Review by Sergi Fabregat
There's a particular line in 'Six Days on the Road' I've been liking very
much all these outlaw days, love also how Dave Dudley (up)sings the
"you're right!" in one of the first recorded versions:
My home town's coming in sight, if you think I'm happy, you're right
Six days on the road and I'm gonna make it home tonight
It has been just two weeks of travelling around the Midwest, but it
definitely feel like much, more more than that, physically, mentally and
time-wise. We've had the essential help of a couple of friends to get to
and fro the nearest cities and some of the festival's venues but, apart
from that, I've had to plan a really lenghty trip on public transportation
in a car-centric country, as I don't drive, that has gone from Chicago to
Hibbing, from Hibbing to Minneapolis, from there again to Chicago and St.
Louis for three shows in a row, then to Cincinnati and Akron (second time
in less than a year I've been there, oh my) and then to Pittsburgh,
throwing into that planning the really important sightseeing part of the
trip and doing all that with my mom, something that of course pays off but
it is also challenging, and also that the Outlaw shows involve a lot more
of time of the trip. When Bob sings "my feet are so tired, my brain is so
wired", I literally get what he means; I'm exhausted now, I really need
and want to go home, if you think I'm happy to do so you're right, yet at
the same time I wouldn't change not one tiny bit of these past two weeks,
it has been unforgettable and it feels really epic and empowering that we
did it, that I can look back and say, even if it only to myself, that it
was us who lived through and turned this crazy, sometimes outright
impossible idea, into a journey. Some people say I'm truly blessed, and in
a way, when touring along Bob specially, I feel like that, I always feel a
resolution within me who makes me certain that, no matter the issue, we
can work it out.
I usually get to the last couple of days of the trip drowned out, pulling
forces from don't know where to keep going. For our last Outlaw day, apart
from the afternoon show in Burgettstown, near Pittsburgh, in the morning
we had plans of visiting 'Fallingwater', Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece,
an impossible house that blew my mind when I first saw it in an art
history book in high school. The day before we took the most advantage of
the Andy Warhol museum, such an incredible experience (really, what a
great museum), as it was open until 10pm, but in order to make it to
'Fallingwater' at 8:30am, when he had booked our tour, we had to be on the
road at 6:30am. I just hoped it would be worth all the effort, the money
too, but specially the effort and, as it has happened with the Outlaw
Festival, it surpassed my expectations by a mile away.
I don't want to go into details because it would be too much off-topic but
that house moved me, like when I was standing in the living room looking
at that stone floor that binds inside and outside, with the low ceilings
and the panoramic windows and the gorgeous woods at the other side, I
almost cried, stupid as it may sound. It was that beautiful, also me in
constant disbelief that I was finally there, almost 20 years later after
seeing that impossible place in a school book. The impossible has
manifested as real in this trip, in a deep and mysterious way, the vivid
experience becoming a blurry yet immanent sensation with the passing of
days. Was I really in Hibbing, in Bob Dylan's childhood bedroom, just a
mere ten days ago? That place moved me too, while standing there I could
picture, I could even see, that young kid looking out for a world he
wasn't aware of, wondering if he, from his bed, could ever have imagined
the places he would go and the things he would see, when he sang "I'm
dreamin' of you, and all the places we could roam together", I wondered
what was before his eyes.
In Burgettstown, John Mellencamp's rendition of 'Longest Days' moved me
also quite a bit. Yesterday it was one of the longest days, indeed, yet
it's already a thing in the past. The overall atmosphere during
Mellencamp's show was really joyful and honest, and it set up my mood for
a great closing night with Bob. I noticed that the two or three rows at my
back were practically empty, and a couple of minutes before Bob hitting
the stage I checked again, still nobody behind us. Again, before showtime,
Bob and Band hit the stage and I'm beyond thrilled when I know that I'll
be able to enjoy again 'All Along the Watchtower', this time not played by
Mellencamp on his set. The version is tighter than the already very good
one in Cuyahoga, I love its stompy-swampy tempo, and Bob is fully engaged
with the lyrics, specially during the whole last verse and some specific
words ("you and I!", "but a JOKE"). That being followed by 'Rainy Day
Women' just makes my night, this time Bob doesn't change lyrics in the
first verse but adds a whole new last verse (fourth) that he hasn't done
on other nights, maybe more aimed at the band getting it right, proving to
me that he is well into this stream of focused consistency that is a
trademark of the R&RW Tour. I have this great feeling that we'll say
"hasta luego" in the greatest fashion.
Then comes 'Love Sick' and I'm in such a mood that I forgot we have always
been having an slow song before that one; Bob will perform here a pattern
that he will try during the show: with just a couple of piano notes he
will create a metronome-like rhythm around which the words will revolve,
sometimes joining it and sometimes not, with the band providing base and
textures, but the piano being the headquarters of the sound. Then, someone
pats my back, I turn and there's a guy sitting behind me, who angrily
says: "Would you like to change f***ing seats?". I lean to him and I say
"I'm sorry, I didn't know you where here", which is true, he wasn't there
a minute before Bob. Anyway, I don't take it badly and I seat. A great
'Love Sick' ends and a flaming clockwork 'Little Queenie' arrives, me in
incredulity that this guy is 83.
With the first lines of 'Mr. Blue', I hear a constant, audible chatter
also behind me. I turn around and two women are talking next to the
tapping guy at regular volume to say the least. I make a little polite
hand gesture and they seem to get it, even utter an "excuse me". Of
course, less than a minute later, they go on, and I'm amazed nobody else
says anything. This is clearly developing as an exciting, really powerful
concert, is there anybody alive out there?! I'm not picky with those
things, I'm more than ok to seat if I'm asked, I get it's a public place
and you have to deal with things but paying 150$ to chat and bother
others... I just don't get it, simple as that.
As last time I tried to shut someone up I ended being death threatened, I
opt for a compromise: lean forward to try to minimise the nuisance, stand
here and there if I feel so and, specially, turn this into a blessing in
disguise. If I will have a hard time just enjoying the show, I will
concentrate on it and that will naturally lead to enjoyment, so I try to
catch all those inflections in phrasing, those words that Bob knows how to
make stand up like nobody else before or after, most of them responding or
asking for piano mini bridges. In Burgettstown, there was a ton of that,
Bob was constantly changing attitudes, rhythms within lines, volumes... At
the end I felt as if in a privileged masterclass on the power of the oral
word, 102 shows later he is still capable of surprising, entrancing and
enthralling me, and despite being with those idiots nearby, I feel so
fortunate to be there, so I keep focusing on what is happening in there.
Best 'Hard Rain' of the six I've seen? Most defiant for sure, each element
acquiring textures when it is worded out to the point you can hear the
girl's rainbow, see the thousand whisperers or meet the forgotten souls.
I'm talking about really powerful stuff here, a song of songs, incredibly
molded, melted and caressed after 60 years, Bob applicating an unbearable
pressure in the last few lines, a false prophet sinking in the unnumbered
black ocean, maybe angry that so few were listening, a sign of the times
no doubt, but some of us feel exactly what he means.
'Hard Rain' is about a blue-eyed son and a rainbow girl, and 'Under the
Red Sky' is about a boy and a girl that end roasted, a river goes dry, and
a moon man goes home (?). Powerful, succint imaginery, to me being
displayed in an emotionally increasing grade show after show. Bob's Outlaw
set seems to function partially in this kind of connections from one song
to the next, as if he was not only in conversation with them but them also
were in conversation with each other. With so few elements, as opposed to
the spare fertility of 'Hard Rain', 'Under the Red Sky' is an evergrowing
song, with that same evergrowing, moving harp solo at its end.
'Things Have Changed', as opposed to the roof-breaking, uncaring nerve of,
say, Tinley Park, mirrors 'Hard Rain' in its concentration and minimalism,
yet were in the latter we had enumeration, an eroding storm of images
within words, in the former we find a narration, a contradictory statement
that seems very problematic an embodies perfectly how I'm feeling. Because
that's right, I feel out of range, I feel that I don't care, but at the
same time I hate to be sure that by that point the drunk jerk behind me is
mocking me when I cheer ot woohoo at the end of some songs or in a line
here or there. So the song's tense stillness leaves me hanging on, and I
find solace in being sure that I'll remember lots of images, moments and
imprints from such a powerful night.
A while before, during 'Early Roman Kings', I feel this undescribable
instant in which, looking at Bob from a bit far away, already sat and
focusing my whole mind on his voice, one of the back lights shines
directly to where I am and I feel that the distance between his words and
myself is obliterated, that there are no words coming from him to me, that
those are already within me, resounding within me, he is just the outer
echo of those words. It's a feeling very difficult to describe, but it hit
me pretty hard when I had a glimpse of what was going on. Later on, an
expansive, extremely commited rendition of 'Stella Blue', specially the
whole "cheap hotel" verse, made me feel exactly the same. I put all this
into words because it's a way of trying to hold out the void a bit longer.
Does it also happen to you that there are some points during Bob's shows
that you find yourself smiling like a kid in moments of pure bliss? In
Burgettstown I spent most of 'Six Days on the Road' like that and
specially at the end when Bob repeated the chorus line with the cadence
and melody of 'Baby Tonight': "Six days on the road and I'm gonna make it
home toooniiiiiiight!" Hahaha, it was fantastic, i remembered that he did
the same in one of the previous shows, maybe Tinley Park? Then it came
this fantastic rendition of 'Baby Tonight', which highlight was the fast
paced jam at the end.
Back in 2018-19, when 'Soon After Midnight' was played on a nightly basis,
I overlooked it big time, maybe I was not all that conscious back then but
now that I try to stay focused the whole show (specially on a night like
that), I see that clearly. Bob has given me these days a great excuse, via
the setlist shakeup, to reassess some songs, and maybe the winner in that
regard is 'Soon After Midnight'. In Burgettstown it was permormed in a
powerfully meaningful way, Bob drilling deep into the lyrics' meanings;
instead on cruising above the song, like sometimes it was the case
prepandemic, he goes inside it, and when he sings "I'm not afraid of your
fury", he truly means it, there is something in the essence in his voice
that can shake you from the inside out, that projects way above any of his
personas, comes across beaming as the dawn and enters your depths without
any kind of filter or preconception, just a stream of pure heat, so maybe
that's why in Burgettstown I felt that, truly, it doesn't matter if they
chirp and they chatter, because there are things that fly at far more
important and celestial heights than that: "when I met ya I didn't think
it would do, [...], and I want nobody but you". Such an adult statement,
such strong foundations of true, unashamed love, as when Springsteen sings
"you ain't a beauty but, hey, you're alright". That "hey" it's the world,
that juxtaposition is the world, the mind clarity to see the light of day
mixed with the spiritual fondness of, about and with the other one. It has
taken me 15 years, more or less the same as I've been with Bob Dylan songs
in my life, but now I can relate to this song.
I have an idea of what binds the Bob Dylan sets in the Outlaw music
festival, and that is details, tiny notes, words, subtle rhythms, shared
themes... Could the last two songs that he's been lately playing be
connected just by one word? Bone.
They sat together in the park
As the evening sky grew dark
She looked at him and he felt a spark
Tingle to his bones
And says, "How does it feel to be such a freak?"
And you say, "Impossible!" as he hands you a bone
The one-two punch, intimate and cacophonic, works perfectly, with Willie
Nelson's harp player Mickey Raphael sitting in and bindig both songs, but
I wonder if there is a deeper meaning, if Bob is still forcing his own
songs to serve a higher purpose. Is the geek handing you his spark? Is it
alright that that makes me think about 'My Own Version of You'? These are
just questions that very possibly aren't meant to be spoken. I decide to
stand, no matter what, during the whole of 'Ballad of a Thin Man', and Bob
sings the song projecting it for real, as convincing and conveying as when
he was performing it six decades ago, as if that song, like when 14 years
ago I saw him for the first time on a stage, could make the sun come up
through an sky lit by an almost full moon that, while that night in
Pennsylvania is on my mind, will be an unsetting moon.
Later on down the night, during what most probably will be my last time
seeing Willie Nelson, despite still being disturbed by the by then drunk
chatters behind yet amazed at how genuine and powerful Willie has been
during practically all the nights I've see him, he performed this
beautiful Tom Waits song 'Last leaf', which features an incredibly moving
line: "If they cut down this tree, I'll come back as a song". Then, as
with 'Longest Days' few hours before, as with 'Stella Blue' too during
Bob's set, I felt something in my gut, some raw emotion that now, while
about to land in Barcelona and the sun is coming up, is making me hold
back my tears and wonder if I'll ever come back.
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page by Bill Pagel