August 3, 2002 concert review by Dave Conlin Read
With
his highly anticipated return to the Newport Folk
Festival, Bob Dylan presented his audience not with a
musical masterpiece nor any acknowledgment that this was
a special gig, but rather the silly sight of himself
wearing a wig that could have been styled by
ex-congressman Jim Traficant.
Was this an indication that Mr. Dylan has a new cause
to champion, having found something redeeming about
Traficant unseen by the public and the press? Or was it
just a goof to see how much palaver the wig (and fake
beard) will generate in the media and elsewhere, his
Newport ‘65 performance having established the gold
standard for much ado about nothing much?
The setlist itself was a highlight, including
“Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “Desolation Row,”
“Positively 4th Street,” and “The Wicked Messenger;”
plus two of the five songs he played here in 1965,
“Like A Rolling Stone” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.”
Anyone looking for special significance could sift
through those lyrics, playful, querulous, and
redolent as they are, cut and paste a bit, and posit
“Dylan’s nod to Newport.”
The Newport ‘65 story percolated along through the
decades without Dylan’s input, got a big boost after the
recent death of Alan Lomax, and culminated Saturday on
the op-ed page of the New York Times with a piece by
festival founder George Wein. Our 2 cents worth: If Mr.
Lomax and Pete Seeger had been more polite and composed
that day, we probably would have been spared the
hysterical story that wouldn’t die.
So unless there’s some significance to the applied
hair, for Dylan it was just another gig on his
“never-ending tour,” rather than his triumphal return to
the Newport Folk Festival.
Indeed, his seemed to be an extra-festival set, as
before he came onstage the Apple and Eve Newport Folk
Festival backdrop was removed and the press area near
the stage was evacuated.
Today’s was a typically generous 2 hour show of 19
songs, the second gig after a 12 week touring hiatus,
which left an overall impression of being
under-rehearsed. It lacked the seamless brilliance of
last November’s tour finale in Boston, which was a
masterpiece. The set list itself was a highlight,
including “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “Desolation
Row,” “Positively 4th Street,” and “The Wicked
Messenger;” plus two of the five songs he played here in
1965, “Like A Rolling Stone” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.”
Anyone looking for special significance could sift
through those lyrics, playful, querulous, and redolent
as they are, cut and paste a bit, and posit “Dylan’s nod
to Newport.”
That his set lists are built around songs written
decades ago is testament to the fact that what Dylan
created then is as fresh and welcome today as a sea
breeze. But over the past several years, he has
displayed a genius for performance, adding to his own
incomparable song catalogue the works of other artists,
blending the old and the new, his songs and others,’
cool costumes, crazy choreography, grimaces and grins,
to present concerts that amount to fresh pieces of art.
Today, however, there were only artful segments, such
as the electric, rollicking “Summer Days,” which
followed the acoustic “Mr. Tambourine Man.” On the
latter, Dylan’s delivery seemed narrational, which may
have seemed apt to him as his audience at that moment
actually was “…Silhouetted by the sea” and if not
exactly “…circled by the circus sands,” then surely
circled by the carnival tents of falafel and t-shirt
vendors.
After a swig of water and strapping on his
Stratocaster, Dylan then cut loose on a searing
rendition of “Summer Days,” nodding his head and looking
quizzically at his flanking guitar mates, Charlie Sexton
and Larry Campbell. This is an infectiously swinging
tune, with a wild pastiche of lyrics, including an
excerpt from The Great Gatsby, “She says, “You can’t
repeat the past.” I say, “You can’t? What do you mean,
you can’t? Of course you can.”"
Bob Dylan has never seemed interested in repeating
the past; and it doesn’t seem likely there’ll be a
repeat of all the Newport ‘65 malarkey in the wake of
Dylan Newport ‘02. One thing for certain about it: there
were no boos, but there were plenty of fruit juice.
