Review: August 19, 2006 - Frederick, Maryland
- From: Kurt.Schroeder@xxxxxxx (Kurt Schroeder)
- Date: 21 Aug 2006 11:21:50 -0700
Before you read the Washington Post's somewhat questionable review of
the show, which I've reprinted in full below, I wanted to offer my own
thoughts on Dylan's Aug. 19 show at Harry Grove Stadium in Frederick,
Maryland.
First, the openers, each of whom played a 30-minute set. Elana James
and the Continental Two started with a lively set of western swing and
jazz standards. With Whit Smith, the excellent guitarist from Elana's
previous group The Hot Club of Cowtown, joining the other three, the
quartet did a great job of playing and singing several fine old tunes,
including the pre-war standard "Nagasaki" and the Guthrie song "Oklahoma
Hills," an old hit for Woody's cousin Jack that Dylan fans may remember
Arlo and Ry Cooder performing for the Tribute to Woody Guthrie concert
and album. (Bob played "Grand Coulee Dam," "Dear Mrs. Roosevelt," and
"I Ain't Got No Home" at one of the Tribute shows.) This string band
swing -- violin, two guitars, and string bass -- was a light-hearted and
energetic start for the show, sometimes emulating Django Reinhardt's own
Hot Club Quintette, at other times sounding like a minature version of
Bob Wills' Texas Playboys or Hoagy Carmichael's small string band in the
Bogart film classic "To Have and Have Not." It's great to see such a
youthful group keeping alive the spirit of music that was written long
before they were born.
Junior Brown, the "guit-steel" virtuoso, took the stage next, joined by
a cool older guy playing snare and cymbal and a young electric bassist.
Junior, whose unique two-necked instrument is half Fender Telecaster and
half steel guitar, gave us a good dose of twangy honky tonk. His voice
is a nice, friendly baritone, but his stand-out talent is obviously his
playing. Brown switches back and forth, even during the same
instrumental passage, from steel to guitar, pulling off very hot licks
on both. At the beginning of his set, I was sitting on the outfield
grass and couldn't see the band, and when they started playing, I was
sure there were two guitarists because of the intricacy of the playing.
I was surprised to find, upon standing up, that Junior was handling all
of the guitar chores. I'll bet he'd be a lot of fun to see in a club --
he seems to want everyone to have a great time.
Guitarist Jimmie Vaughan came on next with an expanded organ trio --
second guitarist, drummer, and Hammond B-3 organist who also played the
bass parts. The blues played by these guys was closer to rock and roll
than the previous music we'd heard, which brought out a lot of
enthusiasm from the crowd. Lou Ann Barton, whose voice reminded me a
bit of 50s rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson's, joined the band for most of
the set, and did a very good job of keeping the energy level up.
Vaughan seemed to be a pretty low-key guitarist -- not at all flashy --
and he let the second guitarist do a good bit of the playing, but his
set was enjoyable.
Bob came out to the usual fanfare of recorded Copland. As the Post's
guest critic says below, Dylan's voice is pretty worn, but that's not
news, as we all know. I think the question then is whether Bob used
that worn voice as effectively as possible. He did, in my opinion.
Yes, Bob's voice does break much more often than it used to, as I
confirmed by listening to one of his 1997 Wolf Trap performances the
next day. But he's compensated by using the breaks in his voice to
convey emotion, turning them into a cry almost. I do miss the greater
smoothness that he had less than 10 years ago, but I think he's
continually figured out how to use his vocal qualities to good
advantage, rather than letting the conventionally viewed deterioration
signal decline.
The song selection was pretty standard -- a good mixture of old classics
with several songs from his last two excellent albums mixed in.
Although I would have been glad to hear something new (why not?
"Rollin' and Tumblin'" is already out), the song selection reminded me
that his newer songs can stand pretty well next to his older ones.
"Times" and "To Ramona" had lilting arrangements that I don't think I've
heard before, and on "Stuck Inside of Mobile," the band did a
instrumental introduction that summarized the song's melody nicely,
featuring, if I remember correctly, new pedal steel player Donnie Herron
leading the way.
Among the newer songs, "Cold Irons Bound" stood out. The introduction
of the song, which used to be intensely spacy, was much more percussive,
and I started feeling a little disappointed at the change -- but by the
end of the performance, I thought they'd done a great job of
transforming the song into something different -- which always seems to
be Bob's goal. "Sugar Baby" was nice to hear, although I think they
would have done better to stay closer to the smoothness of the studio
recording. (But then, why should Bob make an exception for this song?)
Bob's band doesn't approach the heights of the Larry Campbell/Charlie
Sexton days, when he had two guitar virtuosos who played beautiful,
fluid parts (Campbell on several instruments) and sang excellent
harmonies. But although the current band does lean toward chugging
blues riffs a bit too often, they still play in an imaginative, if more
basic, way.
Bob's added a pedal steel player to the band since I last saw him two
years ago at Ripken Stadium in northern Maryland. The new member,
Donnie Herron, did a good job on the few occasions when he stepped out,
but I didn't often hear him doing the nice string-bending harmonies that
Larry and Bucky Baxter played when they occupied the steel chair --
Herron's work was more like the blues-based riffs that the two
guitarists, Stu Kimball and Denny Freeman, often seemed to be playing.
Still, maybe Bob wants a different approach from Herron -- who can say?
And Kimball and Freeman are very competent players who, if not as
inspired as their predecessors, did offer their own brand of tight
playing that complemented the songs.
The one part of the band that I thought had improved greatly in the past
two years was Bob himself. The last couple of times I saw him, Bob used
an electric-piano sound for his keyboard, stabbing at the chords of the
song to add a bit of rhythm to the band. He's now changed to an organ
sound, and the parts he plays now really do a great job of filling out
the backing. These aren't the organ leads that you remember from Al
Kooper's days in the studio with him, but simpler chords that throw a
color into the band's sound that hasn't previously been there -- the
sustained notes provide a nice contrast to the very percussive sound
offered by the rest of the band.
I don't want to leave out Tony Garnier -- his bass parts are, as ever,
rock-solid. (Now, if only Bob could get George Recile to bang on his
cymbals a little less!)
All in all, a pretty darn good show, I thought. As you'll see in the
Post review that follows, the critic (who isn't a Post staff member)
took a more limited view of the show, objecting primarily to Bob's vocal
quality (which Bob can't do anything about) and his somewhat reserved
stage presence (which Bob could do something about -- but which we can't
expect from him). In any event, I think the Post's reviewer is quite a
ways off base. --Kurt
===================================
Dylan, Wheezin' In the Wind
By Chris Richards
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, August 21, 2006; C01
Ah, the sights, smells and sounds of the ballpark. A grown man dancing
with a sunflower. The smell of reefer blowing in the outfield. A mother
lecturing her fidgety child: "He is a legend !"
"He" is Bob Dylan, and yes, kiddo, he is a legend. Dylan's third annual
summer tour of minor league ballparks stopped Saturday night at Harry
Grove Stadium in Frederick, where parents got to hear one of America's
greatest living songwriters wheeze through his greatest tunes while
their kids just watched, confused.
It's not breaking news that Dylan's voice has withered over the course
of his storied 65 years. Nor is his tendency to rearrange the phrasing
and melodies of his songs to suit those battered pipes. But these days,
the man sounds less like a rock-and-roll icon and more like Cookie
Monster with a head cold.
He played the hits, but would you have recognized them? The opening
one-two punch of "Maggie's Farm" and "The Times They Are A-Changin' "
was full of promise, but Dylan's run-down vocal delivery rendered the
songs almost unrecognizable. The lyrics are still trenchant -- "There's
a battle outside and it is ragin' / It'll soon shake your windows and
rattle your walls / For the times they are a-changin' " -- but good luck
finding them in the garble of huffs, puffs and croaks.
Even more disappointing was Dylan's lack of engagement with the
audience. From a stage erected in deep center field, he stood hunched
over a keyboard, rarely facing the thousands of fans flooding the
ballpark's field and stands. During his 90 minutes onstage he thanked
the crowd only once.
He also thanked his band, which brought a bluesy hue to his songbook.
After a lean, driving version of "Cold Irons Bound" (a tune from Dylan's
1997 comeback album "Time Out of Mind"), the band slipped into the
twinkling, nimble "Girl From the North Country." Dylan reined it in and
sang quietly over the song's sparkling guitars before blowing a
plaintive harmonica solo.
Despite the ragged vocal performance, the crowd mustered enough applause
for an encore in which Dylan cued up two of his masterpieces, "Like a
Rolling Stone" and "All Along the Watchtower." It was a
once-in-a-lifetime moment: One where you wished those drunk dudes
singing behind you would cut loose and drown out the guy onstage.
(c) 2006 The Washington Post Company
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