Dylan 2, Phil 0 (An Interlude)

Fairfield Inn
Noblesville, Indiana

Bumbling through backroads... raw value and lump sums... mass music... Bob Dylan as the single most bad-ass man in rock and roll... Phil Lesh as a misguided one... the boys in Little Feat in need of a stomping... broken promises and what have you...

Taking off from western Illinois we took a backroads tour through Indiana, following a gracefully twisting road through cornfields -- a solid, unbroken image of green and yellow. It probably wasn't the most efficient route to Deer Creek, but it didn't quite matter. We went through small towns, stopping at gas stations, antique stores, and police stations to make sure we were going the right way. In each place, we were routed in some different way to the Deer Creek Amphitheater in Noblesville. I'm sure each one of them made it there somehow. We got there on time for the show, but had to meet our friend Ira, who had our tickets -- though he had to pick them up at Will Call.

The scene at the show wasn't notably different from that at a Phish show, though there seemed to be a more relaxed attitude. As we turned the corner onto the main Shakedown, just outside the venue, we heard a crowd come up from inside the show. Soon, faint sounds of music came trickling out. Dylan was on. Not many people outside notice. I didn't stick around long enough to figure out if these people were just outside of the show for the hell of it, or they just weren't interested in catching Dylan's set.

Being on Phish tour has done strange things to the way I perceive music. For one, the volume of new music has been so great that much of it has expanded past the point of "good" or "bad". Most of it exists in a valueless state, as a kind of raw material, with only the night's mood to dictate the emotional bent of the content. The differences from show to show are vast, but after a while - through repetition - pieces of music begin to get superimposed. When that happens, pivot points in the music appear -- the moments in the songs where things peer out infinitely, either emotionally or musically.

Absorbing so much music created by a single artist in such a short amount of time has highlighted these points, as well as showing clues as to how to find them in the future. The methods are still highly instinctual and I'm sure these pivot points vary greatly from person to person (and I'm sure this sounds like a bunch of New Age hooey). An example of one of these points would be the point of no return in Stash -- the precise moment where the band either has to give up the changes of the song or go sailing off into the ether. Listening to music besides Phish on the tour has been educational by contrast, pivot points becoming obvious in that.

It's a shame so many people skipped out on Dylan's set. The music was both pretty rockin' and extremely subtle. Dylan's music contains a lot of improvisation, though the improvisation is pretty much limited to subtle pivot points. Dylan's band was a swingin' country outfit at heart, though were obviously way adept at reacting to their bandleader's sudden shifts in melody and rhythm. Dylan himself was way more animated this evening than I've ever seen him before, strutting around the stage like a rockabilly star or a preacher fresh from revelation, twisting and thrusting, falling down on one knee to deliver a harmonica solo in Drifter's Escape.

And if all that sounds cliché, it wasn't. It's my contention that Bob Dylan is the single most bad-ass man in rock and roll. His actions somehow rise above convention and enter into a timeless void that calls back to singin' preachers and confidence men of the 1920s and '30s. What he does, on every level, is not to simply ignore what is (and comment consciously on it), but refuse to even acknowledge of its existence and, thus, create music that exists in some parallel form. Either way, the half-set I caught tonight kicked ass.

Dylan took a guitar solo in nearly every song, more than any other show I've seen by him. He's an extremely odd guitar player. Dylan is a great guitar player in the same way that he is a great singer. His style is not fluid, but similar to his voice in its sheer bravado. This sort of ties back to the bad-ass issue, but also leads into other things. People generally either seem to love or hate Dylan's sets these days. Those that love them, myself counted among them, receive them almost as word from on high. Those that loathe them generally have one of two complaints. Many hate his voice outright. Not much can be done for these folks. Others, though, are fans of Dylan's work, but are angered at his constant vocal rearrangements of his classic tunes.

It says a fair amount that nearly every song in Dylan's set - with the exception of Tangled Up In Blue and 1999's Things Have Changed - were written in the 1960s. There's definitely not an emphasis on his recent work. Dylan's task seems to be something different than what it once was. His music was profoundly relevant when it was first written. But it also needs to be updated, in a way, to remain fresh. It needs to be constantly reexamined -- and the best person for the task is Dylan himself. Many people's standard response to Dylan is "I love his songs, but I can't stand them when he sings them". Honestly, with the exception of (possibly) Garcia, I can't think of a single vocalist who has ever really successfully grappled with his post-protest material.

Likewise, Phil Lesh and Friends' set focused primarily on older material, to much less success. In short, Paul Barrare and Billy Payne from Little Feat both need a good stomping. I thought that after the Halloween gig and should've acted upon it in some manner. Unfortunately, I didn't, and now they're playing with Phil again. Somehow, despite the strong leanings of Phil, drummer John Molo, and (to a slightly lesser extent) guitarist Robben Ford, the boys from Little Feat managed to push each song into blues-rock tripe, packing each tune to the brim with cliché-ridden solo after cliché-ridden solo. It's safe to say that I probably won't venture near a Phil gig again unless a.) he's playing with Dylan b.) the dudes from Little Feat are gone or c.) Steve Kimock returns -- or, preferably all three.

The problem with Phil Lesh and Friends is that it isn't really a band. The only core members are Lesh and Molo -- whose dynamic is undeniable. For a while, Kimock made up the other leg of the great triangle. The three could've (and should've) toured as a trio, Mickey and the Hartbeats style. Each is such a unique player who can carry his weight in a jam. Phil Lesh and Friends, in just about every lineup save for the April 1999 incarnation, has been extremely musically immature, though quite experimental. Tonight, for example, almost every single jam built to something and then collapsed to nothing.

There were almost no real segues. Everything happened in stops and starts. Occasionally, things entered into interesting spaces -- the jam after the first verse of Viola Lee Blues, for example, or the jam back into the second verse of Friend Of The Devil, but these were isolated incidents. With the exception of the Help On The Way > Slipknot!, the band didn't play anything with much impact.

The Grateful Dead played their last show five years ago on this very evening. In the intervening years, their legacy has been constantly called into question on every level, how the music they produced can be best preserved and kept vital. At first, Phil Lesh seemed to be the great hope. He settled back and chilled for three years, before gradually returning to the stage over the course of late 1997 and 1998. For a while, it seemed like he was going to be it. Like Dylan, it's obvious that Phil still has a lot to say, musically, within the context of life's work (and play).

For a while, in the forms of John Molo and Steve Kimock, he seemed to have found his new partners. With Kimock's departure, Phil's status as the top-notch interpreter of the Grateful Dead's music is again up in the air. The Mickey Hart Band is still a dark horse, while many continue to write off Ratdog as a nostalgia trip. There has been something of a factionalization in the Dead world. It'll be interesting to see what this summer's incarnation of the Other Ones brings to the Grateful Dead's music.

Jesse Jarnow can be reached at jesse.jarnow@oberlin.edu or by his homepage. Previous tour journals are located here.