The 1996 Bob Dylan concert from Madison Square Gardens is a defining moment in his career. The cassette bootleg recording of the show has a moment where a fan calls out “Judas” to Dylan. He had dared to plug his guitar into an amplifier halfway through the show, changing the folk genre once and for all.
The American singer known as Cat Power, Chan Marshall, has created a moving and empathetic ode to this event by recreating it in her own imitable style. In a green pantsuit, she steps out under the spotlight; has it adjusted to a more comfortable level and launches straight into “She Belongs to Me.” Her voice is raw and vulnerable, capturing the emotion in Dylan’s poetry – “She can take the dark out of the nighttime and paint the daytime black.”
There is a reverent hush in Her Majesty’s Theatre, punctuated by the odd cough, which Marshall calls out as ancestral spirits leaving the body. Accompanied by an acoustic guitar, a piano and harmonica, the stripped back sound takes on an almost reverential quality. Before “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” she muses on the inherent sadness contained in Dylan’s songs.
“Desolation Row”, “Just Like a Woman” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” follow, before the set changes and the full band assembles on stage. Guitars, drums and piano recreate the defining moment when Dylan “goes electric.” The second half of the show begins with “Tell Me, Momma” and finishes with “Like a Rolling Stone.”
The second half is a more light-hearted, with Marshall kicking off her boots, commenting on the fact that shoe designers think that women have only one single central toe. She also opens up about the fact that she has given up drinking and smoking, but in the spirit of the evening had a shot of tequila and a smoke. She didn’t inhale, though.
As the night progressed, Marshall seemed to loosen up. She confessed that she felt unusually giddy with happiness as a compliment to the audience. The audience repaid in kind, with rapturous standing ovation at the conclusion of the show. This was truly an event that will live in the hearts and minds of those in attendance.
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