No Crows

But the Wallflowers fill the breach

by Matt Ashare

The times, to borrow a particularly hallowed phrase from the annals of rock history, are a-changin'. And, despite what you may have heard about electronica's distorting the face of modern music, it's retro-leaning mainstream rockers who have the most reason to be smiling right now. Nineteen-ninety-seven is turning out to be the year of the once hippie-leaning H.O.R.D.E. tour and the singer/songwriter-led Lilith Fair, not the alterna-rock blowout Lollapalooza; the year of VH-1, not MTV; the year of Jewel playing Joni Mitchell to the Wallflowers' Rolling Thunder Review at the top of the Billboard charts. And you could almost feel the momentum shifting in favor of old-fashioned American rock values last Sunday night at Great Woods when, faced with a last-minute cancellation by the Counting Crows, the Jakob Dylan-led Wallflowers stepped up from their opening slot to headline the first of a two-night stand.

It would be an understatement to say this was an unusual situation. I can't remember when a headlining band pulled out of an arena-size concert and the show still went on as planned. But the past few months have seen the Wallflowers emerge as a national phenomenon of sorts, as something more than just mainstream hitmakers or an overnight success, as something along the lines of an instant rock institution. Of course, some of that has to do with the fact that Dylan's father is a bona fide rock institution, so there's history behind Jakob's sudden ascent. But Sunday night's show offered proof that Jakob Dylan is more than ready to shoulder not just the burden of being Bob Dylan's son but the weight of leading a band to the top of the pops.

For the record, the Counting Crows cancelled after a doctor warned singer Adam Duritz that he needed to rest his voice for four days or risk permanent damage to his vocal cords. Ticketholders were offered refunds to the sold-out Sunday concert and the Monday show (for which tickets remained available). Although no official attendance numbers were given out, it looked as if a little over half of the people who had bought tickets showed up Sunday to see the Wallflowers and opening band Bettie Serveert without Counting Crows. Which is impressive.

"Bow down to the band on the cover/We've seen them make it all across the USA," sang Bettie Serveert's Carol van Dijk in one of the more buoyant moments of the Dutch foursome's opening set. The song, "Rudder," might as well have been addressed to the Wallflowers, who were greeted with a rousing and reverent response from the audience when they emerged dressed all in black a few minutes before 9 p.m. with the Stones' "Emotional Rescue" playing in the background. It's not often that an artist whose mug shot has recently graced the cover of Rolling Stone and whose songs ("The Difference," "One Headlight," and "6th Avenue Heartache," from the Interscope disc Bringing Down the Horse) are in heavy rotation on radio stations in every major American city can come off as an underdog. But the circumstances were on Jakob Dylan's side, and from the start of what turned out to be an hour-and-45-minute set from the Wallflowers he maintained the poise of someone unassumingly rising to the occasion.

"We really didn't know what was going to happen tonight," he admitted sheepishly when, three songs into the set, he finally spoke. A few minutes later he stopped to explain that Wallflowers keyboardist Rami Jaffee was off on "paternity leave," and that Counting Crows organ/piano man Charlie Gillingham was filling in on short notice. The rootsy heartland rock of the Wallflowers was right up Gillingham's alley, and he had no problem meshing his Garth Hudson-style Hammond fills with Wallflower Michael Ward's Robbie Robertson-like guitar moves. And just in case you didn't pick up on the hint of Dylan-fronting-the-Band, they made it loud and clear by peppering a set that featured most of Bringing Down the Horse with solid if not quite swinging covers of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and "The Weight."

More than the Band or even his father, Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers brought to mind another group his dad once toured with -- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The young Dylan is like Petty in that his best tunes have an edge and an intelligence that aren't always standard in the realm of rootsy AOR. And the Wallflowers' lesser tunes are generally well crafted enough for a crack band to dig into. So, to borrow what may well turn out to be another hallowed verse in the future, the only thing different that I could see was that things have turned out to be exactly the same as they used to be.