The connection Audience-Dylan comes from afar. It would be 2009 or 2010 when in a live show at Kafe Antzokia they launched a splendid “Hurricane”, which he confessed would be one of the motivations for starting up “Izar & Star”. Then they were among the first to be invited to the cycle, but for management reasons they had to appear with their parallel group Young Talent Show (June 2011), for a concert at the Campos Theater Dome with Bob Dylan himself, plus Neil Young, as chosen inspirations. Also around that time those from Gernika coincided with those from Duluth in a Last Rock Festivalwhere they repeated their version and were also able to hand-deliver a copy of their album to their manager “A shake in calm water” (2009).
But the origin of this album is different. One of the consequences of Zimmerman’s 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great North American tradition of song,” is that his work is translated into numerous languages, and Euskera was fortunately included there. After Xabier Paya publishes “100 songs” (Elkar, 2021) already Audience The Dylanite door opens again when he finds that the bertsolari and popularizer from Getxo has respected the meter and rhyme in Basque, so it was a matter of choosing nine of those hundred translated songs and fitting them into his melodies. Two months later, the quintet (Ager Insunza, Gaizka Insunza, Andoni Lauzirika, Ruben Garatea and Kepa Elgoibar) recorded the master over a weekend, November 5 and 6, 2022, live with José Lastra at the Tío Pete studios. by Urduliz. To coincide now with its vinyl release, plus a gift CD, with the complete reissue of the “At the Budokan 1978” and also with Cat Power and their re-reading of the 1966 concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
The review opens with “Mendian trumoia” (“Thunder on the mountain”, first of “Modern times”2006). Audience faithful to the rhythm of the song, that syncopated trot between blues and country-rock, but where Dylan’s hoarse voice, Ager contrasts his usual sweetness. Gaizka takes over on “Eusi jasa latza dator” (“A hard rain’s gonna fall” from “The freewhelin’”, 1963), in a nervous reading, totally electric and very much in line with the previous one with the presence of an organ that already refers to a later Dylan, Thunder Review era. With “Gazte betiko” (“Forever young”, by “Planet waves”, 1974), the band calms down with the pedal steel and Ager softens the original “slow version” even more. In “Positiboki 4. kalea” (“Positively 4th street”, 1965) we respect that Dylan who blends harmony and psychedelic groove like no one else, although the Bizkaians place the organ in an omnipresent foreground, in one of the clear successes of the disk.
Side B of the vinyl begins with “Dena hautsi da hemen” (“Everything is broken”, by “Oh Mercy” 1989), one of those blues with a swampy background that has so conquered Zimmerman’s heart, and that Audience makes its own by injecting a mysterious jazzy piano-bar framework, in what sometimes seems like a transfusion of Itoiz. “Garaiak aldatzen batira” (“The times they are changin’, from the 1964 album of the same name) acquires more electric consistency without sparing the harmonica. An instrument that stands out in “Iparraldeko neska” (“Girl from the North Country” from “The freewhelin’“), in an adaptation that strips away the folk original to give it a more pop/swing feel. “Ez hoa inora” (“You ain’t goin’ nowhere”, 1967) returns to the placid and canonical country with pedal steel, paying more attention to the reading of The Byrds. Finally “Zeruko atea joz” (“Knocking on heaven’s door” by “Pat Garret & Billy The Kid”, 1973), emulates its twilight atmosphere with heavenly choruses and that emphasized chorus. In short, a more than correct and satisfactory work, although there may also be a lack of greater daring and general cohesion of the album, in correlation to Dylan’s own career. Most likely his concerts at Azoka in Durango or the next one on January 4 at Kafe Antzokia in Bilbao will be good opportunities to degrease the arduous task.
Bob Dylan berrikusia by Audience