Just beyond the DKB booth there was a stage where some guys called the Budos Band were funkin' it up. They were great, probably the best act I saw that day (although we only really caught two others). We headed to another stage to watch Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, but the tight lawn space was completely full with more people streaming in, so we decided to head for the stadium where Neko Case was already playing. We had seen Neko the year before, when she was opening for Lucinda Williams. She was just fine, nothing too grand.
Bob came on pretty much on time and played 14 songs, mixing oldies with newer tunes, hitting the Highway 61 album particularly hard (he played 5 of the album's 9 songs, including a slightly truncated Desolation Row). It had been about 16 years since I'd seen Dylan last, and it was nice to see that mostly he's still operating under the same M.O. He has a great back-up band to make up for his increasingly rusted-chainsaw vocals and he is still tweaking his old tunes, changing their melodies ever-so-slightly to breathe some new life into them. I though that the arrangements of the two Blood on the Tracks tunes (Tangled and Simple Twist) were particularly sweet. I remember at the Dylan shows I saw in the 90s how you would have to sort of lean forward and cock your head in concentration during the intros to pick out the tunes, and often you would have to wait for the lyrics before you got them. I remember hearing a moving re-imagining of "Pretty Peggy-O" which I'd dearly love to hear once again. Well, Bob is still Bob, although these days he's really talking more than actually singing. I was content to head out early before the encore (the inevitable "Like A Rolling Stone") and I don't think Bob's kind of show belongs in the headlining role in a stadium (although this was reportedly the first time the mainstage had ever been sold out for Bumbershoot). But it was nice to see him again, after all these years, and it was nice to have Silvie there too (who had fun keeping the setlist as I fed her the titles, once I'd recognized the songs). Here was the setlist:
Rainy Day Women #12 and 35
Don't Think Twice, It's Alright
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Just Like A Woman
Rollin' and Tumblin'
Desolation Row
Cold Irons Bound
Tangled Up In Blue
Highway 61 Revisited
Simple Twist Of Fate
Thunder On The Mountain
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Jolene
e: Like a Rolling Stone
DKB in the house
Budos Band
During the Budos Band set I noticed funny man Doug Benson checking out the show. Dude seemed really high.
Memorial stadium filling up during the Neko Case set
Bob, working the crowd in his mariachi suit
No comments:
Post a Comment