INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Web exclusive: Bob Dylan at the Lawn

 

Bob Dylan
The Lawn at White River State Park
Sunday, July 15

The last time I saw Bob Dylan, playing to a Deer Creek full of hippies waiting for Phil Lesh, he displayed the worst tendencies of his recent past, never leaving the keyboard to pick up a guitar and doing a lackluster set list of songs that muddled into one another with no, um, direction home. This past Sunday, when Bob showed up in Indianapolis again at the Lawn at White River State Park, he was an entirely different animal.

He still carried a faceless, bland backing band that simply did what was required — no more, no less. Dylan still looked like an old Jew in a cowboy hat, but his performance was on fire, edgy and raw, with his rough vocal growl summoning up demons from 40 years of hard work. It wasn’t Dylan in his prime to be sure, but it was as good as we could ever possibly hope to get from Modern Times Zimmerman.

He pulled out only a smattering of recent tunes, including Modern Times’ “Thunder On The Mountain,” a joyful old-time rock and roll romp that kicked off the encore and a picture-perfect version of “Summer Days” from Love & Theft. The rest of the set, Bob and his band took us on a way-back trip, pulling out old standards and crowd favorites.

Dylan started the set off on electric guitar and plowed through a bluesy, rollicking “Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35” and went on to pull out nugget after nugget from his catalogue. “Lay Lady Lay” and “Tangled Up In Blue” were rarely played numbers that stuck pretty close to their original arrangements, while others like “It Ain’t Me Babe” and “I Shall Be Released” took a few measures for the crowd to understand what he was singing, but still managed to hold the passion and soul that made them so special in the first place.

All through the set Dylan’s voice was a train wreck of growls and grunts, kinda like Tom Waits with marbles in his mouth, and the band was nothing special, seemingly realizing what most of the songs were when the audience did. Yet, despite all of that, Dylan gave the diverse crowd of old and young hipsters one of the best and most vital shows he’s given anywhere in a long time.