8JOn
Thank goodness Dylan posts these set lists on his website. I was taking copious notes at the concert, but I could not figure out a few of these. Indeed, perhaps the most fun I had all evening was the game I would play with every song in which I tried to figure out what he was playing before he got to the song's chorus. That's because, predictably, Dylan played most of these songs very differently from the way we would be used to hearing them. In terms of arrangement, he sort of "Tempest-ified" all of the songs; I mean, stylistically, they sounded like they all belonged on his latest album, with its gentle rockabilly-blues sound. In fact, when he began playing the encore, "Blowin' in the Wind," I was convinced, until he started singing, that he was playing the title track from that album, a 14-minute song about the Titanic sinking, since his arrangement of "Blowin' in the Wind" was in 6/8 and included an Irish-sounding fiddle, much like that eponymous track. I was pretty glad when that turned out not to be the case ('leave it to Dylan to do a 14-minute encore,' I thought, until he growled out the line, "how many roads must a man walk down...") In the end, despite the Tempest sound, he didn't do any songs from Tempest, which surprised me; I expected to at least hear "Duquesne Whistle."
Vocally, of course, the songs were also basically unrecognizable, but for Dylan, his voice sounded pretty good. He played the piano or organ instead of guitar, complete with several piano solos that consisted of repeating the tonic note over and over or playing a descending scale -- either the blues scale or the regular one. These were the only musical tricks in his bag for the keyboard, and he used them again and again. More than once I was reminded of this video of a cat playing the piano (but the cat is much cuter and the symphony written around this cat's random playing is more beautiful):
As a Dylan scholar, I already knew that Dylan is famous for changing things up with every live performance, so there were no real surprises or disappointments with that part of the show. I'm grateful that I got the chance to see a legend. But, with the exception of his magnificent songwriting, sometimes I think he was just lucky, and has been winging it ever since, riding on his almost instant acclaim since the 60s and never bothering to learn a decent piano riff.
Am I horrible to say this? Maybe I'm just not hip enough to get it. Or maybe the secret is that he's a brilliant songwriter and a sub-par performer -- I mean that's been pretty clear for a while, no matter how much Dylan fans (including myself) may rave about how wonderful his unique performances are.
High Notes:
The highlight of the evening was, without a doubt, "Ballad of a Thin Man." This song was the only one that made me feel like they'd rehearsed the "spectacle" aspects of the stage show, because the lighting changed and the sound engineer added some spooky reverb to Dylan's voice, which was really effective on that venomous, accusatory hook: "But something's happening here and you don't know what it is, do you (do you...) Mr. Jones?" Don't get me wrong, though, the song wasn't only my favorite because of the show. It was also very well-played. And I might as well admit it: it was closest to the sound of the 60's original. "Tangled up in Blue" was also a treat, and it got the whole crowd singing along. Dylan's guitarist showed his Hendrix side in the way he soloed on "All Along the Watchtower," so that was another high point of the evening. Lest you think that only the 60's songs were hits, the 90's song, "Things have changed" was another crowd-pleaser, as was "Watching the river flow." As an instrumentalist, Dylan was by far at his best on the harmonica, which he played soulfully and skillfully, sometimes while at the piano, or sometimes while wandering around the stage.
All in all, it was an experience I won't forget, and I'm glad to add Bob Dylan to the list of concerts I've seen.
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