Bob Dylan, arguably the greatest songwriter of all time, is fast approaching the sixth decade of his career. In the ’60s and ’70s he was a folk balladeer, an obnoxious rock & roll revolutionary and everything in between. In the ’80s and ’90s he was hit or miss. But at the end of the century he turned a philosophical confrontation with his own mortality into a personal renaissance. Since then he’s released a slew of critically and commercially successful albums, claimed an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize, and appeared in a Super Bowl commercial. Tickets are sold out, but one Metro reader can win a pair at metroactive.com/giveaways.

Bob Dylan
Mon, 7:30pm, Sold Out
Frost Amphitheater, Stanford

Bob Dylan is back on the road this summer, this time with Wilco and My Morning Jacket coming along for a show billed as the “Americanarama Festival of Music.”

The show kicks off June 26 in Florida and continues until its last stop at Shoreline Amphitheatre on August 4. Tickets go on sale May 4 at 10am.

Tour Dates:
6/26 West Palm Beach, FL – Cruzan Amphitheatre
6/27 Tampa, FL – Live Nation Amphitheatre
6/29 Atlanta, GA – Aaron’s Amphitheatre at Lakewood
6/30 Nashville, TN – The Lawn at Riverfront Park
7/02 Memphis, TN – AutoZone Park
7/05 Noblesville, IN – Klipsch Music Center
7/06 Cincinnati, OH – Riverbend Music Center
7/7 Columbus, OH – Nationwide Arena
7/10 St. Paul, MN – Midway Stadium
7/11 Peoria, IL – Chiefs Stadium
7/12 Chicago, IL – Toyota Park
7/14 Clarkston, MI – DTE Energy Music Theatre
7/15 Toronto, Ontario – Molson Canadian Amphitheatre
7/18 Darien Center, NY – Darien Lake Performing Arts Center
7/19 Bridgeport, CT – The Ballpark at Harbor Yard
7/20 Mansfield, MA – Comcast Center
7/21 Saratoga Springs, NY – Saratoga Performing Arts Center
7/23 Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion
7/24 Virginia Beach, VA – Farm Bureau Live at Virginia Beach
7/26 Hoboken, NJ – Pier A Park
7/27 Wantagh, NY – Nikon at Jones Beach Theater (My Morning Jacket does not perform)
7/28 Camden, NJ – SusquehannaBank Center
7/31 Denver, CO – Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre
8/01 Salt Lake City, UT – USANA Amphitheatre
8/03 Irvine, CA – Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
8/04 Mountain View, CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre

Bob Dylan

Wilco

My Morning Jacket

http://youtu.be/oPYQHQ4-kKo

“I got into music quite early,” says Lila Downs, the Grammy-winning singer/actress whose music blends traditional Mexican folk music, jazz, rock and soul—and who is one of the headliners for this year’s VivaFest! at HP Pavilion on September 16.

“According to my mother,” Downs says, “I started imitating traditional Mexican musicians, and also American musicians like Bob Dylan, when I was little. I went to school, and studied anthropology and voice. Then I dropped out of college and followed the Grateful Dead. That really brought me full circle to a whole other relationship with music—to the notion of community and a realization about how similar we really are as people.”

This eclectic start, Downs says, inspired her to approach music in the same way as the Dead and other jam bands, while incorporating themes from her multiethnic background: “I’m American and a Mexican at the same time, and Indian on top of that, from a native group called Mixtec. My grandma and my mom always spoke in their native language. That was also was cause for some discrimination in Mexico when I was growing up.”

Her latest album, Pecados y Milagros (Sins and Miracles) was released last fall, and is a bit of a departure from her previous efforts, but it was still hugely successful. The New York Times called it “sleek modern Mexican pop with a thrilling, chameleonic voice at its center,” and it debuted at number one on the Billboard Top Latin Albums.

Part of the appeal of the album, Downs believes, is that, as she’s matured, she’s tapped more deeply into her religious faith.

“I think as you get older, your music just kind of melts into what your trying to say,” Downs explains. “My writing isn’t so explicit anymore; it’s more about metaphor. Faith is a very unusual, amazing quality that humans have, and it comes in so many varieties and ways you can interpret it.
“For Mexicans, it’s a very particular interpretation with its Christian and Catholic iconography, but it’s not only that, it’s a belief in nature, of mystical spirits and the spirits of old revolutionaries and things like that. My mother even says to me, ‘Whoever you think is dead or has passed, put his [image] up on the altar, and we’ll ask for miracles.’”

She continues, “So it’s a very apocryphal kind of religion, and I find it very liberating in these times. Especially in Mexico, which has been going through a wave of violence for quite a while now. In these desperate times you tend to think a lot about God.”

Her faith isn’t without its beneficiaries. Downs has long been celebrated for her social activism. She is still eager to help make a difference in peoples’ lives.

As Rise Against have gone from scruffy Chicago punks to chart-topping mainstream hitmakers over the last decade, they’ve run into no end of blowback from early fans who think they should still be putting out minute-long blasts of hardcore for Fat Mike.

But one thing no one would dare talk smack about is their cred as crusaders. Vegan? Check. Straight-edge? Check. Angry at the Internet? Okay, I made that one up. Still, with their history of supporting indie culture and criticizing corporate greed, it should be no surprise that on their current tour they’ll be stopping in to sign at some local record stores, including San Jose’s own Streetlight Records. They’ll drop in the afternoon before their show at the San Jose State Event Center on April 17.

Tim McIlrath and company got their start as Transistor Revolt in the much-celebrated/criticized Chicago DIY scene of the late ’90s, before changing their name and getting signed to Fat Wreck Chords for their debut album, 2001’s The Unraveling. By 2004, they’d signed to a major label, and two years later they had a gold-certified, top 10 record in The Sufferer and the Witness. Those who had been chanting “sell out” since practically the beginning of the band’s existence were no doubt confused by the fact that The Sufferer and the Witness was far and away their best album, both musically and lyrically. They’ve found more to complain about on the records since, which have pushed the band further into the mainstream, with mixed results.

Interestingly, the band’s message hasn’t changed much, even as their music has. As activists, they’re as hardcore as ever. And their commitment to heavy subject matter is once again affirmed in their most recent release, a cover of Boy Dylan’s “Ballas of Hollis Brown” with an accompanying video that’s more documentary than music clip, packed with facts and figures about American poverty, economic injustice and insanely dangerous farm equipment.

Rise Against sign at Streetlight Records on April 17 at 4:30pm. Their show at San Jose State Event Center starts at 7pm that night, with A Day to Remember and Title Fight opening.

Click here to view the embedded video.