Dylan comes through clearly
Amodernday Bob Dylan concert is a curious thing, best approached with tempered expectations. The cantankerous 71yearold legend’s live m.o. has been welldocumented and exhaustively discussed — the classics rendered namethattune unrecognizable by garbled vocals and bludgeoned melodies, the oddball reworkings of old numbers that seem motivated by caprice as much as inspiration, and, to varying degrees, a casual approach to matters like enunciation and pitch that can smack of contempt.
Given all that, the real surprise of Dylan’s 90minute set at Barclays Center last night is how fierce and invigorated the old man sounded. From the opening number, “You Ain’t Going Nowhere,” Dylan threw himself into the set with a commitment that was occasionally startling.
Take the fourth number, “Tangled Up in Blue,” reworked with the vocal lines delivered in halftime — his gravelly, bluntinstrument bark didn’t carry a lot of melodic nuance, but there was real passion in the delivery.
Broadly speaking, the tightly paced set alternated more delicate, elegiac numbers — “Soon After Midnight,” “Visions of Johanna” (which justifiably drew a big ovation), “Chimes of Freedom” — with hardswinging bluesy shuffles. His fivepiece band excels at the latter. The apocalyptic stomp of “Highway 61” was a high point, as was “The Levee’s Gonna Break,” from “Modern Times” — a jagged shuffle over which Dylan riffed with loose, jazzy phrasing.
As is his current habit, Dylan never got near a guitar, and focused on the piano instead. Even there he sounded focused and swinging. And his harmonica playing was terrific, though it would be nice to see him throw a few more bones to guitarist Charlie Sexton or steel guitarist/fiddler Donnie Herron.
Even Mark Knopfler — who opened the show with an excellent set of stately, evocative Americana — blended into the background when he sat in for a few numbers early in Dylan’s set, without so much as a solo.
Truth be told, two of the three classics that closed out the show made for the weakest points.
“All Along the Watchtower” was chargedup and suitably apocalyptic, but “Ballad of a Thin Man” sounded a bit flat and rote. And “Blowing in the Wind” got a jaunty lilt that sounded out of place.
But those are minor quibbles about a vital, hardswinging set — one that offered undeniable proof that Dylan can still bring it when he wants to.