Cat Power Sings Dylan

‘Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me / I’m not sleepy, and there is no place I’m going to’ – this well-known chorus from Bob Dylan’s famous song would be an apt description of the feelings from the captivated audience at Adelaide’s Her Majesty’s Theatre, listening to Cat Power and her amazing band.

They played all the music from Dylan’s ‘Royal Albert Hall’ concert of 1966, a significant event in Dylan’s live performances. After he had played a traditional folk set, a full band – with electric, rather than acoustic, guitars – played a very different style of music, much to the annoyance of a significant part of that English crowd.

This was an important transition in Dylan’s career from traditional acoustic folk to electric rock’n’roll. The event was actually in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, not in London, but it’s been immortalised from a bootleg recording with that title, which was officially pressed as a two-disc live album in the late 1990s. When Dylan introduced his band, The Hawks, a vocal portion of the crowd heckled throughout the songs, deliberately initiated clapping of a different beat to that being played in an attempt to disrupt the band, and Dylan himself had to respond to an audience member who called out ‘Judas’.

At the start of Adelaide’s event, Cat Power stands at the microphone flanked only by her guitarist Henry Munson and Christopher Joyner on harmonica. Power asks that the bright stage lights be dimmed, which is appropriate for the first half of the concert, opening with ‘She Belongs to Me’. Power’s voice is immediate in its impact: the soulful, bluesy vocals fit Dylan’s folk songs perfectly, and the simple acoustic guitar and harmonica fills are perfection for that era’s music.

‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ is more melancholy, then a reflective ‘Just Like A Woman’, which hit homes differently coming from a female voice, and the acoustic set concludes with warm applause from a brilliant rendition of ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’. There’s a remarkable intimacy between the three musicians and their audience – quite an achievement given the size of the three-tiered theatre.

From then on, the stage looks four times the size as it’s filled with more musicians: Munson’s acoustic instrument is replaced with an electric guitar, Joyner moves to an upright piano, and the band is expanded to be joined by Jordan Summers on organ and Wurlitzer, Adeline Jasso on guitar, Matthew Schuessler on bass and Daniel Potruch on drums.

They open the ‘electric’ part of the concert with the rare ‘Tell Me Momma’, which was never recorded in a studio and only ever played by Dylan on that 1966 world tour. The band are magnificent and the energy from the now-seven piece is elevated to the roof, yet there remains the unmistakable Dylan lyrics, sung oh so beautifully by Power.

Power is great with the audience – opening up about personal challenges and emotional with her feelings, she’s exceptionally engaging with the welcoming crowd. She apologises for her voice not quite being there, yet she hits every note and there’s no easing up for the two hours she’s on stage. Power understands how to work the sound too, moving her body around the microphone, using her hands to deflect and changing her voice to alter the vocals we’re hearing. The audience doesn’t seem like they’re in any hurry to go as the band play song after song, until Power encourages the audience to sing along to the closing song, ‘Like A Rolling Stone’.

It’s a massive climax of light and sound, a complete contrast to the opening numbers, but it all works together. It’s a fantastic concert of some of Dylan’s best work and well-known songs, both with gentle acoustic and loud electric accompaniments, and elegantly, exquisitely sung by Cat Power.

Review by Mark Wickett

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