All Along The Clock Tower Dylan Fans Hope Concert Lives Up To Tour’s Reputation

Bob Dylan’s Spokane fans hope the third time is the charm.

Thirty years after he failed to materialize for a Coliseum show and 15 years after he sang Christian songs in the Opera House, devotees are still waiting for a classic Bob Dylan concert. They hope to get it Wednesday in Riverfront Park, and they could.

After a long fallow period, Dylan seems to have been re-energized, perhaps by a return to his roots. In the past couple of years, he released two records that covered old blues, gospel and folk tunes, was honored with a huge musical fete in honor of the 30th anniversary of his first record and recorded a triumphant MTV unplugged show, his best live effort in years.

Suddenly, Dylan’s career has taken on a new tenor. His self-proclaimed “Neverending Tour” - which at times threatened to collapse into self-parody - has shaped up, and by all accounts Dylan is giving some of his sharpest performances in years.

Late last year the word began filtering back from Europe via the Internet that the old Dylan was back. His singing - always an acquired taste, certainly - was self-assured and crisp and the show included songs Dylan hadn’t played in years.

“Dylan is reborn!” proclaimed one Net correspondent. “The best since ‘66!” wrote another.

So far, reviews on this side of the ocean have ranged from enthusiastic to rapturous, depending on the night, the crowd and the reviewer’s state of mind. One theme keeps coming through, though: Dylan is once again a force to be reckoned with.

Of course, in the most important ways, he never quit being one: Contemporary American life would be unrecognizable without his influence. Perhaps he would have been an important poet if he’d never picked up a guitar, or a great folk singer if he’d never plugged in - but he did both and in so doing took poetry out of the books and made folk’s social activism fashionable.

He changed the way an entire generation thought about art, entertainment and politics. His songs titillated the intellect and embodied the spirit of questioning initiated by the Civil Rights and Free Speech movements. Such songs as “The Times They Are a’Changing,” “Masters of War” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” served as rallying cries for the upheaval of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Even the current crop of thoughtful young rock bands owe their existence to Dylan’s liberating influence, a debt Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder only began to pay back at the 30th anniversary tribute with his astonishing version of “Masters of War.”

Watching the “MTV Uplugged” show, one was reminded of the timelessness of Dylan’s work. He reinvented his songs that night in powerful new ways - as he always does when he’s on top of his game - and in doing so he forced the listener to hear familiar songs with a fresh ear.

There was something about the period get-up he and his band wore - kind of a Laredo-meets-the-mob look - and about the lyrics that tumbled out in great nasal spurts that brought to mind the great American post-war poets and the Europeans who influenced them: In attitude and impact, Dylan is the heir of Rimbaud, Ginsberg, Kerouac and Corso.

There’s a healthy portion of Lennie Bruce in Dylan’s relentless truth telling and wicked sense of humor (on the West Coast leg of his tour, he’s resurrected “Lennie Bruce,” his rarely heard tribute to the great humorist), and there’s no small helping of jazz in the inventive ways he structures his music and in the liberties he takes with it.

If there is a drawback to all this intensity, it’s that Dylan is not a conventional performer, or even at times a very nice one. His stage demeanor is not unlike that of Miles Davis, so don’t expect to hear him comment on the weather, elaborate on the meaning of his music or even ask “How ya doin’ tonight, Spokane?”

But Dylan has never been a gratuitous talker.

“I got nothing to say about these things I write,” he told an interviewer in 1965, the year he left a couple thousand admirers in the lurch at the Coliseum.

“I write - just write them,” he said. “I don’t write for any reason. There’s no great message. I mean if, you know, you want to tell other people that, go ahead and tell them. But I’m not gonna have to answer to it.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TICKETS Bob Dylan will perform Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Riverfront Park Lilac Bowl. Tickets, all general admission, are $25 and $10 for children 13 and under; available at all regional G&B Select-a-Seat outlets, or by calling 325-SEAT or (800) 325-SEAT (credit cards only).