Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp–GCS Ballpark–Sauget, IL–July, 2 2009
Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game will be played in St. Louis in a few days, but, last night, just across the Mississippi, a Sauget, Illinois, minor-league baseball stadium hosted an all-star lineup of its own. Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson played this stadium a few summers ago as part of a US collab tour of Triple-A ballparks, and they are reviving the tour this summer, this time taking along Willie’s long-time Farm Aid cohort, John Mellencamp. So with these legendary ducks on the pond and weather as lovely as a July 2nd in St. Louis ever gets, thousands of Bud Light-lovers filled the stadium by 5pm. (A strange setup—the stage sat in deep center, and the general admission section was limited to the grassy outfield. The reserved seatholders, therefore, had to look across an empty ballfield to the impossibly-distant stage, with no video screens. Foul!) Here’s how it played out.
Willie Nelson
Willie went first, which stung a little—I thought he should have gone second. Watching Willie Nelson perform has long been one of life’s most joyful experiences, and the fact that he continues to deliver 200-plus shows a year (he was on a Never Ending Tour when Dylan was still singing about Jesus) at age 76 is an enduring treat. How’s he holding up? Pretty damn good. His voice is showing some wear and tear around the edges but remains surprisingly sharp when he mines the silver at the top of his register. His phrasing is wackier than ever—he was always a backphraser, but eight-thousand “Whiskey River”s down the road, he’s getting further and further ahead of the beat. His hair is now down to his tailbone, and you can see his trademark red locks fade to gray about midway up his back—it’s like examining the rings of a tree. It’s a reminder of the march of time, and everyone wants Willie Nelson to live forever, so you got the feeling that the crowd was soaking up this otherworldly figure with more urgency than in years past. And another reminder of attrition: Jody Payne, Willie’s guitarist for the last 35 years, retired last year, and he’s badly missed. Willie chose not to replace him, which means that Willie’s battered Martin, Trigger, was the only guitar onstage, and while Willie rode him hard, there was no hiding the relative thinness of the band’s sound. It was always a loosy-goosy affair, but even more so now, with Willie’s sister and pianist Bobby and legendary harp-shooter, Mickey Raphael, taking on larger roles in Jody’s absence. Gone are “Stay All Night,” “Working Man Blues,” and other live Jody-centric Willie staples. Last night, with a shortened set, Willie jettisoned the Kristofferson suite and the duets section (“Seven Spanish Angels,” “Lukenbach, TX”) in favor of Waylon’s “You Asked Me To” and his own “Rainy Day Blues,” on which Willie and Mickey dueled to a snarly finale. Next, Willie led a singalong of Hank’s “I Saw the Light,” and then, like a stranger in the night, he was gone, leaving the crowd with the insistent hope that the world keeps going his way.
Setlist
1.Whiskey River
2.Still is Still Moving to Me
3.Whiskey for My Men, Beer for My Horses
4.Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys
5.Funny How Time Slips Away
6.Crazy
7.Night Life
8.Down Yonder
9.Me and Paul
10.If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time
11.Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
12.Georgia on a Fast Train
13.Georgia on My Mind
14.All of Me
15.On the Road Again
16.Always on My Mind
17.Will the Circle Be Unbroken
18.I’ll Fly Away
19.Superman
20.You Asked Me To
21.Rainy Day Blues
22.I Saw the Light
John Mellencamp
Mellencamp didn’t waste much time working this crowd, launching immediately into “Pink Houses” to kick off the Fourth of July weekend. John came with a versatile seven-peice band, including Miriam Sturm on violin and Mellencamp lifer Mike Wanchic on guitar, that defaulted to bluesier, moodier versions of his hits. And while Coug opened with a one-two punch, following “Pink Houses” with a searing take on “Paper in Fire,” he wasn’t just throwing haymakers. He dipped deep into his songbook for “Deep Blue Heart,” the Trisha Yearwood duet from 2001’s overlooked Cuttin’ Heads, and “The Real Life,” an album cut from 1987’s The Lonesome Jubilee, the night’s most-represented record with three songs. Moreover, Mellencamp played urgent, go-for-broke takes of songs from last year’s Life, Death, Love and Freedom, especially the jackhammer punch of “If I Die Sudden.” The set ended with many in the crowd yelling for more; some conspicuously absent hits—little ditties like “Jack and Diane,” “R.O.C.K. in the USA,” “Hurts So Good,” and many others went unplayed. Instead, Mellencamp sang (in great voice) and performed with the fire of a hungry rocker with nothing left to prove but plenty left to say.
Setlist
1.Pink Houses
2.Paper in Fire
3.Deep Blue Heart
4.Check It Out
5.Don’t Need This Body
6.Small Town
7.Rain on the Scarecrow
8.The Real Life
9.If I Die Sudden
10.What If I Came Knocking?
11.Crumbling Down
12.Authority Song
Bob Dylan
The Dylan faithful were relieved last night that Bob came out playing the guitar, but they got only a brief look at that arrangement, just two songs, before Bob got behind the keyboards, where he’s been nearly exclusively for close to ten years. Dylan’s guitar leads on the opening “Watching the River Flow” and especially on a nearly-unrecognizable “Don’t Think Twice,” were so adroit, his decision to remain on keys was even more puzzling. He has moved the keyboard to center stage facing the crowd, an improvement over tours past when he sat at far stage left and faced his band. Bob performs with a singular blend of cockiness and trepidation, so while you feel that he’s sort of hiding behind those keyboards, he was in a rocking mood last night, nearly dancing at times and leading his smoking band with punch and swing. A Dylan setlist is a crapshoot, of course, and last night we were treated to lovely readings of “Just Like a Woman” and “Spirit on the Water” and a seething, drum-mutilating version of “Highway 61 Revisited.” If you are surprised how rough Bob sounds on his hit-and-miss new record, Together Through Life, then you haven’t seen him live this decade, when he often sounds like Cookie Monster caught in the garbage disposal. Last night his voice was sturdier than usual, and on “The Levee’s Gonna Break,” he was able to sustain nasal clarity for several seconds at a time. The songs tended to go on too long last night, working in just 14 songs over 75 minutes—he let his band meander aimlessly long after the final verses. Still, the holy-crap-there’s-Bob-Dylan factor generally trumps any musical concerns at these shows, but, like Mellencamp, Dylan continues to work his new material, playing three songs from Together, including a tender “Forgetful Heart,” featuring Bob standing instrumentless at the center-stage mic, doing his best croaking croon. The show ended with “Jolene” (not a Dolly cover) and a clamorous “All Along the Watchtower.” No telling if Dylan knew where he was playing last night—not a word did he speak—but the 68-year-old did enough to satisfy this crowd by rocking with ardent integrity and by simply letting us gaze at the noggin that holds his brain.
Setlist
1.Watching the River Flow
2.Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
3.The Levee’s Gonna Break
4.Spirit on the Water
5.Things Have Changed
6.Just Like a Woman
7.Honest With Me
8.Forgetful Heart
9.Highway 61 Revisited
10.This Dream of You
11.Thunder on the Mountain
12.Like a Rolling Stone
13.Jolene
14.All Along the Watchtower
