Bob Dylan in Atlantic City: Classics, reimagined, on the boardwalk

By Chris Jordan 
https://www.app.com/story/entertainment/music/2018/11/18/bob-dylan-atlantic-city-classics-reimagined-boardwalk-review/2047942002/
November 19, 2018


Bob Dylan in Tuscon

Bob Dylan will dance for your entertainment pleasure.

Well, it sure looked like Dylan started to dance a little jig after performing a set-closing “Gotta Serve Somebody” Saturday, Nov. 17, at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.

The original version of the track from his 1979 studio album “Slow Train Coming” was mid-tempo blues. Here, it was played as upbeat rock 'n' roll with a punchy rhythm. The crowd got up to dance and Dylan did something on stage that resembled a quick dance.



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An arm was raised. A leg was lifted.

Bob Dylan, the 77-year-old Nobel Prize winner and American cultural icon, is not going through the motions. He and “His Band” — Charlie Sexton, guitar; Donnie Herron, pedal steel; Tony Garnier, bass; and George Receli, drums — delivered two robust hours largely of revamped Dylan classics.

The verses before “Like a Rolling Stone” were dramatically paused; “Don't Think Twice, It's All Right” was given a regal gospel standing; and  “Blowin' in the Wind” was delivered in a mournful country style, thanks in part to Herron's sweet sawing in the violin.

The characters in Dylan's songs  stood out in vivid technicolor. The resolute, the renegades, the romantics, the broken-hearted and the dreamers looking for a better tomorrow came rolling out on the stage, thanks to Dylan’s vibrant lyricism.

As for Dylan's singing, he's got some pair of lungs. His (very) crushed velvet vocals came through loud and clear from the stage of Hard Rock's Etess Arena, thanks in part to a crystal sharp sound mix. All the vocal nuances and tics that make his voice so distinctive were present, and then some.

Dyan stood and sat behind a grand piano for most of the night, venturing to the middle — not the front — of the stage to sing several songs. He did not play guitar once in the evening.

Nor did he address the audience.

The band wore white dinner jacket and black slacks while Dylan wore a silver jacket with black slacks. The untamed Dylan locks, with the stage's backlighting, still look like a fuzzy halo even after all these years.

Seeing this show, part of Dylan 's “Never Ending Tour,” which comes to the Beacon Theater in New York City Nov. 23 through Dec. 1, was like entering the Sistine Chapel in the early 1500s, looking up and seeing Michelangelo on his back on scaffolding near the ceiling with a paintbrush in his hand.

Chris Jordan: cjordan@app.com. Twitter: @chrisfhjordan

Bob Dylan Atlantic City set list

Things Have Changed
It Ain't Me, Babe
Highway 61 Revisited
Simple Twist of Fate
Cry a While
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Honest With Me
Tryin' to Get to Heaven
Scarlet Town
Make You Feel My Love
Pay in Blood
Like a Rolling Stone
Early Roman Kings
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Love Sick
Thunder on the Mountain
Soon After Midnight
Gotta Serve Somebody

Blowin' in the Wind
All Along the Watchtower