Thanks to Henry Tiernan for typing this Uncut article into RMD.
Precinct 13 You Had To Be There (The live shows you really shouldn't have missed)
Bob Dylan, Point Depot, Dublin
by Gavin Martin
You can trust in Bob, the magnificent minstrel and incredible icon, the prime preserver and arch plunderer of 20th century Americana, to pull a surprise when you're least expecting it. The so-called Never Ending Tour he's been on since 1988 is tonight revealed as the travelling laboratory of a song scientist genius, a place of awesome rediscoveries and tireless invention. Stout affirmations of his past glories are coupled with the spirit-jangling thrill of the old trout returning up stream to splash in the mountain-fresh, healing waters that still feed and nurture him.
This is BOB FRIGGIN DYLAN, FRRCRISSAKES, the man who knows more about the vibrations and calibrations or rock'n'folk'n'country blues than any soul alive. The previous evening a select crowd of 800, mainly Nouveau Dublin royalty and tax exiles (Costello, U2, Robert Smith), had enjoyed an intimate audience with the master. That, we wagered, was the one to see, the one where rare and special insights would be unveiled leaving the 12,000-odd crowd at this cavernous Liffey-side barn with the harder- faced, masses-pleasing side of a middle-aged roadhog legend. But the previous evening's show only seemed to loosen up his sense of play and determination to show the eternal mystery of his/our music.
He comes on looking like a hanging judge in straight back honky-tonk troubadour suit. An acoustic guitar strapped on, he leads his perfectly poised and righteously volatile band (harmonising second guitarist Charlie Sexton and multi-insrumentalist Larry Campbell, bassist Tony Garnier and wily beat-dropping drummer David Kemper) through a gentle, awed version of The Stanley Brothers' "I'm The Man Thomas". Later, strapped into their fiery electric chariot, this band will hunt down "Tombstone Blues", brimming with the sort of wild energy, wiry mischief and spontaneous humour that hall-marked live Sixties versions with The Band. But there is at least as much wonder, terror and brain-blitzing weirdness in these opening acoustic ruminations, which include two more unidentified, obscure traditional/non originals. These performances, totally subverting the expected Big Barn show fare, present an astonishing example of Dylan's egoless absorption in the music. These songs are unrecorded by him and are being used to promote nothing but an understanding of rich musical reserves often forgotten in an ephemeral age. An age where, he has noted, the only thing nearly real is virtual reality.
And yet Dylan is still the great chameleon, Chaplin trickster of rock'n'roll. PAst times onstage he has appeared remote, obscure, unknowable - not tonight, not during "It'a Aright Ma", "My Back Pages" or "Tangled Up In Blue". This is rampant Bob, the boy who looked at James Dean and determined to recreate that same presence and masterful dominance in words and music. He knows these are among the coolest and greatest songs ever recorded. He relishes the scorn, revulsion and abnegation flowing through "It'Alright Ma". He sense the hubris and aggrandisement of his younger self in "My Back Pages" and gives it opulent Sinatra-savvy phrasing as Campbell's lonesome violin adds florid Irish melancholy. On "Tangled Up In Blue", he splashes into the mesmerising words like a demented watercolourist, savouring the rhythms of sleaze and wonder, doubling back in to unwrap one of the open-tuned, silver-stringed solos that in recent years have brought a whole other dimension to his performances. To the thousand and one tongues he has made his own can now be added the beloved "high mercury" sound of Robbie Robertson's guitar.
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My Back Pages Odds 'n' Ends 20 lbs. of Menus
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