Filed under: Music
I’ve never been the biggest Dylan fan, but when Shelly won a pair of tickets of the radio I figured, “why not?” It’s Bob Dylan! When I later saw that a personal favorite of mine, Junior Brown, was among the openers I was stoked to go. The concert was held at the Lexington Legends ballpark, with the stage set up around 2nd base, facing home plate. There was an open area that basically comprised the infield, or you could sit anywhere you liked in the ballpark. We chose to stand up close to the stage.
Elana James and the Continental Two started off the show. The Continental two turned out to be more like the Continental Three as the band consisted of a stand-up bass and two guitars, with Elana on fiddle. They played an infectious blend of hot jazz and western swing with a little bluegrass thrown in for kicks. Think Squirrel Nut Zippers meets Bob Wills. The band really appeared to be having fun onstage, ripping off one hot number after another, a highlight being their cover of “Nagasaki” (Where the women wicky wacky woo.) The enthusiasm of the performers definitely rubbed on the crowd who were completely won over by a band I’m sure most had never heard of.
Elana James was followed by the inimitable Junior Brown. Junior started off with a cut from his first record, “Broke Down South of Dallas” and followed it up with his DUI anthem, “Party Lights.” He got off to a slightly rough start. He was missing some notes on his “guit-steel,” a contraption of his own devise that features a guitar and a lap steel fused together with two fretboards that he sets on what appears to be a small music stand in front of him. Early in the set he appeared to be having difficulty keeping his mouth in front of the mic, which led to some sound issue on vocals. But, after accidentally unplugging his guit-steel in the middle of a song, he came around and brought the house down during the second half of the show. The crowd was particularly receptive to his hits, “My Wife Thinks You’re Dead” and his fabulous cover of Red Simpson’s “Highway Patrol.” He finished off the set with a blistering rendition of the instrumental pick-fest of “Sugarfoot Rag.”
After the smoke from Junior’s guitar picking cleared, Jimmy Vaughan, brother to Stevie Ray and founder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, took the stage to cool things off a bit with some blues. After two quick songs with his band, he called out “Austin’s Queen of The Blues” Lee Ann Barton to do a few numbers, which included his hit “Boom-Bapa-Boom” which got the crowd rocking almost as much as his cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Texas Flood.”
Bob Dylan took the stage at around 9:00 to massive applause and what appeared to be one giant toke from the mostly well-medicated crowd. He started of his set with a nice version of “Maggie’s Farm.” It’s impossible to discuss his show without bringing up his voice. Let’s face it, Dylan was never much of a singer, but now his voice is truly shot. He seems to have a range of about three notes and grunts out his lyrics in odd staccato rhythms. If it weren’t for his superb band which cranked out nice bluesy arrangements of his songs it would have been difficult to identify what song he was singing. A gruff version of “Times They Are A-Changing” was a crowd favorite. Dylan himself seemed an odd bird onstage. He stood the entire concert at his keyboard about halfway back on the stage and just to the right of center, rarely glancing at the audience, much less acknowledging their existence. Overall the performance felt forced — as if Dylan were just cashing a paycheck. It wasn’t until after the encore of “All Along the Watchtower” and “Like A Rolling Stone” that Dylan finally spoke to the audience to introduce his band and say goodnight. Dylan left the stage at about ten till eleven, leaving me to suspect perhaps a second encore, but none was forthcoming.
For any UK alums, we stopped at Tolly-Ho for a quick snack before heading back north. I had a Tolly-Ho with cheese fries and Shelly had two eggs scrambled with a fried ho. The perfect way to wash down a concert if you ask me.
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