Bob Dylan

At the Molson Amphitheatre

in Toronto on Friday

Bob Dylan has written innumerable songs, but few remain as timely as All Along the Watchtower from his 1967 folk record of religious allegories, John Wesley Harding. Dressed like the Hank Williams of popular song, the reinvigorated bard of American music and his crack band ended their performance on Friday night with guitars ablaze, nodding to the song's popular 1968 version by Jimi Hendrix.

Yet the stinging lyrics could easily be applied to the current regime in the White House: "Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth/ None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

Although Dylan played famous love songs such as Tangled Up in Blue with much good humour and aplomb, it was the politically motivated material that resonated. High Water (Song for Charley Patton) from his latest album, the much-lauded Love and Theft, could have been about the floods in Europe as much as the Republicans' distaste for democratic principles.

The slowed-down blues-funk of Masters of War put across Dylan's position on the looming war against Iraq: "Like Judas of old/ You lie and deceive/ A world war can be won/ You want me to believe." Another of John Wesley Harding's parables, The Wicked Messenger, tarted up with a mesmerizing descending electric-guitar figure, ended with the famous head-in-the-sand line: "If ye cannot bring good news, then don't bring any."

On more spiritually inclined material, two members of Dylan's band, guitarists Charlie Sexton and Larry Campbell, combined to provide stellar harmonies. Their vocal chops lifted Forever You, I Shall Be Released and Blowin' in the Wind to glory, leaving souls melting in their wake.

Even less extraordinary material, such as the title song on 1990's Under the Red Sky,was recast in better light by the band's obvious empathy for their leader's intentions. If anything, the group provided too many dollops of instrumental passages -- a few songs tightly rendered without solos would have varied the arrangements.

But other than that quibble, what else is there to complain about? His master's voice? Sure, it's creaky and craggy, the canyons and peaks of a long life and career having been etched deeply. And it's true that Dylan has played some horrendous shows in Toronto, bulldozing songs indiscriminately with hard-rock fury. His apathy toward his own words was legendary. He became Dylan in code, all but indecipherable.

But that's all in the past: Whereas he used to shun new material in concert, Dylan performed six tunes from Love and Theft, and there is no greater indicator of the man's confidence, ease and good nature.

With back-to-back excellent albums of original material and numerous accolades, Dylan is now the fountainhead of American song. He's the Hank Williams who rolls along in the limousine from town to town, rather than the Hank Williams who died in the back seat from an overdose.
Bob Dylan plays the Winnipeg Arena on Aug. 24, Saskatchewan Place in Saskatoon (Aug. 26), Skyreach Centre in Edmonton (Aug. 27) and Calgary's Pengrowth Saddledome (Aug. 28).