Karen Ponzio Photo
Screening at Cafe Nine.
In the film 65 Revisited by D.A. Pennebaker — which screened at Cafe Nine Tuesday night as part of the New Haven Documentary Film Festival — a few of Dylan’s fans are seen talking to him. They get a bit tongue-tied. They even fall silent for a moment.
“I don’t know what to say,” one of them finally says.
“I don’t know what to say either,” Dylan responds.
On Tuesday night, though, it turned out many New Haveners had a lot to say — and sing about — in the name of their hero.
Gorman Bechard, co-founder and co-director of the four-year-old film festival, introduced the night’s proceedings. He mentioned that part of a documentary about Pennebaker himself, who Bechard described as “the Hitchcock of documentarians,” was being filmed at Cafe Nine as he spoke.
The film portion of the evening began with Daybreak Express, a 5 minute short film (and Pennabaker’s first) from 1953 of elevated subway that used to run along 3rd Avenue in Manhattan, accompanied by a Duke Ellington tune of the same name. 65 Revisited was then played in its entirety followed by an alternate take on Dylan’s and Pennebaker’s iconic piece for the song “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”
65 Revisited itself is made up of outtakes from Don’t Look Back, Pennebaker’s seminal documentary originally released in 1967 that followed Dylan and friends around the UK for his 1965 tour. This film, released in 2007, includes more behind-the-scenes tour moments as well as some musical performances never seen before its release. It captures Dylan at some of his most endearing moments interacting with fans as well as performing in hotel rooms with Joan Baez and on his own at a piano. Audience members were held captive by the screening and often sang along with some of Dylan’s most memorable pieces.
Once the film was over, the musical tribute began. Led by Dean Falcone, who often collaborates with Bechard for music for his documentaries, a band composed of Falcone on guitar, Shellye Valauskas on guitar (who also sang “I’ll Keep It”), Rich Mealey on keyboard (who also sang “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Subterranean Homesick Blues”), Jim Balga on drums, Rich Dart on percussion, and Brian Stevens (who sang “Please Crawl Out Your Window” and “Tangled Up in Blue”) on guitar, bass, and harmonica, backed up a parade of New Haven-area vocalists and musicians who each had their own take on a Dylan tune from between the years of 1965 and 1975. Falcone reported that this tribute was based on his annual Vomatorium show held the night before Thanksgiving.
The first set including two songs by Frank Critelli: a rousing version of “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” that had Critelli urging the audience along with him as if a preacher of the Gospel of Bob, as well as the verse-heavy but lyrically rich “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” which found Critelli needing a moment to move his lyric sheets but commanding the audience to “not move” while he readjusted and reconnected with the flow of the poetry. The audience readily obliged.
Lys Guillorn brought her trademark passionate vocals and guitar to “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” and Roger Reale of The Manchurians also brought his own kind of passion to Outlaw Blues, emitting a deep, almost growling delivery of the tune while the band picked up the beat and met him musically. On Steve Atwood’s takes on “My Back Pages” and “You Ain’t Going Nowhere,” Falcone’s signature guitar style shone through. Brendan Toller, a musician and documentary filmmaker in his own right, joined the band for two songs and brought a lightness and joy to “Just Like Tom Thumb” and “Tonight I’ll Be Staying,” smiling and swaying throughout both pieces. Paul Belbusti of Mercy Choir delivered a powerful version of “Ballad of a Thin Man,” punctuated by his signature intensity both musically and vocally, which brought a rousing response from both the audience and his fellow musicians.
The second set began with Dave Schneider of The Zambonis singing “You Go Your Way, I’ll Go Mine” and “Absolutely Sweet Marie.” He bantered with the audience before, during, and after each song and acknowledging Falcone’s organization of the event and arranging of the music. He joked that he would have felt bad about messing up his lyrics “if I was getting paid.”
Peter Kardis noted before performing his cover of “As I Went Out One Morning” that Schneider had been the only one there who had actually met Dylan, though reportedly it was a not-so-congenial encounter. He was joined by another Peter on harmonica, who he introduced by saying “I just met him on the sidewalk.”
The second set also included more splendid takes on Dylan by Sal Paradise on “She Belongs to Me,” Richard Cianflone on “Positively 4th Street,” and Mike Foster on “If Not For You,” with Peter once again coming up and joining the band on harmonica. The final non-group performance of the night also brought the now smaller crowd to its highest participation level of the evening thus far for “Like a Rolling Stone,” performed with gusto by Tom Hughes, with almost everyone in the room joining in to sing the chorus.
The finale, which brought not only all the remaining performers to the stage but also other vocalists and musicians who were audience members but not on the bill, had everyone up there singing “Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35,” with the crowd again joining in. That was supposed to be the finale, but after it ended, drummer Balga began to play the opening beat of “Rock and Roll” by Led Zeppelin, and the band and other performers were then encouraged to perform the song in its entirety — which they did, much to the delight of the crowd and themselves. Falcone ended the night by joking “that was my favorite Dylan song” and by thanking everyone for their participation.
Perhaps Dylan himself would have been just as happy as everyone else was with his own tribute having a Led Zeppelin cover as an encore. The day before the event, his long-awaited Nobel Prize lecture was finally released to the public. In that speech, he said, “if a song moves you, that’s all that’s important.”
The New Haven Documentary Film Festival runs through Sunday, June 11. Click here for more information about films and locations.