Bob Dylan
First came the cascade of glowing press, including a Newsweek cover story, for Time Out of Mind (Columbia), his first record of new original songs in seven years. Two weeks after the record’s September 30 release, Dylan accepted the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for achievement in the arts. Early this month, he was one of five recipients of the 1997 Kennedy Center Honors, awards conveyed by the D.C. center’s power-broker trustees for lifetime achievement in the arts. He was even nominated for this year’s Nobel Prize for literature; given his current state of grace no one would’ve blinked if he’d won. Having suddenly discovered that Dylan’s perishable, the nation’s cultural arbiters are working harder than ever to enshrine him for posterity.
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But though he pocketed the Gish Trust’s $200,000, shook Colin Powell’s hand, and by at least one press account didn’t mind getting smooched by fellow Kennedy Center honoree Lauren Bacall, the last thing Dylan has ever wanted is to be preserved in amber. As folk savior and then folk destroyer, political protester and romantic balladeer, born-again Christian and Traveling Wilbury, he’s consistently refused to accommodate the expectations of others. “I try my best to be just like I am,” he brayed on “Maggie’s Farm,” the opening salvo of both of his performances at Metro this past weekend, “but everybody wants me to be just like them.”
The four songs Dylan performed from the new album stood out as radically different from the rest of the material. Dylan sounded like Lear battling the elements on “Cold Irons Bound,” his tattered rag of a voice pleading amid his and Larry Campbell’s snarling guitars and drummer Dave Kemper’s rolling thunder. While a near reggae groove and Bucky Baxter’s lilting pedal-steel riff tried to buoy “Can’t Wait,” Dylan’s against-the-beat vocals maintained an unresolvable tension. The playful blues shuffle of “‘Til I Fell in Love With You” was caught in a cross fire of ricocheting guitar riffs, and “Love Sick,” with a midnight-monster-movie lurch and ominous power chords, made for a supremely dour encore on Saturday.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Bob Dylan photo by Mark Seliger.
