Saturday, June 24, 1995 The Philadelphia Inquirer Music Review, by Tom Moon Astounding evenings with Dylan and his guitar Last week's announcement that Bob Dylan would play the Theater of Living Arts was accompanied by an explanation: Dylan, now touring stadiums with the Greatful Dead, was restless. He had days off and wanted to play. But few in the TLA's capacity crowds Wednesday and Thursday could have been prepared for what they encountered: Dylan was being literal. Not content to stroll through his house blend of hits and back-page obscurities, he wanted to *play*. As in play guitar. As in, play guitar *solos*. At times during the astounding, and significantly different, evenings, you could mistake the fretboard fireworks of Dylan and guitarist John Jackson for the kind of music associated with the Allman Brothers - heroic extended solos that travel winding pathways, hypnotic repetitive riffs that start at a whisper and build to a roar. Dylan, who is on a year-long creative jag that has yielded his most satisfying live performance in over a decade, has always been a workmanlike guitarist. He accompanied himself with sure, spare rhythm-guitar strokes, but rarely attempted solos. Now, in a quest for musical settings that amplify and reanimate his poetry, he's re-examining things he once took for granted. Up close and personal in the 800-capacity TLA, he didn't play anything by rote. An openness to possibility charged Dylan's performances with anticipatory electricity, as though even the road warrior and his band didn't know exactly what was ahead. At times, it felt like Dylan was rethinking his approach to performance. He played lead as much as rhythm, and substituted loose, improvisatory renditions for the more methodical, tightly wound treatments of the past tours. "All Along the Watchtower," one of the few songs repeated both evenings, became a chilling, blood-red anthem in which the urgency of the lyric was mirrored by Dylan's determined, surprisingly melodic guitar pronouncements. Jackson, who is from Memphis and plays like it, deftly shadowed Dylan during the extended guitar explorations, molding the leader's ideas into potent, carefully sculpted phrases. On the blue moan "Silvio," Jackson supported Dylan with crisp rhythm guitar for the first few rounds. As the intensity increased, he tossed out offhand lines designed to spark Dylan further. Before long, the two were engaged in a heated, crosstalking conversation. Clad in veteran-entertainerwear (a sequined jacket Wednesday, a powder-blue satin shirt Thursday), Dylan programmed enough hits to keep fans happy. Wednesday's set included "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and "Tangled Up in Blue." On Thursday, those were replaced by "Like a Rolling Stone" and "I Shall Be Released." In the anything-can-happen atmosphere, Dylan's vocal quirks - the hurriedly bunched phrases, the whiny delivery - became part of the improvisatory mood. I've heard Dylan sing "Like a Rolling Stone" in probably a dozen different settings, but never did it mean as much as it did Thursday, when his lines rang out like harrowing cries from a long-wounded soul. Dylan seemed intent on reminding his rapt audience, which reflected a wide demographic range, about the strength of his back catalog. His "Masters of War" summoned the bile and bitterness of the times that produced it. His "Girl of the North Country," part of Wednesday's three-song acoustic segment, evoked an innocent longing not often associated with the cynical latter-day Dylan. Remarkably, everything he pulled out sounded polished. Despite the fact that Dylan and his band (which also included drummer Winston Watson, bassist Tony Garnier and pedal steel guitarist Bucky Baxter) have been working stadiums, the TLA shows were full of disciplined touches - dramatic texture changes, stop-time sections, songs that ended by gradually shifting into majestic marches. Dylan knows how far to stretch a song, and only on the too-long acoustic treatment of "Mr. Tambourine Man" did his judgment falter. Of course, part of the problem with "Mr. Tambourine Man" might have been visual. Both nights, Dylan put down his guitar to emphasize certain words with croonerlike hand gestures. It made for a surreal picture: Suddenly Dylan, the perpetual scowler, was trying to be an entertainer. He didn't need to try. The music Dylan made during this residency was plenty entertaining, but it was more than that - a rare expression of spirit that no one lucky enough to be in the room will soon forget. ----------------------- END OF FABULOUS REVIEW
