Concert review: Musical maverick, revisited, in Bob Dylan return
Jon Bream
Star Tribune

Published Oct. 31, 2002 DYL31

On Tuesday night, Minnesotans celebrated the legacy of a maverick Minnesotan with a loud, emotional evening in a basketball arena in Minneapolis. On Wednesday night, a Minnesota maverick celebrated his legacy with a loud, passionate evening in a hockey arena in St. Paul.

Paul Wellstone and Bob Dylan -- two curly-haired guys who always marched to the beat of their own drums, steadfast in their styles and convictions, howling winds who became the consciences of our nation.

Like the various constituencies reacting to the memorial service-cum-rally for the late senator, the 9,137 people attending Dylan's homecoming concert at the Xcel Energy Center might have been divided in their assessments. He sparkled on covers of Neil Young's "Old Man," the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar," Don Henley's "End of the Innocence" and Warren Zevon's "Mutineer." But, as one baby boomer put it afterward: "I wish he covered his own stuff as well."

He was often casual on his tunes, not always finding a groove with his band. Still, there were vocal passion, guitar fireworks and positive vibes to make this a memorable evening.

Besides the covers of some unexpected songs, what set this two-hour concert apart from previous local Dylan gigs was that he didn't play the harmonica (his most crowd-pleasing instrument) and that he played electric piano extensively for the first time on the road. Not that anyone is going to confuse him with Bruce Hornsby. But Dylan has probably advanced a bit on the keyboard since 1959, when he was passing himself off as a pianist named Elston Gunn and he played two tentative shows backing Bobby Vee.

On Wednesday, Dylan stood there and vamped chords, never taking a piano solo. Nonetheless, this new wrinkle was as refreshing as his interpretations of other stars' songs. "Old Man" brought Dylan's most forceful singing, and the harmonies on the chorus were positively CSNY-like, though Dylan took the part of the gravelly voiced Stephen Stills and guitarist Charlie Sexton sang Young's high part. The lustful "Brown Sugar" invigorated the crowd, especially every time Dylan sang "feels so good," with "good" sounding sinister the first time, scrumptious the second time and, finally, sinfully delightful.

Of his own material, what sounded best were the songs from last year's "Love and Theft" CD, even though Dylan has a new drummer, George Receli, to whom he often had to give cues on Wednesday. "High Water" was an organic swamp blues, "Bye and Bye" was jaunty musically with an intense vocal, and the jump, jive and swing "Summer Days" was about as jazzy as Dylan ever gets.

He also played a few somewhat obscure oldies ("In the Summertime," "Love Minus Zero") and some strong staples -- an insistent, twangy "Watching the River Flow," a haunting for Halloween, John Lee Hooker-like treatment of "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Girl of the Only Bleeding)," the pretty "Girl of the North Country" (during which he got lost in his acoustic guitar playing) and the always electrifying "All Along the Watchtower."

The 61-year-old Duluth-born, Hibbing-bred troubadour offered a stirring version of "Forever Young," a tune that also was played at Wellstone's memorial service. Five songs after Dylan declared "The Times, They Are A-Changin'," with a quavering urgency, he mentioned that that song was "for my man, who reached the end of the road up there in Eveleth." Yep, Dylan knows something about being up in the North Country and about being a maverick Minnesotan.