The embodiment of the diehard fan stood scarved, bearded and bellowing in the aisle of the New World Music Theatre as the sated concertgoers streamed past him: “He ain’t done yet, he ain’t done yet!”
On the contrary, Bob Dylan was done for the night, capping a rousing performance Thursday with three encores. But maybe the diehard was taking the longer view: Only three months ago, Dylan was flattened for six weeks with a heart infection. “I really thought I’d be seeing Elvis soon,” Dylan had joked.
For a couple of decades, the singer has been weathering the inevitable decline in commercial currency that follows any pop-culture explosion such as the one he ignited in the ’60s. Only a few weeks ago, outside the same venue, two thirtyish women strolled past an electronic sign flashing information about the Dylan show and one said with a laugh: “Isn’t he dead?”
Listen up, ladies: Mr. He-Ain’t-Done-Yet speaks the truth. Dylan is still kicking, albeit without the swagger, the withering command of old. Now he can seem frail, fragile, all too human. At the World, he looked lost at the beginning, and he sometimes struggled to be heard above the band.
In these moments, a line resonates from his forthcoming album, “Time Out of Mind,” due out Sept. 30. It is a line from the penultimate song, “Can’t Wait,” and the album’s ghostly, world-weary tone spirals from it: “That’s how it is when things disintegrate.”
It’s possible to see the Dylan of “Time Out of Mind” as rock’s version of playwright Samuel Beckett, in that he sees life as a hollowing out of the spirit, a decay of the soul. But with Beckett and Dylan, recognition is also a triumph, the struggle is the reward.
“Time Out of Mind” is a quietly inspired album that shows Dylan at the peak of his powers, with Daniel Lanois’ evocative, but understated production suggesting a spooky David Lynch soundtrack while Dylan negotiates the trouble he’s seen. Yet, in typically perverse fashion, Dylan barely acknowledged the album’s impending release at the World. Instead, he fashioned new music out of his past.
For Dylan, the warhorses and obscurities of his 40 albums aren’t precise blueprints, but starting points for a journey. After a rousing “Absolutely Sweet Marie,” Dylan caught his stride a few songs later with “Silvio,” and the band swung into step with him.
Dylan leaned into the storm with frequent guitar solos, particularly on “Forever Young,” and his voice took delight in reinventing “Tangled Up in Blue,” dragging behind the shambling, acoustic rhythms and then hurrying to catch up. His mood upbeat, he joked with the crowd as he introduced a stomping “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” as “my fashion statement.” Yet the tone was gentle, almost warm, until “Highway 61 Revisited,” which closed the show with a saber-rattling gallop worthy of, well, the Dylan of 1965.
Ani DiFranco paved the way with a barreling set of punk brio, tart lyricism, sweet-voiced sarcasm and a banjo-picking version of Dylan’s “Most of the Time.” The singer inspired the kind of rapt, worshipful response that greeted the headliner years ago. It recalled the days when every folk singer with an edge was inevitably branded the “new Dylan.” Now, against all odds, the best candidate for the title just may be the guy who inspired it.
