Cat Power recreates Bob Dylan's shocking 1966 electric show – to spine-tingling effect
For her first ever concert at the Royal Albert Hall, American singer-songwriter Chan Marshall (who performs as Cat Power, the name of her first band) decided to recreate Bob Dylan’s near-legendary 1966 show at the august venue, the last stop on the wild tour where the folk troubadour shocked fans by going electric.
A wonderful interpreter of other people’s songs as well as a strikingly intense songwriter herself, the 50-year-old Marshall is known to be a Dylan acolyte, even calling him God Dylan. Thus she approached what might have been a whimsical tribute in a spirit of almost religious veneration, as did the audience.
The stage was dimly lit, and the huge concert hall pregnant with hushed silence as a semi-acoustic guitar picked out the motif to She Belongs to Me. When Marshall’s soft voice floated in with the iconic (and, in the context, ironic) opening lines (“She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist, she don’t look back”) the effect was spine-tingling, evidence that we were in for something more than mere facsimile.
Marshall sang as herself, not imitating her hero, with loose, eccentric phrasing but none of Dylan’s biting drawl, sinking into every poetic line as if seeking personal meaning. There was no melismatic showboating. Microtones in her voice, subtle resonances of rich melodiousness invested every note with beauty.
And what songs she had to sing! The otherworldly magic of early Dylan classics still struck home 56 years on: Visions of Johanna, Desolation Row, Just Like a Woman, Mr Tambourine Man. In 1966, no-one had heard songs like these before. In 2022, they are part of a heritage that has influenced everything that followed, yet remain awe-inspiring on their own.
Marshall was accompanied by a guitarist and harmonica player for the acoustic section, a trio to perform Dylan’s solo act. Then the rest of the band came on, four more players to replicate The (original) Band. In 1966, this was a cue for riotous dissension, as sections of the audience expressed disapproval at their folk hero being supposedly corrupted by the explosive energy of rock and roll. Now this sound itself seems ancient and venerable, presented in an act of historic preservation.
In a way, it became a mirror image of Dylan ’66, with everything back to front. The first half felt like a high wire act as Marshall tremulously found her own unique path across the chasm of Dylan’s taut songcraft, whilst the second act turned into pure celebration, from the woozy Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues to the lusty Like a Rolling Stone.
The very idea that anyone could be upset by a guitar solo seems silly now, a reminder of our often rather petty resistance to change and capacity to invent outrage to assuage our own discomfort. Inevitably, someone shouted “Judas” on cue, as a fan had once done (albeit in Manchester Trade Hall) to Dylan back in 1966. “Jesus,” responded Marshall, sweetly. The whole occasion had the tone of a ceremony in the church of God Dylan.
No further performances
