Review by Nancy Cobb
Late on the afternoon of June 18th I decided to go to the Dylan show in Highland
after hearing that Julian Lage had substituted for Doug Lancio for the entire
Santa Barbara show and I was wondering whether it is a one-off or not. Lage is
quite a bit younger than the rest of the band and started out at an early age as
a jazz guitarist mentored by Jim Hall and Randy Vincent and later on by
vibraphonist Gary Burton. I remember Doug's trial by fire in the early days of
RARW where Dylan tutored him on how to play jazz guitar particularly "Melancholy
Mood".
The stage setup was very wide with Lage at the far left side from the perspective
of the audience and Tony almost directly behind him, Dylan in the center with
his small electric piano, then Fig with his large drum set and Britt at the far
right position opposite Lage. Lage was on electric and Britt acoustic, and both
were mostly playing rhythm with the piano and vocal lead. Dylan was standing
most of the time and didn't pick up the harp until Under the Red Sky, and that
got a burst of applause from the audience. I didn’t notice on which song Bob
Britt came on stage; in recent shows it has been on the 4tb song of the set but
last night the mood really changed with False Prophet which was the fifth song.
There was a nice variety of songs from the late 1960s to the late 2010s. The
only change from Santa Barbara was the last two songs - Goodbye Jimmy Reed took
the place of Nervous Breakdown, and Every Grain of Sand took the place of I
Shall be Released. There were three traditional love songs - one his own and
two covers, three songs asking for help or forgiveness, and two "finger-pointing"
songs from his latest album, with new jazzed arrangements that were my favorite
of this show. Also two tribute songs to past performers whom he admires -
Bo Diddley and Jimmy Reed, four songs about passing a point of no return and
facing mortality without the fear that he expressed in his first album about
dying young. Finally, there were two songs about his love for children and his
fans where he is both a teacher and a guide.
The audience was quite polite in voluntarily curbing cell phone use and not
talking or moving around too much, and there was a long standing ovation at the
end of the show to show their love and devotion to (the only thing that makes
me proud to be a fellow American right now) Bob Dylan.
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