A number of Duluthians were among the some 17,000 souls who made it to the Bob Dylan concert at Mystic Lake Amphitheater in Shakopee on Monday, July 6.

The Curmudgeon and I were among the reverent fans attending this concert, drawn by the fact that Dylan turned 85 on May 24 this year and understanding it could be the last chance to see him perform.

On a less morbid note, it was a celebratory follow up to our own Duluth Dylan Fest/birthday party.

In any case, there couldn’t have been a more positive or effusive reaction to this Minnesota Dylan concert, based on the comments of attendees and the several reviews I’ve read (DNT, Minnesota Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press and Paul Metsa, et al on the website boblinks.com).

This, even though Dylan didn’t speak at any point during the concert and no closeups of him or his backup band were shown on the jumbotron screens — just the dramatic stage set with Bob on keys at center, guitarists on either side, drummer at the rear. Although the lack of visuals wasn’t emphasized in most of what I read, there were certainly folks in the crowd who complained about that, including the contingent of loud young women sitting behind us.

Nor did many reviews even mention the opening acts.

As someone who came late to a full appreciation of Bob, my reaction to this concert was somewhat less adulatory. While I am of the generation that was exposed to Dylan’s output during the impressionable early teenage years, my first real awareness of his music came with Nashville Skyline, released in 1969, my senior year in high school. My older brother had been playing Dylan’s 1966 album Blonde on Blonde but I was evidently oblivious, being more tuned into the Monkees, I guess!

Actually it was Joan Baez’s 1968 album, Any Day Now, (purchased in the 70s) that covered 16 of his compositions which fostered my awareness and appreciation of Dylan’s songwriting talent.

Years later, during the late 1990s, when I was a member of de Elliot Bros. jug band, we performed mostly his early work — ”Maggie’s Farm,” “Peggy Day,” “One More Night” and the like. This was also the period in which I was exposed to Bob’s later albums.

The first Dylan concert I attended was here in Duluth at the DECC in 1998; the second was the following summer at Bayfront when he shared the gig with Paul Simon. Since then I’ve seen only four Dylan concerts, including this one on July 6.

With regard to Dylan’s recent concert at Mystic Lake Amphitheater, I took a more listening and learning approach, fostered by a book I am halfway through reading: After The Flood — Inside Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace by Robert Polito. The book’s treatise is that Dylan’s songwriting of the past 30-or-so years demonstrates a resurrection of his creative output while it parses the literary (including biblical) references embedded in the compositions, especially those in Love and Theft, Modern Times, Tempest, and Rough and Rowdy Ways (based on how far I’ve gotten through the book).

With this in mind, here is my take on his performance:

The stage set was simple, dramatic and static. The orange-red curtained back wall was uplit, creating hellish flame-like patterns that contrasted with Dylan’s white keyboard (piano?) with “headlights” (as the Curmudgeon termed it) and outfit.

Dylan wore a white oversized tailored jacket with hood (not a casual hoodie) over black tee-shirt and pants. The effect was almost angelic as the prominent white outfit visually floated forward of his surroundings.

Members of the backup band were basically black shadows with the backlighting. At one point the silhouetted images included one of a tilted cross created by the neck of the standup bass and a guitar neck intersecting it at right angles; the downward arm pointing directly at the man.

Bob’s hour-and-a-half set had a mix of his earliest tunes and much more recent ones with a few covers.

The first number, “To Be Alone With You,” from Nashville Skyline, was simultaneously pleasantly recognizable while given a jazzy treatment. Presumably this was due to the recent addition of Julian Lage, a jazz phenomenon from the Bay Area in Calif., now living in New York City. Lage replaced Doug Lancio, who left Bob’s backup band in June.

Another change in band personnel on this tour was the replacement of guitarist Bob Britt with Joel Paterson, a blues/jazz guitarist based in Chicago. A mainstay was Tony Garnier, who has played with Dylan since 1989. They sounded great from the get-go.

The second number was the dark and mysterious “Man in the Long Black Coat” from Bob’s 26th album, Oh Mercy, released in 1989. Bob’s diction was clear so we understood the ominous tale of a woman going away with a shadowy figure, and the music reinforced the menacing nature of this song.

Third up was “It Ain’t Me Babe” from Dylan’s 1964 Another Side of Bob Dylan. The instrumental lead-in sounded, to the C and me, like “Tight Connection To My Heart,” as if tricking those of us thinking we knew the song’s title. But it segued into the well-known tune with a downer message. His rendition on this evening had a different arrangement with a talkin’ blues vibe and an interesting drawl on the chorus of “It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.”

“Tryin’ To Get To Heaven” from Time Out of Mind (1997) was fourth on the setlist. I thought the song suited the evolving theme of this concert perfectly. Dylan’s enunciation of these lyrics was clear, though the arrangement differed noticeably from the recorded version.

According to author Polito, Dylan didn’t care for Daniel Lanois’s production of the album and so, when performing songs from it, “…Dylan live would endeavor to reclaim [them]…through a fierce multiyear dismantling and reassembling…”

The fifth number, “False Prophet,” initiated the five songs from Dylan’s 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways on the evening’s setlist. It served to continue the light versus dark theme I was perceiving, with the line “The City of God is there on the hill” changed to “City of darkness built on a hill.” “Black Rider,” the words of which illuminate a devil’s bargain, came two songs later. The C observed that Bob was having fun with his voice on this one.

“Crossing the Rubicon” (i.e. passing the point of no return) was the 11th number in his set and continued the dark messages that permeated much of the concert.

The 14th and 15th tunes, also from Rough and Rowdy Ways, were “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself Up to You” and “Goodbye Jimmy Reed,” respectively. The first seemed, musically, to be a romantic love song, but one line in the lyrics “Take me out traveling, you’re a traveling man” suggests it is instead about a commitment to Jesus. This is the Dylan song that united both the dark and the light subjects underlying the tone of this concert.

By contrast, “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” was totally rockin’ and upbeat, making it hard to stay in my seat! Yet, while the raucous rendition seemed secular, the lyrics revealed a religious subject.

The one song from the 2012 album Tempest was “Soon After Midnight,” played toward the end of the concert, had something of a Buddy Holly lilt to it and the lyrics were more prosaic as well. It was followed by “Under the Red Sky” the title track of Bob’s 1990 album. This simple, child-like song, also has a subtle pessimistic message with the line “One day the little boy and the little girl were both baked in a pie.”

Bob played his harmonica on this one, drawing cheers from the crowd. I thought this was the one song that sounded closest to its recorded version.

Midway through Bob’s set came “When I Paint My Masterpiece” with a fun and funky rhumba rhythm that made this song fresh. It was on the album Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II, released in 1971.

Interspersed amongst all the Dylan tunes were three covers. One was “I Can Tell” by Samuel Smith (about the end of a romantic love). Another, “Share Your Love With Me” written by Alfred Braggs and Deadric Malone, released in 1964 and recorded by Aretha Franklin, among others, is a poignant tune essentially about unrequited love (another downer!). The cover of Charlie Rich’s “I’ll Make It All Up To You” speaks of redemption after all the misery experienced in a relationship.

The final song of the concert was “I Shall Be Released” from Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II. In speaking with Paul Metsa about the concert, he said that song was like sending us all off with a prayer. Yes, after all deep dark messages contained in this concert, the title alone may provide us some hope.

My assessment of Bob’s performance is that I found it quite satisfying and enlightening, if not thrilling. Am I glad the C and I went? Sure, I could appreciate it and it increased my understanding of his need for rearranging and revitalizing selections from his body of work.

However, I also feel that, for the money spent, I could have heard far more live music, with the concomitant thrills of being up close to the other fine musicians that we have in our area, let alone in more distant locales.

What made this concert particularly worthwhile for me was seeing the opening acts — The John Doe Folk Trio from Austin, Texas, (heretofore unknown to me, though not to the C) and Lucinda Williams.

John Doe (John Nommensen Duchac) sang some pointedly political tunes, bookcasing them with even more absolute liberal opinions. His fellow trio members on this evening were David Sutton (standup bass) and Conrad Choucroun (drums).

He was a sharp looker in his Aquarian-blue suit and clearly a seasoned performer. His 40-minute set included his original compositions “”Never Coming Back,” “Burning House of Love” and “Get On Board,” among others. Then there were covers: Dave Alvin’s “Fourth of July,” John Lennon’s “Revolution” and somewhat weirdly, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” He ended  his set with the admonition to “get out and vote!”

As for Lucinda Williams, who was the second opener, she was hot!

I had never seen her in concert before and indeed was not an instantaneous fan from hearing her on the radio. However, she’s grown on me and, I guess, may be an acquired taste for some folks. Yeah her voice was a bit wobbly at first and a little off-key at times, but who cares?

Williams was passionate and gutsy, with a punky appearance (spikey hair and black leather jacket) that reflected her voice. The close up visuals of her on the jumbotrons very much added to the quality of her set. She had a great backup band too: Marc Ford (guitar), Doug Pettibone (guitar), Dave Sutton (standup bass) and Brad Pemberton (drums).

Her set included recent hits and wonderfully political songs, including: “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” “Fruits of My Labor,” “The World’s Gone Wrong,” “Joy” and her very recent “How Much Did You Get For Your Soul?”

She prefaced a cover of Memphis Minnie’s “You Can’t Rule Me” by sending “this one out to the President of the United States.”

I especially liked “Low Life” with its line “I guess this is the low life but I guess it’s where I want to be.” She ended her set with Neil Young’s “Keep On Rockin’ In the Free World” and left the stage flashing a peace sign.

One last note: as in the other Dylan concerts I’ve attended, it was gratifying to see people of all ages. And this time it was particularly good to see a sizable contingent of Gen-Zers. All hail, Bob!