Fingers were crossed when 9,298 fans arrived at Pawtucket’s McCoy Stadium for the Bob Dylan concert Tuesday night, after a day of heavy rains.
“It never rains at McCoy,” said a hopeful Michael Gwynn, Pawtucket Red Sox vice president for sales and marketing.
That was nearly correct: Only the final two songs of Dylan’s encore were punctuated by rain. Aside from a little mist during John Mellencamp’s set, the crowd was able to enjoy a long night of music with no need for the slickers, ponchos and duck boots that passed for stylish attire.
Bob Dylan’s never-ending tour always gives fans plenty of his old favorites, but always in unexpected ways. That was surely true Tuesday. Dylan’s 90-minute set included 14 songs, but just “Jolene” from his new album, “Together Through Life.”
Dylan, 68, did a couple of songs from 2006’s “Modern Times,” and two more from 2001’s “Love and Theft,” but the rest of the show consisted of old chestnuts, totally reinterpreted.
Most of Dylan’s songs, whether the newer ones or the old classics like “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” were strained through the style he’s been developing over the past couple of albums.
That’s a rootsy amalgam of 1920s and ’30s blues styles, with some Tin Pan Alley flourishes, some vaudeville showmanship, and rhythms that mostly settle in a midtempo groove. Dylan’s vocals – and his hoarse croak was in pretty good form at McCoy – sort of glide over these roadhouse rhythms, almost scatting the words like a jazzman.
Dylan’s band was all arrayed to his right, all wearing black hats to his large white Spanish caballero hat, but they provided some subtly brilliant backing. Longtime cohorts George Recile, on drums, and Tony Garnier, on bass, are joined by lead guitarist Denny Freeman, Boston’s Stu Kimball on rhythm guitar, and Donnie Herron on pedal steel, mandolin and banjo. Unlike recent tours, Dylan played guitar for about half the set Tuesday, and even seemed to provide some lead lines. When he moved to his familiar electric piano, his lines frequently pushed the band to ever-hotter jams on some tunes. In short, it was a musical feast, even if, as usual, some of Dylan’s vocals suffered from the mumbles.
It was obvious Dylan was ready to cook when he turned “It Ain’t Me, Babe” into fist-pumping roadhouse boogie, delivering the vocal in his deepest gargle and ripping off short guitar leads.
“I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” epitomized that 1920s-’30s feel, riding an amiable shuffle beat. That easy flowing shuffle tempo remained for “This Wheel’s on Fire,” but the guitar lines took on an ominous tone, and Dylan’s vocal had an air of desperation.
Moving to keyboard, Dylan made “The Levee’s Gonna Break” a throbbing rhythm and blues march, and one of the night’s most uptempo songs. Dylan sang “Masters of War” with palpable conviction, but the midtempo rhythm seemed too static, and while that focused attention on his words, it also served to drain much of the tune’s drama.
Probably the most remarkably transformed song was “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding,” with Herron on banjo, which became a deceptively cheery, swinging lament. As the tune moved into its coda, Dylan’s organ lines pushed the band into an eerie, sepulchral jam. If Tuesday’s arrangement and performance was Dylan having an ironic joke on us, it was a corker.
2001’s “Po’ Boy” returned to that kind of musical vaudeville format, for a giddy midtempo stroll. But then “Highway 61 Revisited” turned into a driving rocker, Dylan’s voice reduced to a bullfrog growl as he barked out the lines. “Ain’t Talkin’” was an easy loping shuffle, and “Summer Days” ended the regular set with such swinging verve it seemed like Dylan was channeling Cab Calloway.
“Like a Rolling Stone” opened Dylan’s encore segment in stunning fashion. While the band delivered a sturdy rocking version of the old classic, Dylan played tricks with his vocal phrasing, lagging behind the beat and then catching up suddenly. His keyboard work was equally playful, as if he were having a lark with the tune he’s no doubt performed thousands of times. “Jolene” from the new album was done as a subtle R&B vamp, all implied sensuality.
Dylan ended the night with as hard-driving a rendition of “All Along the Watchtower” as he’s ever done, giving his guitarists plenty of room to stretch out, and smiling slyly beneath that big hat as the band drove it to a blazing conclusion. In that moment you realized Dylan is still doing this, almost every night, because he still loves surprising people.
Mellencamp’s hourlong set was superb from start to finish, even if some of his newer material shifts the mood considerably. Mellencamp wasted no time, opening with a fiddle-charged “Pink Houses” and seguing into a seriously potent “Paper in Fire” where his vocals sounded perfect.
Miriam Sturm’s fiddle, transposed with the guitars and accordion in Mellencamp’s backing sextet, gave “Check It Out” a gloriously soaring quality that seemed to enliven the whole ballpark.
Mellencamp shifted to an acoustic quartet format for his newer “Don’t Need This Body,” a sober look at growing older. Mellencamp, at 57 the kid on this tour, did a new tune, “Take Some Time to Dream,” on just acoustic guitar, and it is a moving, hope-filled sentiment. An acoustic-based, slowed-down take on “Small Town” uncovered new meanings in that familiar old hit.
Mellencamp’s entire band returned for a full-bore charge through “Rain on the Scarecrow,” but the gritty, pulsating “(Peace in This) Troubled Land” that followed was truly transcendent. That was a high point, but Mellencamp’s doing his newer, haunting “If I Die Sudden” stalled the momentum a bit. A blazing “Crumblin’ Down” and then a mass sing-along romp through “Authority Song” brought the set to a finish with the raw and raucous rock Mellencamp excels at.
Willie Nelson’s 65-minute set included a passel of his many hits, even if some were tossed off in brief medleys. Nelson, 76, was in fine voice, and his treatment of “Georgia” was as galvanizing as ever, as he toyed with the phrasing as only he can. By the time Willie unveiled “On the Road Again,” fans were high-fiving each other on the outfield grass.
But for delectable moments, none topped Nelson doing “You Were Always on My Mind,” where sister Bobbie Nelson’s piano, Mickey Raphael’s harmonica, and Nelson’s own skewed guitar lines gave it a delicate grace not of this world. But “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” seemed so loose it was in danger of spinning into chaos without Bobbie Nelson’s piano holding it all together.
Nelson ended with a Hank Williams segment, easily moving from a rowdy “Jambalaya (On the Bayou),” where Nelson explored the lower reaches of his voice, to a toe-tapping “Move It Over.”
And then it was on to an oddly swinging “I Saw the Light.”
That song is kind of rooted in gospel, yet Nelson’s take seemed more like a jazzy two-step, his vocal surging in and out of time, playfully drawing it out and turning it on its head. Before the night was over you’d be thinking Dylan has taken more than a little of his approach from Willie’s endless creative spark.
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