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Billed in all but name as a rock dinosaur double-header, Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler’s opening show of their joint European tour is no doubt one for blues fans with deep pockets. Blues music- American roots music, in general- flows deep for both Dylan and Knopfler, the latter exploring American roots music more ardently since he left Dire Straits in 1995. Indeed, Knopfler produced and collaborated with Dylan on the latter’s 1979 and 1983 records, Slow Train Coming and Infidels, respectively, at a time when Dylan’s career had hit its nadir and Knopfler was about to break the big time with Dire Straits.

Ahead of the night’s main attraction and performing separately, Knopfler takes to the stage with a band not too dissimilar in sound and feel as Dylan’s. Currently taking time out from recording his next record, Knopfler draws heavily from the solo career he first pursued with 1996’s Golden Heart in a live set that gels well with the sound, songs and feel of Bob Dylan’s records and live shows of the last 10 years. Although those expecting ‘Walk of Life’ or ‘Sultans of Swing’ might have been disappointed by the distinct lack of hits, Knopfler’s folk-leaning roots music shuffles along, opening with ‘What Aye Man’ from 2002’s The Ragpacker’s Dream. Debuted from, presumably, the current sessions for his next record, ‘Corned Beef City’ and ‘Privateering’ both feel fully realised and suggest that his preoccupation with folk / blues / Americana is a long way from being over.

Sauntering onstage to the theatrical and now routine stage announcement that condenses Dylan’s 50-year music career into a matter of sentences, Dylan and his band of session players kick off the night with an excellent rendition of ‘Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat’. The dramatic opening is followed swiftly by a restless, shuffling and countrified ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’, which shows Dylan’s voice to be more full, warm and defined than shows of recent years.

Dylan then moves away from the organ, which he has been stood at like Jerry Lee Lewis, and takes centre stage for ‘Things Have Changed’, the song which landed him an Oscar almost ten years ago, to a warm applause. The phrasing, as has been the case with Dylan’s performances for some time, is rapid fire. At times, his delivery is awkward and betrays the studio recordings to the point where it may take time to figure out which song it is he is performing. ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ falls victim to Dylan’s re-phrasing, though, tonight, the chorus retains the melodic punch of the studio recording yet has the Chess Records feel that Dylan has sought on almost all of his records since 1997’s career changing Time Out of Mind.

The junk yard-blues of ‘Beyond Here Lies Nothin’’ is reminiscent of ‘Swordfishtrombones’-era Tom Waits and Dylan gives the set a lift in the right place, only for it to dip again with a pedestrian performance of ‘Spirit On The Water’ from 2006’s Modern Times. However, Dylan and his cowboy band soon gain momentum again with ‘Desolation Row’, ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, ‘Thunder On The Mountain’ and ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’ forming a groove in the set that finds Dylan and his band peaking just before the night’s encore.

With Mark Knopfler on the bill, there’s an expectation that he might join Dylan for an encore of Infidels lead single ‘Jokerman’ or perhaps ‘Blind Willie McTell’, a lost Dylan outtake from theInfidels sessions, which Knopfler co- wrote with Dylan. Disappointingly, it doesn’t happen, though Dylan and his merry men take to the stage for an encore of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and ‘All Along The Watchtower’, the former which raises the roof off the house, the latter trailing off into mid bursts of blues playing from Dylan’s band.

Dylan’s refusal to engage with his audience means that he doesn’t attract the same adulation, live, which Leonard Cohen, for example, has courted on stage during his touring of recent years. The distance that he keeps from his audience is so that one could sympathise with the steady stream of fans leaving the venue before the night’s end (no doubt insulted by Dylan’s perceived contempt for his audience and frustrated at how foreign the sound and arrangements of some of the songs sound in comparison to studio recordings). What they don’t realise, however, is that though Dylan has appeared to us in many guises, he is still the same uncompromising rebel he always was. Dylan has managed to integrate his vast catalogue of songs to the point where they are all, consistently, in dialogue with one another. Although Dylan’s next move, in terms of recording or completing his long-overdue second installmentChronicles is vague, he will surely continue to play live in the same style and feel as he has for, at least, the last 10–15 years. His success at achieving his singular vision for his songs that he feels he needs to keep the material fresh, coupled with the appetite that he still has to play live, suggests that his so-called Never Ending Tour won’t be winding down anytime soon.

Originally published by State.ie

Setlist for Bob Dylan – Live at The O2, Dublin, October 6th, 2011

  1. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
  2. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
  3. Things Have Changed
  4. Tangled Up In Blue
  5. Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
  6. Spirit On The Water
  7. The Levee’s Gonna Break
  8. Desolation Row
  9. Highway 61 Revisited
  10. Forgetful Heart
  11. Thunder On The Mountain
  12. Ballad Of A Thin Man
    Encore:
  1. Like A Rolling Stone
  2. All Along The Watchtower
Setlist for Mark Knopfler – Live at The O2, Dublin, October 6th, 2011
  1. Why Aye Man
  2. Cleaning My Gun
  3. Corned Beef City (New Song)
  4. Sailing to Philadelphia
  5. Hill Farmer’s Blues
  6. Privateering (New Song)
  7. Song for Sonny Liston
  8. Done With Bonaparte
  9. Marbletown
  10. Speedway at Nazareth

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Without any effort, Crawdaddy, for one night only, is transformed into a dive bar in Nashville. Former Wallflowers frontman, Jakob Dylan, shuffles onstage with band members that wouldn’t look out of place on father Bob’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour of ’75. The audience comprises of three strands: a) Bob Dylan fanatics, a.k.a Dylanologists, who are there for obvious reasons, b) those that were among the many millions who bought a copy of The Wallflowers’ Bringing Down the Horse, and finally, c) Alt. Country devotees, charmed by his current foray into country music. His 2008 debut solo album, Seeing Things produced by Rick Rubin, hinted at a talent that was maturing and convincingly tapping into the sound and tradition of American roots music, which came to fruition with this year’s T-Bone Burnett produced Women and Country. On both albums, Dylan achieved a tempo and a sound that works as one piece and this, ultimately, is what goes against him in a live setting.

He immediately launches into ‘Nothin’ But the Whole Wide World’ followed by ‘Everybody’s Hurting’, both of which are contemplative mid-tempo country songs, the latter using his backup singers to full effect. Unfortunately, Dylan and his band never really stray far from this form, and the result is a set that is one-dimensional, lacking in surprise and anything but dynamic. Even performances of Wallflowers songs, ‘God Says Nothing Back’, ‘Three Malenas’ and ‘6th Avenue Heartache’, aren’t enough to add momentum. What forces him into an even darker hole is that he either isn’t playing his guitar, or his guitar is so low in the mix that no-one can hear it.

Add to this his refusal to take any risks and deviate from a formulated set list, and one finds a performer and a band that gets too comfortable. One immediately thinks of what Dylan could have done to turn the format of the evening upside down and inject a sense of the unpredictable. He could have, for example, thrown in an interesting cover version or banished his band from the stage and performed a short set of songs, solo, without amplification, to this small, devoted and intimate audience. Dylan has no doubt learned how to craft a set of songs for an album but he has yet to find a way to perform his songs in a way that truly engages.

Originally published by State.ie

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Bright Eyes / Neva Dinova – One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels

It’s unusual for Conor Oberst to move backward. Over the past ten years, the Omaha, Nebraska native– once described by Rolling Stone as “Rock’s boy genius”– has, in total, released eleven records under various guises including Monsters of Folk and two albums with The Mystic Valley Band. His revisiting of 2004′s One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels – the first four tracks of which are exclusive to the 2010 reissue– is a welcome journey back home to Bright Eyes, his original and best know moniker.

As the title suggests, the sessions began when Oberst and Neva Dinova frontman Jake Bellows brought out the guitars over, well, one jug of wine. The Dylan comparisons, which heightened after Bright Eyes’ magnum opus, the 2005 Iraq Invasion- influenced I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, are largely redundant here. Oberst deconstructs folk songs using the DIY sonic textures that so defined Lifted and Letting Off The Happiness; eighties pop is favored instead of sixties folk, chiefly that of The Cure; whether it’s the guitars on ‘Rollerskating’, which echo ‘In Between Days’, or Oberst’s Robert Smith-style wailing throughout. The contrast between Oberst’s fraught voice works starkly against the smooth, laid back vocal of Bellows, whose earthy tones are reminiscent of My Morning Jacket’s Jim James.

Of the four new songs that grace this reissue, ‘I Know You’ is the most memorable. Oberst’s urgent, weighty inflections recall Leonard Cohen and the overall production of the song- right from his guitar playing to the reverb-heavy snare drum that haunts throughout- has the feel of a long-lost folk album. The abstractions in the lyrics make leaps and gaps that close tighter with each subsequent hearing.

As the record progresses, the mood and feel of the songs prove too sedate, too predictable and what follows isn’t as engaging as the opening four tracks. The novelty of the stylistic comparisons between Bright Eyes and Neva Dinova eventually wears off and the record never fully takes you to unexpected places. What is most visible; however, is Oberst’s growth from a crumbling 20- something-year-old alternative folk singer– songwriter, screaming into a four- track in the bedroom of his parent’s home to a mature, well– paced and fully formed songwriter; undoubtedly the most skilled of his generation.

A record purely for Bright Eyes completists, the uninitiated should first venture to Fevers and Mirrors, and I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning to gauge the development of this truly outstanding talent.

Originally published by State.ie