Bob Dylan
Shadow Kingdom
COLUMBIA/LEGACY
If, like me, you’ve been a constant visitor to Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour, you’ve been part of the mass hypnotic blend of anticipation and tomfoolery that comes with waiting for the bard to morph his material into often-unrecognizable shapes. That’s part of the fun—that and Dylan’s weird shuffle-shimmy dance he does. And the occasional stretch of Sinatra songs he throws in just to frustrate audiences waiting for rote recitations of his classics.
Like Miles Davis and Lou Reed, Bob Dylan is not here for you—not here for that. Staying on the road endlessly has meant endlessly improvising, revising, and recommitting himself and his bands to his modern-day standards. Shadow Kingdom just happens to be a fantastic screen capture of that process—a magnificent, elastic set of renditions of his most beloved (and least played) mini-epics of ache, revenge, and recall.
Culled from Alma Har’el’s 2021 concert film Shadow Kingdom, with its creepy closing instrumental (“Sierra’s Theme”) being the only “new” song Dylan & co. perform, the package is as impressive for its fresh instrumental feel as it is for Dylan’s craggy but nuanced vocal takes. Along with opener “When I Paint My Masterpiece” swinging harder than usual (to say nothing of Dylan’s tight, expressive vocal), “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine),” too, has a great, spirited groove (although no concert version of this song beats that on Dylan and The Band’s live album).
While “What Was It You Wanted” is cogently stripped of its overly atmospheric wispiness, “Tombstone Blues” and “Queen Jane Approximately” sound gutsier and more to-the-point. Even the plaintive, placid “Forever Young,” a song I’ve never warmed to before, sounds more poignant and potent in this live, aged-vintage rendition. With Dylan gone live, no song is over until it’s over.
