"There's still so much to be done," Bob Dylan must have thought to himself backstage while paging through his mind before going on stage at Hill Auditorium last Thursday night.
On stage, a 19-year-old named Kenny Wayne Shepherd was shredding his guitar in the spotlight, furiously ripping notes as if Stevie Ray Vaughn were suddenly reincarnated and waiting inside his body to be freed. But not to be overshadowed, Jimi Hendrix must have outwrestled Vaughn for control of the young blues guitarist's final song. For when the finishing strains of "Voodoo Child" screamed over the crowd, the air was ablaze with a similar buzz: "Who are we watching? Isn't that Jimi?" And as Shepherd slowly turned from the stage, Dylan must have smiled.
But there was work to be done, and it was time to go.
Looking more like Hank Williams or Woody Guthrie in his straw hat, country black jacket and gray leather pants than the "Blood on the Tracks" rocker of the recent past, Dylan slipped onstage to thunderous applause. Backed by his band consisting of John Jackson (guitar), Tony Garnier (bass), Bucky Baxter (pedal steel, lap steel, dobro, electric mandolin and guitar) and David Kemper (drums), Dylan appeared slightly displaced within the country music atmosphere. And there wasn't a trace of his signature harmonica.
But once he stepped up to the microphone with his eyes practically in his pockets, there was no mistaking that this was Bob Dylan: His two opening songs came complete with raspy vocals and nearly unintelligible lyrics running circles around all who fought to listen.
Dylan must have sensed the crowd's frustration and, not wanting to have any causalities of music, drove into a version of "All Along the Watchtower" that came with a painfully constructed jam session that featured Dylan playing lead guitar. Each of his movements were intentionally slow: Each lift of his leg or bend of his back was a path to his soul, trying to spill all that it could.
Then there came "Silvio," which enlivened the crowd and called a girl from the front row to incense the singer. She climbed onstage and pinwheeled around Dylan, who probably figured she wouldn't be the last. So he backed away from the microphone and allowed her to dance.
After her show, Dylan donned his acoustic and reached deep into the past to strum 1964's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" as pictures of Carroll flickered behind on the wall of the stage. But he'd only begun. Dylan paid tribute to the Grateful Dead and honored Jerry Garcia by playing a flawless version of "Friend of the Devil," which gave some dancers a reason to climb to the stage and shimmy at will. The crowd caught the spirit and Dylan responded with a bluesy dose of his "Tangled Up in Blue." Sprawling with energy, the center aisles nearest to the stage began to flood with teenagers, each wanting a chance to touch or to kiss Dylan, a nominee for the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature.
But what was he doing? Dylan recalled his electric guitar and sang about it in "When I Paint My Masterpiece," sliding into "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" that featured all of one verse and an extended improv section full of girls rushing the stage and locking the singer into kisses from all directions. Dylan neither smiled nor winced and continued into "Highway 61 Revisited." It was maimed into a verse as the Grateful Dead dancers returned, fluttering about until Dylan had to seek refuge and ended the jam.
When he came back he struck up just a verse of "Like a Rolling Stone," sang it to the first girl that conquered security, then let all the stage rushers have their way with the lyrics: "How does it feel to be on your own / Like a complete unknown?" Dodging the chaos, Dylan left and returned to lightly chastise the crowd with an acoustic lash of "It Ain't Me, Babe," but it didn't work for long.
Retaking the stage after yet another departure, Dylan launched into his encore, "Rainy Day Women," without a destination. He played without words. He played with conviction. He played until we all got too tired to dance. He handed his guitar pick to the nearest fan and then vanished with the night.