Fifty-odd years ago, Bob Dylan was provoking his fans into furiously taking sides and berating him with a shout of “Judas!” while their political representatives snoozed through the day’s business. How times change. On the night the Houses of Parliament resounded to accusations of treachery, Dylan opens his latest UK tour with a show so serene and benevolent that it barely rattled the Palladium’s chandeliers.
Not bland, though. At 81, Dylan retains his creative energy and still insists on doing exactly what he wants. The first of four nights in London finds him pursuing the approach that characterised Rough and Rowdy Ways, his most recent album, released two years ago. Nine of its 10 expansively structured tracks are included in his 17-song set, missing only the one that gave him the first US No 1 hit single of his 60-year recording career, the 17-minute Murder Most Foul. In place of that epic meditation on the Kennedy assassination come versions of songs composed between 1966 and 1981, all refocused by loose arrangements for the five accompanying musicians whom Dylan, no longer playing guitar, now leads from an upright piano.
