“Maximal freedom from musical constraints” is how James Meigs described Bob Dylan’s approach to playing music live for audiences. He explains:
What audiences will see is the best songwriter alive doing exactly what he wants. I’ve seen Bob Dylan three times over the past two years, each time as part of Willie Nelson’s traveling Outlaw Music Festival. I suspect he enjoys being on the road with another music legend who is even older than he is. Variety described the tour as “half of a living Mount Rushmore.” A shameless crowd-pleaser Mr. Dylan is not. He mostly stays half-hidden behind his piano and doesn’t allow venues to project close-up video images. He expects the audience to listen.
Even when you do listen, it often takes a minute to figure out which song the old master is playing. Ever since the 1970s, Mr. Dylan has challenged audiences by tinkering with the tempos and melodies of his tunes. He’s not only being impish. He’s challenging himself to reinvent each song in the moment, even songs he has played thousands of times. I’m sure many fans would love to hear the old tunes performed closer to the way we first heard them—OK, I’ll admit, I would enjoy that—but that’s not what keeps Mr. Dylan out on the road year after year. He’s not interested in playing singalong versions of his greatest hits. Instead, he’s still chasing maximal freedom from musical constraints, even when those constraints are his own beautiful melodies.
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