| Reviews Austin, Texas Moody Amphitheater June 29, 2026 |
Review by Tom Palaima
Austin in the late afternoon seen from the distance driving in from the east
and south through formerly rural and scenic, but now increasingly
development-desecrated-obscenely so-Bastrop County was shrouded in Saharan
dust. Inside the new Austin of over-crowded streets, in most places
zero-pedestrians-except at bus stops-and some of the tallest and most
foolish looking luxury skyscrapers in Texas, the dust was replaced by
traffic smog. El Tacorrido at South First and Oltorf was so run down that
both the order and pickup windows were fully decaled over. We thought at
first the site had been abandoned. At the sliding pickup window the pane of
glass was shattered and the jagged edges of the remnants of the pane peaked
out from the upper frame and over the cardboard put into replace it.
The old Austin of 2006 when urban-infill up, up, up was first being sold to
the unwary as a necessary measure to protect the natural surroundings from
what is now urban sprawl on steroids is way, way, way in the rearview mirror.
The Moody amphitheater in the ultra-chic Waterloo Park is a splendid venue,
with grassy slopes for those who wish-or are only able money-wise-to catch
the show for $69 and handling fees while reclining. The Moody's seating area
atop artificial grass has perhaps 25 rows covered by avant-garde pavilion
architecture. We were in Row H.
I have discussed Bob Dylan and his music and his thoughts and the world he
has lived through in classes since the early 2000s. Since 2016 I have
taught a special award-winning course at UT Austin called Bob Dylan:
History Imagination. We span his career from Buzz-Buzz-Buzz to Murder Most
Foul and trace his roots, his loving pilfering of other makers of texts,
with or without voice and song, his constant experimentation, exploration,
and reinvention, and his dedication to observing and commenting upon the
human condition as an Old Testament and Homeric and Virgilian prophetes.
I have seen and heard him and his bands play magnificent concerts in Austin
in 1990, 2002 and 2024, the Beacon Theatre in 2019, in Shreveport in 2016,
in Nuremberg in 2018. I knew and loved both Jimmy LaFave, who while with us
from the late 80's until 2016, performed timelessly magnificent LaFave and
band versions of Dylan's songs, and Denny Freeman, with whom I never
brought up in conversation his years 2005-2009 with Bob. His instrumental
cd Diggin' on Dylan spoke for him. Only once did he himself offer a comment,
when sitting back down at our table at the Elephant Room after playing a
few standards with trombonist Jon Blondell's jazz quintet, on his time with
Bob: "Dylan made it harder than it had to be."
That brings me to the nadir of all the Bob concerts I have heard. The
Woodlands August 2, 2009. The lineup with Bob Dylan on keyboard, guitar,
harp; Tony Garnier on bass; George Recile on drums; Stu Kimball on rhythm
guitar; Denny Freeman on lead guitar; and Donnie Herron on many instruments
under the sun (viola, banjo, electric mandolin, pedal steel, lap steel,
trumpet) played a sloppy, distracted and uninspired set. Kimball stood so
far stage right, it looked as if he wanted to join the stagehands. Denny
stayed in a perfunctory stationary groove somewhere stage left. Even the
normally bodily enthusiastic Garnier showed in his playing none of his then
twenty-one years as the one fixed point and second and thenceforth only
bassist in the Never-Ending-Tour lineup.
The night of June 29 started off with two fine longtime veteran lead
performers. The John Doe Folk Trio and Lucinda Williams and Her Band.
Doe, in his reincarnation as a folk rather than his early and still present
days as a f*ck u punk artist, opened with the splendid Jimmy Dale Gilmore
and John X Reed song "Tonight I think I'm Gonna Go Downtown." Doe several
times expressed his clear gratitude to be opening for Bob and to all the
fans who showed up early to hear his trio deliver an inspired and
politically infused set, closing with a loving theft from John Lennon and
the Beatles: "You Say you want a revolution / we'd all like to see your
plans." Upright bass by Kevin Smith and drums by Conrad Choucron were
staggeringly good and more than in synch, they were fused.
Lucinda Williams, physically frail but tenaciously determined, read and
sang mainly from her new album. She, too, spoke of Bob in reverently
thankful terms, as she worked through with clear emotional enthusiasm many
politically focused songs from her new album World's Gone Wrong, commenting
that whenever a songwriter like her comes up with a meaningful line or a
catchy title, they revisit Dylan's work and find he beat them to it, or did
something like but better than it. She closed with Neil Young's "Rockin' in
the Free World," encouraging us to sing along, as we used to do before
mobile-phone videos and what you show to be seen became the end-all and
be-all.
My wife Lisa and I were celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary. Besides
saying hello to a fine student from Spring 2026, Kaden Clennon, and to an
old Dylan-hand friend Kathleen Hudson (author recently of the magnificently
humane Corazon Abierto: Mexican American Voices in Texas Music Texas A&M
Press), we were seated tenth row center to hear Bob.
Kaden's view of this his first Dylan concert from his position far back on
the grassy knoll, should be heard, "It was a good show! I respect that he
played a lot of deep cuts / lesser known songs. A lot of artists and bands
his age become [their own] 'tribute bands' to their younger selves. Him
playing the songs he wants to play makes it much more authentic and
intimate than if he had felt forced to play only the hits from sixty years
ago."
Having listened to shows on the 13th and 17th of June from Berkeley and
Santa Barbara, on YouTube, I, too, was ready to take in the subtle piano
and guitar and Dylan's own voice in its healthy and post-Sinatra-phase
expressive form. Unfortunately the sound mix for the first dozen songs
where we were had Garnier's bass so dominant that it obliterated what I
believe was the same inspired jazzy piano improvisations and meaningfully
inflected lyrics as on the YouTube shows and what sounded, when I could
here it, like fine guitar work by new addition Joel Paterson. Absolutely
strange is Dylan's new habit of turning off the stage-right and stage-left
large video screens for his entire portion of the concert. Also the band
itself was set up way back up against the rear curtain of the stage as
during Covid at the Beacon Theatre November 2021. And Dylan himself now
wears a long, hooded jacket so that even his face is virtually unseen. At
the start of the show, I had no idea that Dylan had recently parted ways
with recent NET stalwart guitarist Doug Lancio apparently provoking lead
guitarist since 2019 Bob Britt to fly off to Nashville bidding "Sayonara
Bobby!" This brought to my mind Charley Sexton's on-stage seduction of
Bob Dylan on August 4, 2002 in Round Rock TX, two days after the Woodlands
'catatonic band' show. Denny Freeman was soon let go and Sexton brought
back into the band.
After the first dozen songs that were hard to take in because of
way-too-heavy bass and too little vocal volume, "Under the Red Sky"
captured some of the delicacy and fairy-tale whimsy of this wonderful
fairy-tale for children of all ages, even a singer recently turned
eighty-five. Unfortunately, Bob's harp was not close enough to any mic
for us to take in fully how Dylan intended it to put a stamp on the song.
Closing out with "Goodbye Jimmy Reed," again with heavy thumping on the
bass and not the bible, and "Every Grain of Sand" (with another 'too-muted'
harp solo), Dylan, after a quick bow and no introduction of his three band
mates-an extraordinary omission given how careful Dylan has been over time
to "let me introduce my band right now"- Dylan walked together with them
northward, audience right.
They left with the man enshrouded in a long dark hood, without a word of
goodbye, not even a note, beneath a high full moon.
Tom Palaima, Bastrop, TX
tpalaima@sbcglobal.net
Review by Elliot J. Copeland
I was at the Dylan concert June 29 on a beautiful evening outside at Moody
Amphitheater in Austin and thoroughly enjoyed it.
To me, the set seemed focused on his own mortality and life, but not in a
disturbing or fearful way. Songs like Tryin' to Get to Heaven and Every
Grain of Sand showed me that Dylan has reflected on the long and winding
journey of his life and reached a contentedness with death by appreciating
his life.
My thinking is probably influenced by his recent words in the NYT, where
he seems to have accepted aging for both its good and bad. And his stage
presence - all black and minimal - is both a command to the audience to
focus on the music, but also shows he's less concerned about what others
perceive now.
I also enjoyed the subdued and bluesier renditions of his songs and
connected that back to the influence of blues on Dylan that we discussed
at length in Prof. Palaima's class at UT Austin.
Lucinda Williams was also a joy to watch. I'm a big fan of her album Car
Wheels on a Gravel Road, and it was nice to hear some songs off of there
(including her tribute to Blaze Foley).
Elliot J. Copeland
(Editor's note: see Professor Tom Palaima's review of the show on this page)
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