Never before has Bob Dylan needed to be thrown a bone; and yet this Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame performance feels like one. A helping hand offered to an artist of great talent, but stuck in a rut. Adorned in a shirt of gold and joined by a post-The Ghost of Tom Joad Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan is musically mummified by an appreciative audience. They drape him in his past successes and hold him to the high standard he set for himself and his contemporaries across the globe. It is one thing to celebrate his successes, but another entirely to prop him up as the hero those in attendance, those listening to his music for all those years, were in desperate need of at the time. The Concert for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame smells of opportunity for those in charge, and by honouring Dylan they highlight a key problem for the artist they celebrate.
Change was around the corner but for those in attendance at this performance, their patience was at its end. Dylan too suffered the self-doubt those who have catered to time on the stage for literal decades are prone to. He would come back swinging. For those with a flicker of positivity to their viewing of this performance, it could be believed this praise-laden performance is what kindled the fire, what pushed Dylan, like the MTV Unplugged performance, back into a creative rise. But he does not know how he wrote those all-time greats and nor do we, the magic returns of its own mysterious volition and the optimism surrounding this performance would be there with or without the quality. Thankfully following the same order of business as those Music Television performances, Dylan takes to the stage with classic tracks and is further bolstered by Springsteen.
With tens of thousands in attendance, the classics of All Along the Watchtower and Just Like a Woman echoing through the stadium in the slow and croaked drawl Dylan would rely on during this decade sounds out of place. But there is nothing wrong with it. It has a power to it which would be the core of Time Out of Mind. Just Like a Woman sounds exceptional, the punchiness and sudden interjections of Dylan on guitar are a real treat, as is his work on Seeing the Real You at Last as a follow-up. A special guest performance from Dylan which more than pays its dues, an exceptional five-track set where those waves of confidence wash over Dylan. His legs apart stance, the slick guitar solos to end Just Like a Woman and a Springsteen-featuring Forever Young, are remarkable moments.
Inducted in 1988 with the same attempt to give Dylan a boost in morale ahead of Oh Mercy, the feature here in front of so many attendees is a moment which soon becomes the making of Dylan as an artist in the 1990s. Those wobbles of the 1980s are forgotten about and he becomes a far more consistent musician as a result of it, compared to the rut following Slow Train Coming, that is. Highway 61 Revisited is a stellar moment in this performance – one that taps into the spirited performances which Dylan had lost in the years before. It was more an overexposure which reduced his stage presence, and the ambitious moves played out on this stage, subtle as they are, can be found in the guitar work Dylan would provide. It is as big a turning point as any, but more for the personable abilities of the artist on stage than anything in the studio.
