Arts & Entertainment
Happy Bobfest Mr. Zimmerman
Pat Guadagno and Tired Horses play all Bob Dylan for the annual Bobfest at the Two River Theater, marking 12 years for the annual show and the 70th birthday for the man from Hibbing, Minnesota.
Wednesday and Thursday the annual Bobfest, an all Bob Dylan show, came to the Two River Theater in Red Bank, headed up by its creator, Pat Guadango and his band, The Tired Horses. This year's show, the 12th, in what has become a Monmouth County tradition and sensation, also marked a milestone for the show's namesake. Bob Dylan turned 70 on the May 24, the second night of Bobfest.
The event started accidentally, as the Red Bank troubodour tells it. "Pat Nulle, God rest his soul, had a bar called The Downtown Café and I’ve been playing there since, Christ was a cowboy I guess," Guadagno said. "I was playing there one night and I started off, for no particular reason, with a couple of Bob Dylan songs and the bartender had mentioned it was birthday…there were five or six people in the bar, so I figured it would be good to see how many Bob Dylan songs I could do and I just started rattling them off till I had done a whole night of nothing but Dylan."
As a joke, the crowd there that night and Guadagno referred to it as Bobfest. The next year Guadagno repeated the feat and Bobfest went from lark to tradition.
"Five or six years later we moved to the Two River Theater," Guadagno added. This year, following years of sold out fests, Guadagno and Two River Theater decided to add a second night.
This year, to celebrate Dylan's big milestone birthday, Guadagno and his band of hand picked local musicians and singers, challenged themselves to play 70 Dylan songs over the two nights. "We're doing 70 for 70," he said, "Who's keeping track?" Indeed, through out the high energy, fast paced nights of extraordinary music, Guadagno completed song after song with his signature line, "That's a Bob Dylan song," and "What are we up to...are we almost at 70?"
The 70th song of the night, was there any doubt, was Forever Young. And although he wasn't in attendance at Bobfest, there was a palpable feeling that Dylan was in the house, certainly the spirit of the man was there and somewhere, wherever the birthday boy was, you got the sense that he was hearing, feeling Guadagno and all his Tired Horses.
And because Bobfest is as much an event for Dylan and Guadagno as it is for his band the Tired Horses, it is important to name and note them. They are as follows, Yuri Turchin on violin, Rene Wooley on drums, Andy McDonough on piano, accordion and trombone, Rich Oddo on electric guitar and vocals, Red River Rizzo on bass and vocals, Mary McCrink on vocals, Steve Delopoulos on acoustic guitar and vocals, Marc Muller on pedal steel, electric guitar, lap steel, mandolin and fiddle, with special guests Eryn Shewell, Patrick Rue, Peter Myers, Caroline Oddo, Richard Blackwell, Glen Burtnick and Aura Guadagno, Guadagno's daughter.
A few weeks prior to the show I asked Guadagno for his thoughts about the show. He admitted he doesn't have the chance to savor them as much as he'd like to, as much as his fellow musicians do, and certainly not as much as the sold out crowds that gathered for the two nights of Dylan only do. "I've got so much on my mind," Guadagno said, "that I don't enjoy them like I want to."
For the record, this year, it appeared that Guadagno was having the time of his life. He seemed to be marinating in the joy of the music and playing with friends and the excitement of the crowd. "Yeah," Gaudagno said, "I am getting better at enjoying the moment."
Happy Birthday Bob.
