Costello, Dylan a study in contrasts

For all of the discussion about the way Bob Dylan reinvents his songs in live performance, I must say that last night’s show in Iowa City was a near carbon copy of the one I took in seven years ago in Cedar Rapids. Yes, the 2000 show featured Dylan performing the first part of the set acoustic with minimal accompaniment and the song choices didn’t overlap much, but for the portion of the set where his band joined him, the sound served as a template for what I saw last night. Not that I’m complaining, for boilerplate Dylan is still better than most of what’s out there.

But it was a slight letdown after seeing Elvis Costello enthrall the audience with an over-amplified acoustic guitar and his voice. It’s an easy gig for Costello: Come out, sing a dozen songs and then make way for the real show. But he made the most of it, coming out to grab the crowd by the lapels with a fiery run through “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes,” then alternating his set between newer songs and classics. While there was a lack of dynamics — he sang full-throated throughout and his guitar was always heavily strummed and slightly fuzzed-out with distortion — the familiar songs took on new life and the new ones sounded better than you’d have a right to expect given his spotty recent recorded output. “Alison” captivated, “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding)” was a slow-burning call to arms and “Man Out of Time” became the lament that the recorded version’s full-band workout never quite allows.

He was at his best at the set’s least-predictable moments. He introduced one song as a 1927 campaign song on Vocalion Records that he had updated, but the song, “From Sulfur to Sugar Cane,” is actually a recent composition credited to Costello and T-Bone Burnett. Whatever its provenance, it was Costello’s most spirited performance, the lyrics refitted with a wink to give a nod to local ladies. He closed with “The Scarlet Tide,” another Burnett co-composition, this time written for Alison Krauss to sing for the film “Cold Mountain.” He obviously reworked the lyrics to fit the current war rather than the Civil War, with lines about admitting lies and bringing the boys home.

All of that said, Dylan didn’t disappoint. His band is so tight by now that everything feels the way you expect it to, though the tempos and syncopation are different from those on the recorded versions. He opened with fairly straightforward, easily followed versions of “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35″ and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” loss leaders of sorts that hooked the crowd and enabled him to dive into several new, less-familiar songs in the middle of the set. Dylan never seems to be touring behind a record, often ignoring material from his latest release when performing, but last night’s show felt like a bonafied show in support of Modern Times, with a surprising five songs drawn from that disc. The best was “Workingman’s Blues II,” which found Dylan inhabiting the words more fully here than anywhere else as he sang

Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the front line
Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues.

His previous disc, “Love and Theft,” also yielded three songs in the 16 song show. The rest was a hit-or-miss mix of his best songs. “Desolation Row” stretching out even longer than on record (though the pace was quicker here), still managed to appeal, while “Masters of War” was a mealy-mouthed disappointment. There’s no better time to hear lines like

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher.

Instead the song was one of the few times where his compromised croak undercut the power of his words.

Still, it was a good show that proved these two veterans still have plenty to say and have compelling ways to do so. In an odd bit of synchronicity, Dylan pulled out Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” during that last show I saw seven years ago, while Costello dusted it off with a vengeance last night. While watching last night’s show, I noted that both artists were able to find life in songs that were 30, and in the case of Dylan, more than 40 years old, With Holly’s classic, they did so with one that is 50 years old this year, it’s title three little words that, in the hands of Costello last night, were a battle cry as much as a blast of self-affirmation.