MONOLOGUE (Regina Havis)/IF I'VE GOT MY TICKET, LORD/IT'S GONNA RAIN/DO LORD, REMEMBER ME/LOOK UP AND LIVE BY FAITH/OH FREEDOM/THIS TRAIN/SERVE SOMEBODY/I BELIEVE IN YOU/WHEN YOU GONNA WAKE UP?/WHEN HE RETURNS/MAN GAVE NAMES TO ALL THE ANIMALS/PRECIOUS ANGEL/SLOW TRAIN COMING/COVENANT WOMAN/GOD USES ORDINARY PEOPLE (Mona Lisa Young, vocals)/GONNA CHANGE MY WAY OF THINKING/DO RIGHT TO ME BABY/SOLID ROCK/SAVING GRACE/SAVED/WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU/IN THE GARDEN/BLESSED IS THE NAME/PRESSING ON

This is another excellent performance. Dylan and the band are now completely comfortable with both the material and the setting. The introductory gospel set is superlative, the three singers sounding buoyant and well-received by the audience. Dylan and the band rattle off the Slow Train material with confidence and verve.

One of the highlights this evening is "Covenant Woman." Throughout the Warfield Theater shows, Dylan fiddles with phrasing and the lyric pace of this song, particularly its awkward chorus. This evening Dylan strips the song down to its love-ballad core, singing with tenderness and understatement, eschewing the higher, harsher tones he often employs for a lower register and descending notes to resolve phrases. Dylan's phrasing is nicely echoed in Spooner Oldham's solos. Indeed, this may be a case of the accompaniment influencing the singer, as Oldham's solos have consistently wound themselves meditatively around the lower cadences of the melody, while Dylan often tinkered with the rhythmic structure.

"Covenant Woman" is one of the songs on this tour which barely seems to reach the Saved recording sessions in February 1980. In my opinion, the performance on Saved lacks much of the power found in the live shows, as though Dylan and the band have already mined that seam and lack the drive to dig any deeper. In fact, following the February recording sessions, Dylan will drop "Covenant Woman" from his setlists for the remainder of the tour, revisiting the song briefly in November 1980, but then only very sporadically thereafter.

"In The Garden" is another song worth noting in this concert. So often "In The Garden" teases at being a roof-raiser and this time it budges the roof beams, an astonishing feat when one considers the song. The modulation in melody is so improbable, yet so consistently achieved, that it keeps the listener off-balance, depriving us of the comfort more anthemic songs provide. Furthermore, the song swells with each refrain, then subsides into introverted instrumental interludes between stanzas, further depriving us of the rave-up hinted at by the bass line throughout the song. Much of the visceral energy in this song seems a matter of choreography, holding back elements of the instrumental accompaniment so they can build to a crescendo at the refrain stanza beginning, "Did they speak out against him, did they dare?" And yet, there's never an actual release to the song, as it again subsides to build again with the next stanza.

In this sense, the song is itself a tease. Lyrically, it asks what appear to be rhetorical questions, but are, in fact, statements of faith, challenging the listener to take sides between belief and unbelief. No answer is given, no chorus bridges the stanzas, the song is simply a series of questions. Musically, it swells and ebbs, again without any bridging chorus or clear start and end points. The overall effect is one of tension and promise, Dylan suggesting there's more to come, suggesting that resolution is within reach, conveying the potential power of his music and message by holding back the punchline. There are obvious theological parallels to this in the doctrine of Jesus' resurrection and return which are beyond the scope of my project, but may well be the animating force to Dylan's creation and performance of this song.

CROWD: "Jesus loves you!"

Dylan: "He loves you too."

Dylan: "Thank you. I'm gonna ask Mona Lisa to come out here and sing a song called "God Uses Ordinary People."

CROWD: "Bob, just one old one, please!" (laughter)

DO RIGHT TO ME BABY 

Dylan: "Thank you. You know you read about that situation in Iran, but we're not worried about that because we know the world is going to be destroyed. We know that Jesus is coming back.

This one is called "Hanging On To A Solid Rock Made Before The Foundation Of The World." You got to hang on to something. It might as well be the real thing."

Dylan: "Thank you. Playing keyboards tonight, give him a warm hand, Spooner Oldham. Playing lead guitar, Fred Tackett. Let me say that again, now. On the keyboards, Spooner Oldham. And on the other set of keyboards, Terry Young. On the drums tonight, Jim Keltner. On the electric bass guitar, Tim Drummond. Alright, singing bottom tonight, Helena Springs. Singing in the middle, Regina Havis. Singing on top was Mona Lisa Young."