Last Night in Wolverhampton (by Jack Walters)

2024-11-09, Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, England

PSA: Anyone who will be at the Royal Albert Hall this week, very casual Flagging Down meetup at the Queens Arms, a pub near the venue, at 6pm Wednesday. Swing by and say hi!

The last week of the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour continued last night in Wolverhampton, England. The first of two shows in Wolverhampton.

Our Man in Wolverhampton (sorry, I just like writing Wolverhampton) Jack Walters reports in:

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Since the announcement of the concert, fans, curiously or sarcastically, have been asking: Why Wolverhampton?

A brief background: Wolverhampton, in the Middle Ages, was at the centre of the wool trade. Then, with the development of Staffordshire coal and ironstone deposits during the Industrial Revolution, it became known for its metal manufacturing. The industrialist John Wilkinson, who pioneered the manufacture of cast iron, lived in Bradley, a suburban village in Wolverhampton. Known as the “King of the Iron Trade,” Wilkinson was the first major producer in Wolverhampton and its environs. Today, metal foundries are still very much active. Of course, this likely has no bearing upon Dylan, the welder, performing in Wolverhampton, and it doesn’t mean you will find Dylan collecting scrap heap for his ironworks, or walking down the street in search of the ghost of old Wilkinson. Then again, Dylan often throws a spanner in the works.

History aside, it was a cold and foggy evening—frankly bleak—as I made way across the city to the Civic Hall, where Dylan is performing for two nights. I fell into an existential malaise, not my usual way of feeling before a concert; I was in desperate need of inspiration.

Immediately, I felt better once I entered the venue. There were a few differences from Edinburgh (night two). The band walked onto the stage without Dylan. They went into “All Along the Watchtower,” tuning up like a wayward and rakish orchestra, with notes flying like sparks. As a result of Dylan coming on after the band, he had a greater response. Dylan's voice was somewhat raspy, though suited the swirling and uptempo number, underpinned by Jim Keltner’s swinging groove. The second change: Dylan did not play guitar on “Watchtower.” Like “Things Have Changed” and “Watching the River Flow,” perfect opening numbers, “All Along the Watchtower” is equally apt. The first line—“There must be some kind of way outta here”—is an audacious way to start a concert: telling the audience that he wants to escape, but can’t. That he is bound to life on the road, a Sisyphus-like archetype who, instead of pushing a boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down upon reaching the summit, sings and plays, hollers and fingers black keys like a Champion Jack Dupree, over and over, in the underworld of entertainment.

As Ray Padgett astutely points out in his dispatch Two Nights in Nashville, the songs are, conceptually speaking, one “Big Song.” Collectively, the songs are ghost-like prayers, intimations of God, insubstantial yet solid, ethereal yet firm. This has become even more conspicuous in the quieter moments, where Dylan oscillates between singing and half-singing to the point that the distinction becomes nebulous, creating an almost dialogue between the two. Moreover, it isn’t just his voice that is mellow: the arrangements are bare-bones, bereft of substance, unreal, fragile, gossamer-thin, such as the sparse and haunting “My Own Version of You.” Or the skeletal “Key West,” which made you feel as if you were at the edge of the world, drifting aimlessly, free of sin and strife, alive without desire.