Bob Dylan

Predictions:

• Bob Dylan will cover a wide spectrum of his catalog, thus covering nearly 60 years of music and of American history.  
• If Dylan plays some of the 40+ standards he's recorded over the last five years he'll reach even further back into music history.  

At the Show:

On Father's Day I took my daughter to see "the real Bob Dylan," to allow her the experience of seeing one of the most important musicians in the history of American music.  This was the sixth time I've seen him over the last twenty years and the first time in the last five years.  Since I last saw him, he has put out three albums (one of them a triple album) of "classic American songs."  Dylan was energetic and hammed it up somewhat during his crooning
numbers.  His voice was gravelly, though clear.  Unfortunately, the crowd was low-key and it seemed that aside from a guy spinning dervish-like in the lobby, and a few fans up close, they came to the Oakdale to see an important artifact.  Fittingly, Dylan's response seems to be, "if you want an artifact, I'll give you artifacts."  So you have an old singer singing even older songs.  Being somewhat of a Dylanologist, I wouldn't be surprised if this is deliberate.

The setlist was phenomenal, including my favorite, "Ballad of a Thin Man," and the epic, "Desolation Row," which Dylan once proclaimed that if he was ever elected President (not out of the question these days) he would make it the national anthem.  The song gets right to it, "They're selling postcards of the hanging," likely referring to the images of lynching that circulated in the South on postcards during Jim Crow.  Dylan is known for his persistent tinkering with and reinterpretation of his songs which was evident in the two most famous songs he played, "Blowin' in the Wind," and "It Ain't Me Babe." Hearing Bob Dylan sing "Blowin in the Wind," the anthem of the sixties, is worth the price of admission for the Dylan enthusiast and the historian alike.  My guess is that people don't go to see Dylan play American standards such as Sinatra's "All or Nothing at All" or Tony Bennett's "Once Upon a time," but the sound and the songs add an interesting layer to the shows.  To look around the Oakdale and see the age range of fans at the show speaks to the timelessness of Dylan's words and supports his recent selection as Nobel Poet Laureate.   Whether written yesterday or fifty years ago, the songs resonate with listeners in ever-evolving ways and truly get at the heart of the American spirt and American character.

Resources:
"Desolation Row" Lyrics
Setlist from the show