{"id":47068,"date":"2016-06-18T16:50:59","date_gmt":"2016-06-18T13:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ngradio.gr\/en\/?p=47068"},"modified":"2016-06-18T16:50:59","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T13:50:59","slug":"the-complicated-crooner-5-thoughts-on-bob-dylans-show-at-the-shrine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ngradio.gr\/en\/news-el\/music-en\/the-complicated-crooner-5-thoughts-on-bob-dylans-show-at-the-shrine\/","title":{"rendered":"The complicated crooner: 5 thoughts on Bob Dylan’s show at the Shrine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tangled Up in Blue!\u201d<\/p>\n

That was one audience member\u2019s shouted request to Bob Dylan on Thursday night, made only minutes after the 75-year-old singer had performed that very tune.<\/p>\n

Given Dylan\u2019s tendency to dramatically remake his old material in concert, you might\u2019ve thought the fan was being serious: Maybe this guy really didn\u2019t realize he\u2019d just heard his favorite song.<\/p>\n

But \u201cTangled Up in Blue\u201d was actually one of the straighter numbers Dylan did at the Shrine Auditorium, the last of several stops in California on his summer tour with Mavis Staples.<\/p>\n

More likely, then, was that the dude was riffing on a recent Dylan episode that went viral. Confronted last week in Berkeley by the most boring dad joke of all time \u2014 yelling \u201cFree Bird!\u201d at a concert by any act other than Lynyrd Skynyrd \u2014 the singer had his band go ahead and play that Southern-rock classic, a perfect troll\u2019s response to a perfect dullard\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

Alas, Dylan didn\u2019t take the bait Thursday. But that didn\u2019t mean he\u2019d lost his taste for mischief. Here are five thoughts on the show.<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Anyone who\u2019s seen Dylan perform in the last few years is familiar with the wide-legged stance he\u2019s started taking behind the microphone. It\u2019s one thing, though, to affect that pose when he\u2019s cranking out crusty roadhouse blues (as he did in a thrilling 2009 show at the Palladium) and\u00a0another to do it when he\u2019s crooning suave traditional-pop standards like \u201cWhat I\u2019ll Do\u201d and \u201cAll or Nothing at All.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those are among the tunes associated with Frank Sinatra that Dylan sings on his two most recent albums: last year\u2019s \u201cShadows in the Night\u201d and May\u2019s \u201cFallen Angels.\u201d And when he did them at the Shrine, his stout tough-guy look made it clear that \u2014 unlike basically every other aging rocker paging through the Great American Songbook \u2014 Dylan wasn\u2019t trying to seduce us with his sensitivity. He put as much confrontation into a lilting \u201cAutumn Leaves\u201d as he did into a galloping \u201cThings Have Changed,\u201d practically daring us to see him as soft.<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong> That said, the Sinatra stuff was gorgeous, thanks in large part to Dylan\u2019s pedal-steel player, Donnie Herron, who gave \u201cMelancholy Mood\u201d and \u201cWhy Try to Change Me Now\u201d a light countrypolitan glaze. Matched with Dylan\u2019s ultra-raspy croak, Herron\u2019s dreamy sound made it hard (in a good way) to nail down the emotion of this familiar music.<\/p>\n