Holmdel, NJ 8-10-03
SDW
Center on less-frenzied Sunday instead of Saturday; Dylan closing
instead of opening. So why not up the ante by going late instead of
early?--the weather was dismal, the dank air well-nigh unbreathable,
and who wanted to share a parking lot with ten thousand Petty fans, to
say nothing of the venue itself whilst their hero was in his glory?
Surely that was pushing our luck, but we tried it anyway, easing down
the central Jersey backroads at around 7 p.m., from blue-collar
Jamesburg, skirting Freehold (perversely satisfying, I must say,
driving to a Dylan show through Springsteen country) past wealthy
Monmouth County towns like Colts Neck, with its orchards and
thoroughbred horses, into Holmdel itself, hitting the Parkway just
south of our destination. Uncharacteristically, our luck held, and
the exit ramp was completely, almost eerily, deserted as we pulled up
in the deepening dusk and coasted into the parking lot directly in
front of the entrance, saving us the long trek into the wilderness
afterward so familiar from previous shows.
It was here that I first saw Dylan, after all, back when it was just
the Garden State Arts Center: nondescript, subpar acoustics, but not
yet warped by naked greed into the chaotic, soul-destroying spectacle
we currently endure. "Subterranean Homesick Blues," like a hammer to
the thumb. The next year, a mournful "One Irish Rover" and a
"Tambourine Man" that transformed the pavilion's ugly, futuristic roof
into a magic swirling ship, if only for a moment. In 1991 ... well,
let's move on ...; in '93, after an interminable set from Santana, the
strains of "You're Gonna Quit Me," and later, "Blackjack Davey." Also
saw Van Morrison here around that time ... "Sweet Thing." Good
memories. Now it's like pulling teeth even to consider going. The
date with Simon in '99 was the worst concert experience I've ever had,
logistically, and a lackluster performance to boot. Would this one
redeem it at all, I wondered as we wandered in.
Yes and no, I suppose. Let me say first that I've got nothing against
Tom Petty; he and the Heartbreakers are skillful, unpretentious
purveyors of a certain genre of music, one which, narrowly
interpreted, doesn't interest me at all. Just as I wouldn't make the
effort of turning off a Petty song on the radio, I was perfectly happy
to stand to the side of the lawn, drinking a $7 beer, listening
inattentively to "the hits" or a pallid rendition of "Little Red
Rooster," and occasionally watching his wizened, scary-elfin visage on
one of the big screens nearby. Benmont Tench sounds as good as ever,
and you've got to admire Mike Campbell for maintaining that '80s
hairstyle through all the intervening vicissitudes of fashion.
What I saw all around me, however, was less admirable by far. I know
that one shouldn't blame an artist for his audience, and I've seen
more than enough aberrant behavior from Dylan concertgoers, casual and
otherwise, to extend his fellow Wilbury the benefit of the doubt.
That said, Tom Petty fans really are the dregs. Based on preliminary
observation, they seem to fall into two major groups: 1) old,
moronic, and disgustingly wasted, or 2) young, ignorant, and
disgustingly wasted. I mean, enough to make an Aerosmith crowd
embarrassed (and I say that because one was overheard proclaiming in
thick slurred syllables his allegiance to that band, not because I
know what an Aerosmith crowd would consist of, or what would embarrass
them). The diversity and colorful eccentricity of a typical Dylan
event was swallowed up by a look-alike horde of filthy red-eyed
beer-swillers, beer-spillers, lunch-spillers, mud-sliders, and
singalong bellowers, swarming over that venue like some kind of
biblical plague, devouring or soiling everything in sight. It was
truly a horror to behold. The lawn and lots resembled nothing so much
as a landfill when they finally departed, no doubt to rain down
further destruction elsewhere.
Needless to say, we stayed as far back from that wreckage as possible
until the encore, Dylan's presence first glimpsed as a flash of white
on the video, of cowboy hat and jacket, and then a silvery flash from
his guitar, seen in frequently in close-up, those long, waxy fingers
working their ancient weirdness once again. Guitar! Why that would
seem so exciting I honestly can't say (old habits die hard), but it
certainly was the animating force behind an otherwise somewhat rough,
hesitant version of "Heaven's Door" -- with Dylan managing to belt out
a few impressively throaty lines, but with Petty and band perhaps too
frightened of stepping on his toes to push toward a effective reading
of the song -- and a weak, Petty-led "Baby Please Don't Go" that went,
unfortunately, nowhere fast.
Intermission, and we swam against the current to take our seats, in
the first section but far to the left, so that our view would be of
Dylan from behind as he stood before the keyboard; tonight, alas, like
Moses, we would see the back parts only. (Still, it was fascinating
to watch his playing from that angle: the bizarre, flexed stance, the
almost feral attack, the one-man-band simultaneous harp-blowing and
key-pounding, the burgeoning preoccupation with, and encouragement of,
his new "side-stage guitarist.") I watched the crew do a fast-frame
setup -- Tommy M. disappearing at some point to change into his
guitar-playing pants and otherwise pretty himself up for the show --
and endured the sarcastic remarks and imitations of Dylan-disparagers
on all sides, silently pondering why I ever thought that a second
match-up with Tom Petty was somehow historic and not to be missed.
But then I bethought myself: it's a Dylan concert, stupid, that's why
you're here, and my worries faded like the just-lit incense in the
air, softer now, and with an actual breeze just penetrating the edges
of the rows.
"Maggie's" was as strong an opener as it's been since Fall '02, and I
may as well take the opportunity here to issue a partial retraction of
my statements about Dylan's voice based on several MP3s I'd heard,
mostly from early in the tour with the Dead. Those truly
dire-sounding vocals seem to have been temporary, due to an illness or
some other factor that is at least beginning to dissipate. There were
times last night when his singing was as rawly powerful as any I've
heard in the last couple of years. That said, it is also wildly
inconsistent now, much more so than in the spring, lapsing at times
into a kind of metallic drone -- more steel wool than bright gold --
not unlike the sound of a blade on an electric sharpener, or like the
burr of these cicadas near my window. Not to mention that there are
still traces of that disturbing, oxygen-deprived gasp which,
strangely, will alternate with lines delivered with seeming confidence
and ease. It's disturbing, and I can't help remaining concerned. Of
course, the usual poor sound mix at the Arts Center didn't help; "If
You See Her" was musically taut and compelling, for instance, but the
vocals just weren't coming through, at least where we were sitting.
If I hadn't read them beforehand, I couldn't have made out many of the
new lyrics at all.
What I want to say about "Tweedle Dee," personally, is that the next
time I hear it -- and there will be a next time -- I will have to
resist the ever more-potent urge to run up on stage and unplug
everything in sight. I'm that tired of the thing, exhausted, in fact.
But what I want to say about "Tweedle Dee" from the perspective of
this concert is that, hell, I'm glad he played it. I'm glad he played
for the Petty fans every semi-obscure or recent (which for them
amounted to the same) song he could think of, just to torment them
further.
Perhaps it takes this kind of distancing for one to glimpse just how
savage a performer Dylan really is, just how gnarled, cranky, and
esoteric: he showed this mixed, already-reluctant -- at times openly
antagonistic -- audience no quarter, none at all. No guitar posing,
no acoustic songs, no flattery, no gratitude. Instead, relentless,
hard-driving exercises in tonal breath control, or demonstrations of
its absence. If he played the rare "standard" such as "Just like a
Woman" -- an excellent version, one of the best-sung this night, with
a fierce rogue wave of harmonica at the end -- he doused out any
attempts at singalong with near-impossibly delayed refrains; no
surprise, this, but envision the contrast: Petty up there on the
stage, arms outstretched, "learning to fly" while his fans sang him
sweetly back to earth, the wind beneath his wings. Dylan, instead,
pulled the carpet out from underneath them, and predictably, following
a blistering, 3-guitar guerrilla raid down "Highway 61," they began to
abandon ship, in a steady stream as he began snarling "Most Likely You
Go Your Way" in that harsh metallic voice -- a badly-built performance
as per usual, one that fell of its stilts musically more than once,
but that featured some seriously nasty playing in between. It wasn't
a mass exodus, exactly, but the place would grow increasingly
honeycombed with empty red seats as the evening wore on and Dylan
ground the infidels beneath his heel.
What to say about the rest of the songs? Nothing much new there, for
the most part, from "High Water" -- strong, but not quite on the level
with the one he did in Atlantic City last May -- through a disjointed
"Wicked Messenger," a sloppy, seemed-longer-than-it-was "Bye and Bye"
that glazed the eyes of any stragglers, a workmanlike "Honest with Me"
enlivened by its instrumental break (but see comment on "Tweedle Dee"
above), a hot "Summer Days" that's finally beginning to acquire its
own flavor and texture with this band, all the way up to a perfunctory
"Watchtower" ending in the new anti-formation, less an acknowledgment
than a sort of gruff dismissal, just before they cleared outta there
around 11:30. The only exception would be the slow, loopily-loping
take on "I'll Be Your Baby," which featured extensive soloing from
Koella that no one in my section seemed to be able to hear, either
because of the mix or because of the low notes he was hitting, leaving
one disgruntled audience member to gesticulate wildly at the stage
with one finger pointing at his ear. Koella seems to bring out these
responses from otherwise stolid veterans -- you know, the ones who
stand stock-still throughout the show without so much as a head-bob or
a clap. During "Watchtower," for instance, one of these right in
front of us gestured to his friend, pointing at Freddy with one hand
and pinching his nose shut with the other (he then pointed at Mad Dog
and gave him the ol' thumbs-up).
An average show, then. And I'd be content to leave it at that, if it
wasn't for the strange mood hanging over the proceedings, one that's
very difficult to explain but that was nonetheless palpable
throughout. For sure the audience had much to do with it, although
mostly supportive up front where it counted; still, yuppies on cell
phones are one thing, active hostility, however doltish, another, even
if it is repaid with scorn. Yet that isn't the whole story, either.
Maybe I'm deluded, but it seems to me that something is amiss between
Dylan and the band, the more fascinating because indefinable, "in the
air." A malaise. I do not count myself among the Koella-bashers, who
are legion; I think there's real potential in his playing. On the
other hand, they should be a lot tighter at this point then they are
-- there are wonderful moments, yes, but things just don't seem to be
flowing as they should. The presence of Mad Dog on so many songs, set
apart from the band like Dylan's own Mini-Me, must be somewhat
unnerving, no? Is no one thinking, am I going to lose my gray suit,
and will a matchbox hold the rest? Anyhow, maybe they were just
bone-tired, but the band seemed perfectly joyless for much of last
night's performance, with Campbell especially -- who had really just
started emerging from his shell in the last year or two with Sexton --
retreating into full-scale grim-n-bear it mode. I'm probably wayyy
wrong, and would like to be, but I couldn't avoid the feeling that
something was disorientingly "off" up there, though I'm not at all
sure what it was.
In the end, to quote from the reputed author and Dylan authority Dr.
Junichi Saga, "it's up to him whether a session comes alive or falls
flat" ... and he had plenty of fire and venom last night to see the
thing through. As for the rest, we'll just have to see how it goes.
Walking out from under the spaceship roof, we were surprised to see a
nearly-full moon overhead, no doubt courtesy of Dylan himself, who can
snap his fingers and require the rain. Not only did he clear the
seats last night, he cleared the sky as well.
Tom Sniffles
so full of life
if you are not a writer...you should be
[posted and mailed]
sdwa...@msn.com (SDW) wrote in news:ffd3477c.0308111900.1a6d5da8
@posting.google.com:
Dave
think the quote was "Tom Petty fans really are the dregs". You mean,
all Petty fans or just some. You mean no Dylan fans were drinking or
leaving their garbage. You mean no Dylan fans were there just for the
hits like the Petty fans?? Get off your Dylan high horse please. He is
by far my favorite writer/singer/performer but I would never go so far
as to think Dylan fans are any more enlightened than Petty or Dead
fans. Where does this stuff come from?? I read this same kind of stuff
trashing the Deadheads last week. The 3 or 4 times I have seen Dylan I
seem to remember lots or drunks trying to sing along with Bob and
talking through every "non hit" song. Never try to judge someone's fan
base by
a few people. Otherwise, I might start to think all Dylan fans are a
bunch of uptight snobs,
dave
sdwa...@msn.com (SDW) wrote in message news:<ffd3477c.03081...@posting.google.com>...
somebodysometime
collective group, with just the right amount of sarcasm & wit to make
the previous poster's retort irrelevant.
andrew