A Night Of Celebration

Ms. No Name, Shrimp Cracker and I just got home from an evening celebrating the musi of Bob Dylan at Lincoln Center. Let me tell you it was amazing. The highlights were Natalie Merchant and Phillip Glass performing The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll. Al Kooper and a band with powerful horn section played the shit out of It Takes A Lot To Laugh... Phil Lesh accompanied by Warren Haynes and co took on Thunder On The Mountain. Lee Ranaldo, Smokey Hormel, John Medeski and others on a rousing Postively 4th Street. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals on a 15 minute Isis>Lovesick>Isis. Catpower (who we saw right before the show began) doing House of the Rising Sun. Jill Sobule accompained by an Cyndi Lauper and a drummer doing Ring Them Bells. The last song performed was Ramblin' Jack Elliott w/ Patti Smith and Al Kooper and they performed Knocking on Heaven's door. I will not describe it because it was great. And then outside we saw Mr. Jack Elliott hiself and that was pretty neat. But the highlight hands down was the Roots who owned Masters of War and got the big standing ovation of the night. The Roots were a Guitar-Drums-Tuba trio. The song started sung to the melody of the star spangled banner and over the next 5 minutes changed tempo from military march to taps to thrash to wailing Prince-Hendrix guitar soloing with rapid and intense drumming. Honestly I have never heard anything like it. What really made it an amazing song was though and musicianship that went into it when meshed to the intensity of the lyrics. All in all it was a night to remember. But better yet, the producer of the show informed the audience that the next night of music celebrating an artist will be in April at Carnegie Hall and it will celebrate Bruce Springsteen. I have just died and gone to fucking heaven.