review: t bone burnett & jakob dylan

after waiting ninety minutes past the scheduled start time for the show to start (apparently it's much harder to move an event from the ryman to city hall than you might think), young mr. dylan took the stage with what appeared to be a pre-war martin guitar and a keyboard accompaniest for the opening set. we'd seen the wallflowers a few times before and were very excited to be seeing jakob play solo, not knowing if he'd do wallflowers' tunes or if he had a bunch of new solo material. (as far as i could tell he did all wallflowers songs, so don't go thinking the wallflowers are busted up.)

i have two complaints about his set:
1) i know that jakob likes using an sm57 live. thing is, he kills the plosives from time to time and it kinda sounded like amateur nite when he did it. maybe switch to a 58...
2) he really played an "opening" set. 35 minutes max. i would've thought he would've done an hour and was disappointed to only hear what i heard.

now on to what i liked about it: everything else. it was great. the songs still had weight to them minus the full band arrangements and it was nice to hear them so stripped down. dylan was personable bordering on funny at times between songs. the setlist included here he comes (confessions of a drunken marionette), everything i need, babylon (my fave 'flowers tune), beautiful side of somewhere, how far you've come (i think.) and a few others that are escaping me right now. again, coulda been longer, coulda used a better vocal mic, other than that was stellar.

on with the show...after a quick change over tbone burnett took the stage with bad-ass band in tow. i have never heard a t bone song, only what he's produced or played on, so i had no idea what to expect. if you've been reading this week, however, you know that little fact had not diminished my excitement.

let me just tell you now. t bone burnett is incredible. the songs ranged from texas country shuffle type songs to bizarre avant garde adventures and almost all stops in between. the small band (stand up bass, keys/multi-inst., drums, rhythm and lead guitars) covered all the sonic bases - screamy, wail-y, weepy, strutty, you name it. i wish i could tell you what he played. i can't. all i can tell you is that i enjoyed every damn note of it. i can also tell you that jim keltner is quite possibly the most bestest and versatile drummers to ever apply stick to skin. words cannot describe all the things he on the drum kit. hell, words can't describe the way his drum kit is set up. seriously, look it up.

it's a shame that the promoters of the show did such a poor job promoting that the event was: a) moved to a smaller venue and b) still half full. if i was mr. burnett or mr. dylan i would be pissed off to a level never achieved by anyone other than eric cartman at great big shows, the company in charge of putting butts in seats.

the performers get an a+.
the venue gets an a.
the bar in city hall and bar twenty3 both get a's.
the promoter gets a d-. try harder next time, folks.