Return to tape listRFK Stadium, Washington DC, 6/24/95 I'd never seen Bob Dylan perform live before, and I was a bit concerned about the kind of show he'd put on due to the recent clips I'd heard on tape. Not to worry; he put on a rocking show. I think my favorite moment during the set was Positively 4th St. A dozen songs (with a few acoustic), a Highway 61 encore, then something over a half hour, and the Dead - with Bruce Hornsby on piano - took the stage.
The Jack Straw opener was zero surprise. They hadn't played it all tour, it was Bob's turn to open, and Bruce had long since incorporated the song into his own repertoire. The surprise, then was that unlike past occasions, Bruce was neither given any lines to sing nor a few measures to solo on his grand. That would change in a hurry; during virtually every other song in the set Hornsby would get his turn to be featured on the ivories.
Jack Straw was short but energetic. A sweet-sounding Althea and a smoking Rooster followed. Then, be it coincidence or the sports fan in some of the band members rising to the forefront, they paid tribute to the imminent Stanley Cup champions with Friend of the Devil. A bit faster than they usually play the song.
Bob shifted to acoustic for El Paso, then Jerry replied with a So Many Roads that sounded as if some of the musicians were a bit out of phase. I was glad they didn't end the set there, but the Promised Land that closed was not up to some of their recent efforts.
Throughout the first set, the crowd was extremely lively, in full Saturday party mode in spite of the relative paucity of rockers in the set. That mood continued into Set 2 through a great Iko and an average Long Way. But then, be it from the long day or something else, the crowd energy just died. And that may have hurt the Saint of Circumstance that ensued; it had none of the extraordinary energy it had when last played in the Washington area 8 1/2 months before. New Speedway, on the other hand, succeeded in spite of the lethargic atmosphere. Jerry followed with a That Would Be Something that would just as well be forgotten.
Next was a very long Drum/Space (JJ timed it at 40 minutes; I came to the show watchless, so could not confirm.) Followed by a very long, very beautiful Days Between. I'd never previously heard, live or on tape, a version of that song played in which Jerry inserted an instrumental verse. After the jam, he sang a fourth verse (or more likely a reprise of the first; I'm not yet sufficiently familiar with the lyrics to discern). Ergo I did not feel cheated at all by only two post-Space songs when they predictably cut into One More Saturday Night.
For a song that was criticized as overplayed just a few years ago, the Black Muddy River encore (last played nearly 4 years ago) was a total delight. Jerry sang with intense feeling and the instrumentation was nearly right on the mark (there were just a few signs of rust).
After last year's ugliness, the crowd was back to RFK standard as well. Some great t-shirts, not all of them hockey-themed, kept us in smiles. Security was in its RFK-traditional "Ole!" configuration with regard to field rushers, though a couple took a bit too much sport in intercepting one or two of them and rapidly do-si-doing them back to the stairs.
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