A Review (Don't Look Back)

In answer to the question Daryl Lanz asked in last week's newsletter, for the record my favorite local band is Tina and the B-Sides (Movement). As the man would say, she's a close personal friend of mine plus she was kind enough to offer some encouraging words about my great unpublished novel. And the band sounds good too. Off the record, and I don't know if he qualifies as a local band because he's from the Iron Range, the only person I "Have" to see if he's in town, strangely enough is in town.

Bob Dylan wandered on to the Orpheum's stage Saturday looking every bit as confused and old as he did on David Letterman's Anniversary Show last February. He stumbled through two songs from Oh Mercy, "Everything is Broken" and "Man in the Long Black Coat" uttering some unitelligable rhyme to the word "trip." but the band kicked it up a notch with "All Along the Watchtower" and Dylan sang "Just Like a Woman" with so much authority, one had to believe someone was on his mind.

The highlight of the show was the acoustic portion where his performances on "Boots of Spanish Leather" and "John Brown" were spellbinding. "Boots..." of course is one of his better love songs full of self pitying lines like "I know your mind is a-roamin, I know you're thoughts are not with me but to the country to where you're going" which he milked for every ounce of feeling he could. "Joh Brown" is a still unreleased song (it appears on several bootlegs, Ten of Swords among them) about a mother proudly sending her "soldier son" off to war. It is every bit as powerful song as "Masters of War" and the embelishments from the band (three acoustic guitars and a non-electric bass) made the song sound as relevant today as it did back in the 60's. Dylan's vocals were inspired.

Although as his custom, he didn't say anything to the audience during the entire show, he was more animated than his last appearance here (at the 1990 State F word) and at times was downright playful. (He rapped a verse of "Tangled Up in Blue.") the band was gith, the arrangement of the songs and the song selection was comparable to other concerts on the Never Ending Tour. "Simple Twist of Fate" was given a countryish, Hawaiian style reading complete with a slide guitar.

Dylan closed the show with a three song encore which will give the people who analyze everything he does, some ammunition. Two of the songs, "What Good Am I?" and "It Ain't Me Babe" were among those that can be interpreted as written both to a woman friend and to his audience and critics. One has to wonder if there was a message he meant to deliver to the authors of the articles which appeared in the Twin Cities press last week bemoaning his "continuous decline" into self parody. "What good am I if I'm like all the rest?" "You say you're looking for someone who promises never to fall..." Dylan proved Saturday night he may not be the legend anymore, a title he never wanted in the first place, but he can still put on a meaningful show.