St. Louis 3/1/2004 Review (Late! and Long!)
Howard Mirowitz
graduate school, and when I've been back for visits I've usually spent most of
the time with family and friends and haven't explored what's happened to any of
the old neighborhoods where I used to go when I was a kid. So I really had no
idea what to expect when I arrived at the Pageant on Monday evening for the
concert.
The Pageant is located on Delmar Boulevard, right near the corner of Skinker
Boulevard, which forms the city's western boundary with suburban University
City. That area is currently in the process of being "gentrified;" it's
traditionally been a hangout for high school kids and students from nearby
Washington University, and during the past few years many stores and apartment
buildings along Delmar have been renovated by adventurous developers and
property owners, and trendy little restaurants and boutiques and galleries
catering to the sophisticated urban young have moved in. Several blocks east of
Skinker, an abandoned Wabash Railroad station marks the point where Delmar
Boulevard changes its name to Martin Luther King Boulevard, the gentrified
renovations peter out into boarded-up abandoned storefronts, and the
neighborhood deteriorates into a typical inner-city ghetto.
When I was a kid, that whole area was still largely Jewish; my grandfather, who
was a tailor, had his shop on the first floor of a building on Delmar just east
of Skinker; he and my grandmother lived in an apartment over the shop, next door
to the Bais Abraham synagogue, an old red-brick building with Stars of David
inset in its stained-glass windows. They used to take me to services there on
Saturday mornings, and afterwards we'd walk down the street to see the afternoon
matinee at the <i>old</i> Pageant Theater, which was located several blocks east
of that Wabash station, but in those days that wasn't yet considered "the wrong
side of the tracks." I remember going there with them when I was probably about
6 years old to see the Disney film, "Sleeping Beauty," when it first came out
back in the '50's. And I think I must have subconsciously associated the name
"Pageant" with that place, because when I got to the new Pageant I was
completely disoriented for a minute; it felt like a whole chunk of Delmar
Boulevard had disappeared. Then I looked across the street and saw an old,
red-brick Missouri Baptist church with stained-glass windows that seemed oddly
familiar ... I walked back up Delmar a couple of hundred feet and looked closely
at the windows. They had Stars of David in them -- and I suddenly realized that
that church used to be Bais Abraham synagogue, and this new Pageant happened to
be located right across Delmar from where my grandfather's tailor shop used to
be -- and where there was now nothing but a big empty lot where a whole row of
buildings had been razed.
Anyway, enough St. Louis nostalgia. Thanks to Dan Levy, I was able to score
front row, left center balcony seats, so I didn't have to stand in the GA line,
which was a good thing, because even though I got there by 5:15, the Halo Bar
was already jammed to capacity by early-birds like me who knew that the Pageant
owns the Halo, and that they let people in the bar enter GA through a side door
15 minutes before the people waiting in line outside the venue. I talked the
Halo's bouncer into letting me inside in exchange for temporary custody of my
driver’s license. There, I found my cousin Matthew, who’s a Bobcat, and his
girlfriend April, who’d never seen a Dylan concert, and gave them their tickets,
and made contact with a bunch of Bobcats who'd descended on St. Louis from all
over: kisskissmary, sugaree, devil's_haircut and her husband, utopian hermit
monk, 5.24.64, 4thstreet, rosie1, Dusty Old Fairgrounds, splitpeashell,
laughs_like_the_flowers and I’m sure I’m leaving a few folks out. Two whole
Pool teams were there – Yankee Power and Texas Medicine and Outlaws and
Wanderers by Trade – plus most of The Cobweb Connection. I had to leave the
bar to get my license back, and as I walked over to the line outside, I heard
the band sound-checking “I Don’t Believe You” through the open entrance door.
Around 7:45 I finally got inside and took a look around. The Pageant is very
intimate for a 2,000-seat venue. The center floor of the GA section, which is
all standing only, is surrounded by several rows of tables where one can
purchase a drink from the bar at the back and enjoy it during the show in
relative comfort. The balcony also has its own bar, and there’s not a bad seat
in the house. Our seats were in the very front of the balcony, center left, and
I’d say we were no more than 35 feet away from Bob’s keyboard, overlooking the
checkerboard-diamond patterned stage with the familiar Eye of Isis projected on
the curtains hanging behind. Larry’s pedal steel was set up to the right, and
the drums were hidden under a tarpaulin until 8:00, when a roadie pulled off the
tarp to reveal two drum sets. A solitary mike stood in the center of the stage,
triggering the thought that we might see Bob step out from behind the ivories to
sing. I looked around for Chuck Berry, who was rumored to be present, but didn’
t see him. (He was finally sighted at the Wednesday night show.) At 8:05 the
heroic opening chords of Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” rang out over
the PA system, and the audience began to stir expectantly. By 8:20 rhythmic
clapping broke out, along with the occasional cheer as roadies popped out to
adjust equipment or light the nag champa …
But it took until nearly 8:30 for the lights to go down and Copland’s “Rodeo” to
begin playing. The crowd’s cheers drowned out the by-now-familiar intro (there
might have been just a wee bit louder reaction to “… disappeared into a haze of
substance abuse …” and “ … emerged to find Jesus …”) – and out came the band,
followed by Dylan, the Man in Black with a white cowboy hat and studs down the
sides of his trouser legs. Only George was on drums, the other set remaining
vacant for the moment. They immediately launched into “Drifter’s Escape,” which
had a slightly different feel from the versions I’d heard in the past couple of
years. It had a lilting rhythm, and the wound-up piano sound coming from Bob’s
keyboard gave it a kind of roadhouse-joint feel. Freddy’s nicely restrained
lead made perfect sense, and Bob’s singing sounded far better than it did last
year, with a fuller, more resonant vocalization and vibrato in his tone that
added an arresting element of depth to his performance. He stretched out the
last word of each line – “’Oh, stop that cursed jur-ry,’ cried the atten-dant
and the nuuuuuuurrrrrrrssssse” – throwing a little catchy laugh in there
occasionally: “Whi-heh-le the jury cried for mooooooore.” And at the end, as
has been usual with this tune, he pulled out a harp, and treated us to an
outstandingly honkin’, perfectly controlled blues line that – also as usual for
this tune – was far too short. But there would be more harp to come.
Good applause from the crowd, Richie Hayward sneaked out on stage and sat down
behind the second drum set, and the band segued into the opening chords of “It’s
All Over Now, Baby Blue.” This was a brand new arrangement, with both drummers
drumming away in unison, setting an insistent, striding tempo with 5 beats to
each line of the verse, separating the lines by a single beat – “Yonder-stands
your-orphan-with his-gun”- beat - “crying-like a-fire-in the-sun” - beat - “look
out-the-saints are-comin’-thru” – except for the refrain, which retained the
traditional 6 beats. The unusual rhythm pattern gave the song a new element of
surprise, because the lines came at you one after the other, about three beats
faster than you expected, almost faster than you could assimilate them, making
you do repeated double-takes. Richie kept looking over at George for cues,
perhaps to control the temptation to put those beats back in! Larry’s sweeping,
liquid pedal steel provided a nice contrasting texture that smoothed out the
periodic herky-jerkiness of the line rhythm. And Bob’s voice reminded me of the
way he sang in the studio when he recorded “Highway 61 Revisited;” it was really
strong on both high and low notes, trailing into a pretty vibrato on “Baaaaaby
Bluuuuue.” When this song ended there was another huge reaction from the
crowd.
A quick conference with Larry, Tony and George, and Bob walked back behind the
keyboard to start “Cry Awhile,” another tune with an unusual tempo change, Larry
on slide guitar this time. Richie seemed to miss the tempo change at the
beginning of the first couple of verses, but as the song progressed he got
synched in and the whole damn thing just came together perfectly with a
fantastic, authentic roadhouse-rhythmed sound; Bob growling the lyrics and
banging away on that honky-tonk keyboard, Larry whanging away on the slide,
Freddy actually behaving himself admirably, generating a really motorin’
syncopated rhythm to Larry’s lead and then stepping forward and sculpting an
exquisite Muddy Waters blues lick with lots of body English – it was far, far
better than Bob’s Grammy performance, better than any other live performance of
the song I’ve heard, and it would’ve surely been better than the studio version,
if Richie would’ve been on from the get-go. But as it was, it was about as good
as it gets, and it got yet another huge cheer from the audience.
Richie left the stage, Larry got himself an acoustic guitar, and Bob began to
play a piano riff that sounded vaguely like the opening piano figure from “New
York, New York” without the lilt, while Larry played a ringing counterpoint that
resolved from dissonance to consonance like a Bach harpsichord fugue – and Bob
began to sing “Hattie Carroll.” He was a bit ham-handed on the piano at times,
but his voice … his voice was marvelous; sneering and snarling at Zantzinger,
left sadly at the table with Hattie, finally damning and calling down penalty
and repentance on the judge, though he quickly and almost anticlimactically bit
off the word “sentence” at the end. But at that, the band went into an
instrumental closer, with Bob playing a slow arpeggio descant and Freddy
clanging out a repeated single chord that rang through the Pageant like the peal
of the Last Bell of Doom.
Larry picked up a cittern and here came “It’s All Right, Ma.” Only George was
out there on drums, but that was all the drumming it took to set up the same
dirty, roady blues arrangement that I’d heard at San Diego State in October ’02,
only this time, if possible, it sounded even more lurchy and menacing. The
audience reacted with cheers to every famous line, loudest on the President
having to stand naked, as Larry played a rapidly strummed sequence of fifths on
his cittern, Tony and George maintained a ruthless pace on rhythm, Freddy
clanged away with a sound like Gabriel’s Horn, and Bob sang, “They’d prob’ly put
mah haid, in a guillo-tine.”
Another conference around the drum riser – still with only George up on drums –
and Bob took a drink of something red in a glass, which I believe was Gatorade
or something like it; it wasn’t quite the right color for wine. Then the band
began to play the beautiful arrangement of “Girl Of The North Country” that we
first heard last Fall in Europe, with the piano riff that sounds loosely like
the guitar lead from Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” but this had much more depth and
complexity, and seemed much more together than the versions on the boots I’d
heard from the European tour. Larry played acoustic guitar, again in
counterpoint against the piano figure, and Tony had his string bass, which gave
a mellow, haunting feeling to the rhythm. Bob stretched out the second-to-last
word of each line – “it rooolllllls and flooowwwws all down her breast;” “That’s
the waaaay aah remember heeerrrrrrrrr – best.” And at the end out came the harp
again, clear and bluesy and gorgeous, suggesting with the lightest touches of
breath the rolling of a Conestoga wagon across the Northern prairie, the waving
of honey-blond wheat in the Northern fields, the blowing of honey-blond hair in
the Northern wind.
Richie returned to his drum set, everybody else picked up electric axes, and we
got a pretty straight-up version of “Things Have Changed” with a good, bluesy,
growly delivery by Bob, who gave a little dip and curl to the end of lines like
“The human maahhnd can only staaaaaauuuhhhhnnnndd so much” as he rocked back and
forth, almost doing pushups against the Yamaha, then moving up and curling his
body around the keyboard and mike, almost in physical imitation of his vocal
mannerisms, looking for all the world like Stan “The Man” Musial in his fabled
corkscrew stance in the batter’s box. And that made a kind of fractured sense,
because – after all – Bob is The Man. In the instrumental break, Freddy and
Larry started off playing a duet, then Freddy dropped back on the stage and
Larry took the lead. It was also interesting to watch the difference in
drumming styles between Richie and George. George flings his drumsticks around
rather flamboyantly compared to Richie; he seems to hold them more loosely in
his hands, so that they almost fly through the air in fan-shaped arcs. Richie
keeps the drumsticks much more closely in line with his arms.
After those two slow tunes Bob must’ve decided it was time to wake the crowd up,
so the band cranked up “Highway 61 Revisited,” which got people jumping up and
down all over the place. Both drummers pounded away while Larry and Freddy
traded leads, each stepping forward in turn to show off his licks, Larry playing
slide on a Telecaster and Freddy using a slide on something that looked kind of
like a Fender Jaguar. And each time they switched off, they’d cut loose a
little more, push the envelope a little more, sliding low, sliding high, until
they had the whole joint going wild. Bob even sang the verse about the fifth
daughter on her twelfth night complaining that her complexion is much too light,
and the cheers and applause at the end were the loudest so far.
Another conference, and Bob walked over to the side of the stage to get another
harp, which he held in his hand as the band began to play “Make You Feel My
Love.” Bob attacked the beat on keyboard a bit ahead of the drums, infusing
the slow song with a bit more energy than I’ve heard in recordings of other
versions. Larry and Freddy were back on Stratocasters and both drummers were
still on stage. Bob’s harp at the end was very sweet and plaintive, expressing
a wistful and sad emotional ambience that offered a powerful contrast to his
old, grizzled voice.
“Tweedle Dum And Tweedle Dee” was next, and this was the same old, same old
arrangement we’ve come to know and love, with Freddy capoed way up on the 5th or
6th fret and Larry capoed up on the 3rd fret. From my vantage point, Bob seemed
to be playing mostly on black keys, which at least would be consistent with the
odd guitar capoing, and Richie played the bongos while George manned the drum
set. Larry played a fine rapid-fire lead between the final two verses.
Conference on the mound again, and when Bob went back to the piano and started
to play, I thought for just a second that it might be “Ballad Of A Thin Man,”
but it quickly resolved into “Man In The Long Black Coat.” Larry played
acoustic rhythm guitar, Freddy played electric, and against the piano chords,
the guitars somehow sounded like a cold wind blowing through a deserted
graveyard, down a lonely street, chilling the bones of the man in that long
black coat. Then Freddy played a jagged, jerky lead that suggested nothing so
much as jagged, broken glass, stained with drops of blood and the memory of
pain.
Another conference with Tony this time, Richie went offstage and the guys began
to play “Honest With Me.” George played bongos with one drumstick in his mouth,
beret pulled back, the very picture of a pirate with a dirk between his teeth
climbing hand over hand up the rigging to put the Jolly Roger atop the mast.
The arrangement had numerous hanging pauses with only George and Tony keeping
the beat. Larry was not exactly playing a slide – it was more like he was
playing chords with his fingers, sliding into each one. In the middle of the
instrumental break, someone threw a bra on stage; it landed right in front of
the mike in the center. As Larry and Freddy began to play the song’s trademark
syncopated dual-guitar lead, they began gingerly inching toward the bra, then
gingerly backing away from it … at the end, Bob charged out from behind the
keyboard and high-stepped his way across the stage, moving his arms like he was
warming up for a sparring match with Gina Gershon. He might have been
stretching out a cramp from the odd positions he was twisting himself into as he
played.
“Saving Grace” was next. Larry was on pedal steel, playing a slow, stately line
that reminded me of “Make You Feel My Love,” with Bob playing cross-harp, but
Western style rather than bluesy, sounding old and low. Freddy managed a quite
creditable country lead, and Bob closed the song with a beautiful harp phrase
against Larry’s ending steel riff, leaving off the last verse.
Bob went to the mike at center stage and gave a brief announcement about local
station KDHX, and saying hello to “Mary McCarthy, the territorial President of
my fan club, who lives around here.” Then, as he shuffled back to the Yamaha,
the main set ended with both drummers back on stage and Tony on string bass
again, hammering out the rhythm for the usual rave-up, rousing rendition of
“Summer Days,” still the most danceable song Dylan’s ever performed, in my
opinion, featuring great dueling guitar leads by Freddy and Larry, Larry’s sound
more rapid-fire, jump-style, full of detailed riffs, Freddy’s effort more bloozy
and controlled. The GA standing area was going wild, with people jumping up and
down, but the people seated at the GA tables remained in their seats for the
most part, as did the folks up in the rich peoples’ seats in the balcony. At
the end the audience responded with a standing ovation, as Bob and the band
assumed their positions in the familiar Formation, Bob kind of gesturing to the
audience in the same way that he would probably gesture “down, boy, down” to
his dog. Then they walked off stage, Bob never having introduced the band.
The applause continued for about five minutes and Bob and the band, including
both George and Richie, returned to do “Cats In The Well” followed by “Like A
Rolling Stone,” which they did with more attack than usual, making it sound a
little like a Jethro Tull tune. During the chorus, everything stopped but the
drums and Bob’s voice; you could hear the crowd singing along, “How does it
feel?” Freddy let loose with an awesome lead in the instrumental release,
earning a big cheer from the crowd, and at the end of LARS, Bob finally
introduced the band, forgetting (and having to be reminded by Larry) to
introduce Richie. Then they closed it up with a storming “All Along The
Watchtower,” went into Formation once more, and it was over.
After the show, some of the Bobcats joined devils_haircut and her hubby to go in
search of Bob, who was reputed to be staying either at the Ritz-Carlton or the
Chase Hotel. The rest, along with me, Matthew and April and my other cousin
Jill and her husband Dave, all repaired to the Halo Bar where we reviewed the
show. April was flushed with excitement – we converted her! Jill, who also had
never seen Dylan and who had never encountered real Dylan fanatics, was
fascinated by our stories of insane behavior in pursuit of Bob sightings and
traveling on the road. Eventually my relatives all left, and it was down to
kisskissmary, rosie1, sugaree, laughs_like_the_flowers, dusty_old_fairgrounds,
splitpeashell and me, reading Tarot for each other and generally declining into
a state of companionably alcoholic friendship. We didn’t come up with any
stirring new insights, but we all agreed it was a good show, one that would be a
genuinely desirable boot to own (assuming that someone in fact recorded it) –
and that the next two would probably be even better. Unfortunately, I’ll have
to leave the reportage for those concerts to other attendees, since I had to get
back to California and missed them as a result.
H.
Ray Baldwin
> I grew up in St. Louis, but I haven't lived there since before I went to
> graduate school, and when I've been back for visits I've usually spent most of
> the time with family and friends and haven't explored what's happened to any of
> the old neighborhoods where I used to go when I was a kid. So I really had no
> idea what to expect when I arrived at the Pageant on Monday evening for the
> concert . . .
>
(Long snip of a fascinating review)
Thank for that Howard. A wonderful and evocative description of a Dylan show - a
most rewarding read. Thanks also for the interesting account on some of your
memories as a youngster there.
Ray.
William Robertson
essays I've had the pleasure of reading in rmd. Special kudos for the
great Stan Musial image. I read your post right after getting my
tickets for the Boone show; I haven't seen Bob since he put down the
guitar, and your remarks allayed my misgivings about that somewhat.
brother Bristone
felt like i was there with you!
thanks,
brian
CYNTHIA TAPPAN-O'BOYLE
times) and the zimmy show -- much appreciated -- your writing and
descriptions are great.. we saw zimmy at the arogon in chicago last nite
and the show was great . thanks again for your review.
friends and fans of zimmy, cindy and dennis
may god bless and keep you always and may you stay forever young.
Bkindmoore
"The applause continued for about
five minutes and Bob and the band,
including both George and Richie,
returned to do “Cats In The Well”
followed by “Like A Rolling Stone,”
which they did with more attack
than usual, making it sound a
little like a Jethro Tull tune. "
Reading this, I could almost hear
it in my head. Fine review!!
Tim Herrick
LIST...@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU writes:
<< St. Louis 3/1/2004 Review (Late! and Long!) >>
thanks for this wonderful review and taking the time to do it.
is dylan playing piano for the entire show? did I get that right?
Bubbaband
did,,,
Jim Mitchell
"Tim Herrick" <TIM...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:3b.447415b...@aol.com...
Yes, you got that right. At least on March 3 (and by reviews, the 3 shows
prior), he played every song hunched over an electric keyboard, with a few
breaks to play the harmonica. Other than to introduce the band or to do a
short jig across stage, he never left.
Distant Ship
"Jim Mitchell" <jnjmitch@n_0_s_p_a_m_swbell.net> wrote:
> Yes, you got that right. At least on March 3 (and by reviews, the 3 shows
> prior), he played every song hunched over an electric keyboard, with a few
> breaks to play the harmonica. Other than to introduce the band or to do a
> short jig across stage, he never left.
This was already the case last fall during the Euro tour.
PS
Delia
"Howard Mirowitz" <how...@mirowitz.com> wrote in message
news:IFEHLEEAINGHJIKAD...@mirowitz.com...
> I grew up in St. Louis, but I haven't lived there since before I went to
> graduate school, and when I've been back for visits I've usually spent
most of
> the time with family and friends and haven't explored what's happened to
any of
> the old neighborhoods where I used to go when I was a kid. So I really
had no
> idea what to expect when I arrived at the Pageant on Monday evening for
the
> concert.
>--
Great to have a review by Howard. Thanks.
Delia