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Bob Dylan; Steven Wright; Peter Holsapple

 ((Pantages Theater; 2,700 seats; $ 33 top))

By TODD EVERETT

Promoted by Parc/Nederlander. Reviewed May 13, 1992.
 
Band: Dylan, John Jackson, lead guitar; Bucky Baxter, steel guitar, guitar and mandolin; Tony Garnier, bass; Charlie Quintana, Ian Wallace, drums. Show runs through May 21.
 

Just a week short of his 51st birthday, Bob Dylan may no longer be a spokesman for the young generation. But the singer-songwriter has adjusted more than gracefully: He and a crack band are currently playing some of the hardest rock 'n' roll to be heard anywhere. That the material is just about all Bob Dylan songs is a bonus.

Last year's NARAS Lifetime Achievement Award was way past due; his 1988 induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has never seemed more appropriate.

For the first of his seven performances at the Pantages, the audience was quite young--a median of 25 or so--and was having the time of their lives, awarding the graying troubadour standing ovations so numerous that Wayne Newton might be envious.

Dylan is constantly changing his set list and instrumental backing, if only to keep himself from being bored singing the same material night after night, year after year.

The set-opening version of "Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35" set the tone for the entire evening: a furious instrumental version pushed by two drummers, with Dylan playing a lot of guitar and coming in for a brief vocal only toward the end of the tune.

His voice was even more constricted and reedy than audiences have come to expect, and the lyrics seemed to be of only passing importance to him.

Sensitivity seemed to be at the end of his list of priorities this time around, though a few songs, like "Just Like a Woman," were certainly majestic.

On other songs from his 30-year Columbia Records catalog, Dylan would rework the melody to near-unrecognizability, and he nearly always sped tempos from what might be expected. A few times, it should be mentioned, he made relatively sure that the lyrics were heard and understood.

Material ranged from the familiar (though often barely so, in context) to more recent/obscure tunes including "Union Sundown" and "Cat's in the Well," with a slashing version of "Tangled Up in Blue" particularly notable.

Dylan appropriated Jimi Hendrix's arrangement of "All Along the Watchtower" not long after Hendrix had recorded the song; this time around, he's also using Rick Nelson's soft country-rock instrumental arrangement of "She Belongs to Me," with good effect.

By the pre-encore set-closer "Highway 61 Revisited," the entire audience--previously polite but enthusiastic--was standing, with hundreds of otherwise-mature adults rushing the stage like their children.

Forty-minute opening segment included brief sets by singer-songwriter Peter Holsapple and comic Steven Wright, though bill was left open to change during the run.

Wright's dry delivery of unconnected, oblique thoughts ("There's a fine line between fishing and just standing at the shore like an idiot"; "What's another word for 'thesaurus'?") seemed somehow appropriate for a Dylan show.

Material of former Db Peter Holsapple, sung to his own acoustic guitar, would have been more impressive had it not been so derivative. One melody was uncomfortably like "Me and Bobby McGee"; that of his "Today Could Be the Day" sounded uncannily close to Dylan's own "Blowing in the Wind." Closer, in fact, than Dylan's own version of his song.