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Last night, the Outlaw Tour hit New York City. Well, the Greater NYC Metropolitan Area anyway, for a show at Jones Beach out on Long Island. Music journalist Jesse Jarnow, our correspondent there last summer as well, reports in…
PS. I’ll be at tonight’s show in Saratoga Springs and tomorrow’s in Gilford so it’ll be a busy weekend of Outlaw dispatches here.
Bob Dylan opened his set at Jones Beach with “Gotta Serve Somebody,” take #773 (at least according to BobServe’s latest count and one’s definition of what constitutes a take), an almost mournful country-soul arrangement fresh for the latest leg of the Outlaw Music Festival, and maybe not too far from some of the early ‘00s versions of “Shelter From the Storm.” When the Bootleg Series eventually/hopefully reaches its Live 2025 compilation, #773 could be the keeper, the kind of performance that Dylan heads chase for its unusual newness, as if the song was always meant to sound like that (like late 2019 versions of “Not Dark Yet” or the Masked & Anonymous “Cold Irons Bound”).
An unexpectedly beautiful oceanside evening after a week of brutal heat and intense climate-changed storms, the Outlaw fest’s Long Island stopover carried a slightly different feel than last year’s local edition, with Wilco replacing Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at the top of undercard, and Wilco’s fans replacing those coming to see a former member of Led Zeppelin. The Chicago band’s set-closing call of the Grateful Dead’s “U.S. Blues” with Mickey Raphael on harmonica was a perfect offering in the heart of eastern Dead country on what would’ve been Jerry Garcia’s 83rd birthday. Even the usher in our section sang along.
Unless one counts Robert Hunter collaboration “Forgetful Heart” (probably not), Dylan’s set was void of Garcia nods, except in its mission to keep the music alive and always new. On my personal scorecard, Charlie Rich’s “I’ll Make It All Up To You” (take #21) and Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “Share Your Love With Me” (also take #21) are both contenders for Live 2025 too (I would wanna catch up on some other versions, though), as is “Blind Willie McTell” (take #247), another waltz feel, but with startling near-atonal piano breaks, a mystic mood gathering behind the venue over Zach’s Bay.
After returning at the previous tour stop after a 20-year absence, “Searching For A Soldier’s Grave” (take #113), opened the door, too (if indeed there ever was a door), the absent tough guy angel vocals of Larry Campbell and Charlie Sexton hovering like silent ghosts. (Sometimes it’s the harmony parts you don’t hear.) Several performances seemed on their way towards keepers (the unsettled out-of-time “’Til I Fell In Love With You,” take #213) or a few versions past (the major/minor “All Along the Watchtower,” take #2,335, which almost certainly found its forever versions with the Billy Strings sit-ins earlier this summer, takes #2,320 and #2,321; also making an excellent case for why Dylan’s band could maybe benefit from a more assertive lead guitarist).
Not everything felt quite as for-keeps, nor did it need to be. The two “new” covers early in the set, Bo Diddley’s “I Can Tell” (take #10) and Willie Dixon’s “Axe and the Wind” (take #22), both boogied half-anonymously in the summer breeze, the latter with some delightfully noisy piano. On “Love Sick” (take #1,007) it was a pleasure just to hear guitarists Doug Lancio and Bob Britt tossing the song’s main ornamenting figure around the stage. “To Ramona” (take #424), meanwhile, found a seemingly a new perspective when sung by its 84-year-old performer, as opposed to its 23-year-old writer. But despite the elegant waltz feel, it seemed to slip towards something like up-grumping, Dylan hammering the lyrics one after another.
While “Highway 61 Revisited” (take #2,075) and to some degree “Under the Red Sky” (take #196) carried themselves in the range of their studio selves, the night’s harmonica solos (“Forgetful Heart,” “To Ramona”) were once again the bits most recognizable as Bob Dylan, Nobel-winning songwriter and biopic subject. The solos earned the night’s biggest in-song cheers, a weird and sturdy rock next to the ever-flexible voice and changing song arrangements.
But there was also never any question about who anybody was watching. With the jumbotrons shut off, there was nothing but the actual real-life Bob Dylan himself to pay attention to onstage, no blown-up larger-than-Zod multicam LCD representations, like he’s just another streamable-on-demand star. Because he’s not. Obviously. Tonight, he was exclusively the figure in the distance, under a hat, between obstructions, and visible just over the rim of the piano. Did you see him, too? Bob Dylan, there he is. There he goes. There he was.
