This Week In Advancement: Bob Dylan

This week Jason Hartley takes on one of the Grand Poobahs of Advancement: Bob Dylan.

This past Sunday, I went to see Bob Dylan live for the first time, which may be surprising given that he is one of the two most Advanced musicians of all time (Lou Reed, who I’ve seen three times, is the other).

Britt Bergman, the co-creator of the Advanced Genius Theory, came with me to the show, which was in Clemson, South Carolina. It’s a two-hour drive, which gave us ample opportunity to listen to Dylan (Overt and Advanced era) and talk generally about our expectations for the show. We were particularly excited about a recent development for Dylan: he is playing guitar again. For a while he was playing only keyboards, which I had praised as an extremely Advanced move for a man famous for playing acoustic guitar and harmonica. Now, not only was he playing guitar (electric), he was supposedly playing solos.

When Britt was 12, his dad took him to see Dylan during the G.E. Smith era. He told me that he was disappointed in the show because instead of hearing the Dylan he knew from listening with his father, he got the guy from Hall and Oates playing nine-minute guitar solos. Obviously this was pre-Advancement. We both agreed on Sunday that if we were to see that same concert today, it would be immensely enjoyable. In fact, once you have embraced Advancement, it is literally impossible not to enjoy a Bob Dylan concert. If he plays all the songs you want to hear and they sound exactly like the records, then that is fantastic. If, instead, he plays nothing but reggae versions of his least-known works from the early 1980s, then that would be awesome, too. He could play nothing but Bangles covers, and it would be one of the most moving concert experiences of my life. There aren’t many sure things in life, but an adherent of Advancement enjoying a Bob Dylan concert is surely one of them.

We entered the arena full of confidence (and salad), and walked down to our floor-level seats, about 50 feet from the stage. There was no opening act, which was perfectly fine with me. At this stage of my life, anything more than an hour and a half of rock is beyond my capability. The crowd around us was a mix of middle-aged artistes, old hippies, country-biker weirdos, college students, and a family of four wearing matching handmade Dylan shirts. I worried at first that attendance was going to be not so great, but by the time the lights went down the arena was basically full.

Before the band appeared, an announcer from offstage read a recap of Dylan’s career—voice of a generation in the 1960s, drug haze in the 1970s, born-again Christian, washed-up, resurgence, Grammy awards. Britt and I both laughed about this because it is such a simplistic description of Dylan, one that you would expect him to reject. But he knows that people are going to believe what they’re going to believe, so there’s no point fighting it.

The band took the stage in light-gray (I think) suits, while Dylan wore a black version of the same suit, though he added a matching hat. I knew beforehand that Dylan is not the kind of performer to talk a lot between songs, and he certainly didn’t disappoint on this night. He launched directly into “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat,” without even a look into the audience. Some find this off-putting, but between talking too much on stage and not talking enough, the former is by far the greater crime. And besides, this was a rock concert, not a meeting of Toast Masters. He didn’t owe us a speech or even a thank you, as long as he was prepared to put on a great show. In this, too, he didn’t disappoint.

I got the sense that the band, featuring Charlie Sexton, Stu Kimball, Donnie Herron, Tony Garnier, and George Receli, were sort of feeling out the room during “Leopard Skin.” There was plenty of energy, but there was a palpable “we’re just getting started” vibe, though Sexton was on fire (and man-crushingly cool looking) pretty much the entire night. The exception to this was when forced to do dueling leads with Dylan, who went back and forth from keyboards and guitar. Dylan is far from an accomplished soloist—this is not necessarily a bad thing—but he seems committed to adding this trick to his repertoire.

Britt’s theory is that Dylan just decided that he was going to learn how to do it, and since he’s on a nonstop tour, we get to pay to watch him practice. Of course, we are completely fine with that because it’s far more interesting seeing Dylan try to find new ways to express himself, even within songs that he has played for more than forty years, than a note-for-note performance of tunes we’ve heard hundreds of times.

My theory about his soloing was that he has lost expressiveness in his voice, so he is looking for ways to compensate for that loss. But I realized after a few songs that I was completely wrong. Dylan still uses his voice in fascinating and surprising ways. Fascinating because at times it sounds like he can barely talk, and surprising because at times he sounds like Dylan from the 1960s—sometimes in the same song. For instance, he closed with “Like a Rolling Stone,” during which he went from sounding like Tom Waits with laryngitis to hitting the notes just right (or, at least, just like the record).

In retrospect, I realize that he used his most extreme voice for the older songs, while bringing something a bit more melodic to his newer tunes. In other words, I believe that the voice he uses now is more of a choice than most of us realize. I’m not saying he can sing like Christina Aguilera if he wants to, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he could sing like, say, Amy Winehouse.

The most amazing aspect of a Bob Dylan concert these days is that he can play a song that you know but you can’t indentify it until midway through the song. It took me a few verses to realize he was playing “Simple Twist of Fate.” Britt and I wouldn’t have known he was playing “Visions of Johanna” unless the guy next to us hadn’t loudly told his wife. How he knew I couldn’t say, because not only could I not recognize the tune, but Dylan also sang in an exaggerated staccato style that I can’t say I’ve ever heard anyone use before. It is certainly not in the original of “Visions of Johanna.” It’s as if Dylan is looking to use up every ounce of potential energy available in his songs, and I’m happy to say that he hasn’t nearly exhausted it.

While I fully expected a satisfying show, I didn’t expect it to rock so hard. The group sounded like a world-class bar band on songs like “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” and “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again,” but they moved into spooky/powerful, Nick Cave territory with some of the newer material. The highlight for me, though, was a guitar-heavy version of “Ballad of a Thin Man” that managed to be faithful to the original while violently defiling it at the same time. I guess I like it rough.

You can’t trust this review, obviously, given what I’ve already told you about the impossibility of my not liking the show. But I highly recommend seeing Bob Dylan live if you have any interest and get the chance. You won’t see an oldies concert. You won’t see a washed-up legend who doesn’t know when to quit. Instead, you will see a truly original artist who continues to evolve in ways other musicians can’t even imagine.

See you next week.