Legends thrill Palace

by Will Weissert
Michigan Daily
October 30, 1998

REVIEW
Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell
The Palace

Rock 'n' roll legends with common folk roots, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell are a pair music anthologies expect to be friends.

But all common-thread and musical-influence innuendo aside, it's refreshing to know they actually do seem to like each other.

"Bobby wrote this verse," Mitchell cooed halfway through her opening number "Tear Down Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot" [sic]. And there he was, Bob Dylan - just standing and smiling. The always rebellious, often-sneering, formally [sic] hard-driving and hard-drugging Dylan just standing there and looking thrilled about asking Mitchell and the then-sleepy Palace crowd why anyone in the world would want to pave over eternal happiness.

Dylan's pleasure was already there, his amazing energetic display would come later.

With Mitchell's mellow and emotional mix of old and new complete, Dylan returned to the stage looking just as content but this time intent on having a good time.

The songs were virtually the same as in shows past, although the ever-live "Silvio" was nowhere to be found. As always, Dylan did an acoustic, extended-length "Tangled Up in Blue," and ended with "Highway 61." Even songs he's done a million times, however, sounded new and fresh. His harmonica, noticeably absent in recent years, was heard again and again as a dancing Dylan literally wailed on it with all his might. At one point in the melee the lights on stage dimmed to make Dylan's dancing body a shadow puppet against the Palace's unfriendly interior. At another, intense feed back from his guitar made the whole building shake and sent fans young enough to be his children into delirium.

Maybe it's that he's just happy to be touring with true friend Mitchell. Maybe he's thrilled the nation liked "Time Out of Mind" so much, but Dylan seems to have remember [sic] why he's been on the road for 30 years. His delight never wavered through his set and a six-song encore. He thanked everyone, told jokes an [sic] proved again that his live career will go on until he's ready to end it.


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