Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson at Summerfest
The music legends are a study in contrasts
Pairing Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson for a tour seems completely natural—this is the second time in five years these two towering American music icons have shared a stage—and yet Wednesday’s Summerfest concert at Marcus Amphitheater showed how totally different they are as performers. Nelson's known for ambling onstage and embracing his audience’s love with open arms and a mile-wide grin. Dylan sneaks in and stares into the masses like it's a plain white wall. Nelson plays virtually the same songs every night. Dylan changes his playlist every night and never plays the songs the same way. Nelson radiates warmth and ease, Dylan chilliness and vague discomfort.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that last night’s concert was pretty much par for the course for these soulfully craggy, endlessly eccentric singer-songwriters. Nelson was an easygoing crowd-pleaser who never really pushed himself, and Dylan offered flashes of greatness amid a flood of frustrating inscrutability. Oh, and a lot of people in the crowd smoked a ton of skunky-ass weed. (If you drive over Marcus Amphitheater on I-794 today, you could probably still get a contact high.)
There was one pleasant surprise (for hardcore fans at least) about Dylan’s set: Rather than plunk on an organ like he has for the past several years, he came out and played guitar on the first three songs: “Cat’s In The Well," a pleasingly melodic “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” and "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight." He even played a nice, understated solo on "It Ain't Me, Babe," which was one of the highlights of the night. Dylan was in better command of his excellent backing band when he was playing guitar, which forces him to be front and center rather than just fading into the background, but the initial focus and power of his performance proved to be short-lived.
Dylan soon was back behind the organ, where he meandered on his own peculiar musical path, forcing his band to find its own footing with mixed results. Trickier songs like “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again” and “Desolation Row” (which was marred by a truly awful harmonica solo by Dylan) didn’t come off terribly well, but a stunning take on the brilliant ’80s-era outtake “Blind Willie McTell” was all creeping menace wrapped up in an unshakeable, bluesy dread.
Just in case his grumbly, indecipherable delivery didn’t irritate the crowd, which thinned considerably as the night went on, Dylan also asked that the video screens be turned off, which left the people sitting in the free lawn seats to struggle with a lousy mix and a poor view of the performers. (Guess you get what you pay for.) Still, it’s likely Nelson’s megawatt likeability carried well past the shores of Lake Michigan. While he stuck mainly with hits like “On The Road Again” and “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain,” Nelson did find room for improvisation, twisting his lyrics and guitar solos like a jazz trumpeter. But for the most part Nelson’s set was about delivering familiar pleasures—like hearing “Whiskey River” while sucking down cheap domestic beer on an overcast but still pleasant summer night—and while it was a touch overly familiar, it was still incredibly pleasurable.
