The Musical Box

“This isn’t Murder 101,” said Jakob Dylan in reply to an eager audience request last night at the Kentucky Theatre for a song he cut eight years ago with The Wallflowers. “This is your next favorite song. I bet you I’m right.”

With that, Dylan revisited The Empire in My Mind, a different Wallflowers nugget (this one came from 2002’s Red Letter Days album) that searched for light and hope in a world of human failings. This version was quieter and more streamlined than the Wallflowers’ original, which made it an easy fit for the heavily acoustic repertoire that made up this 90 minute trio show – a performance where Dylan performed not as a Wallflower, but under his own name.

Sure, The Wallflowers are essentially a band vehicle for Dylan’s often melancholic and openly pop-friendly material. But the difference between the band and last night’s performance was pronounced. Aided only at the Kentucky by Wallflowers drummer Fred Eltringham and former Chris Robinson bassist George Reife, Dylan used eight of the ten songs from his new Rick Rubin-produced solo debut album, Seeing Things, as the thrust of the performance. While over half of the concert relied on less-than-obvious Wallflowers material (highlighted by a properly wistful Mourning Train), all of the music was tempered by the reserved, loose fitting performance mood that dominates Seeing Things.

With Dylan sticking exclusively to acoustic guitar, rockier moments were purposely scarce.  But just as this wasn’t an outwardly electric evening, neither was it a folky affair that begged comparison to the early music of another Dylan we all know. This was, despite the sometimes taught lyrical makeup of the Seeing Things songs, a relaxed evening of subtle pop delights that demanded active listening. Aside from some isolated beer-soaked cheers, the audience awarded the music with exactly that.

At times, the summery feel of Dylan’s new songs became quite fetching, as in the apple pie imagery of Something Good This Way Comes. In other instances, the mood darkened slightly, as with the sparsely swampy setting afforded Evil is Alive and Well. Even then, though, the trio’s touch was light enough to illuminate a theme where darkness is but a prelude to affirmation. An encore of On Up the Mountain emphasized such thinking beautifully with a neatly propelled shuffle that ended the program on a note of clear, understated hope.

This wasn’t a night for hits, though. Three Marlenas was about it in that category, and even it was modified to meet the trio’s nicely contained sense of rhythm and faith. The big tunes can wait for the next Wallflowers tour, though. This was an evening where Dylan openly invited his audience to bask in quieter, less familiar but admirably comforting songs. And on a gorgeous early July evening, that was a mighty tough invitation to turn down.

(photo of jakob dylan by james minchin)