Dylan at the Grammys V: "Cry a While," 2002

2002-02-27, Staples Center, Los Angeles, CA

"Cry a While" in 2002 may be Bob's forgotten Grammys performance. It came several years after he got Soy Bombed in his previous Grammys appearance and only one year after he performed on the Oscars, arguably an even more prestigious platform. Also, both those performances were tied to him actually winning the big awards. In 2002, Love & Theft lost (to the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack).

It's a shame this one gets overlooked, because it's a great performance. Like "Love Sick" in 1998, Bob gets a cool stage setup, although this time without the extras dancing in the background. Guess he'd learned his lesson. Instead, the "extras" are the band members themselves, projected via giant shadows that loomed ominously over the band as they performed in what looked like a giant cardboard terrarium. I liked this description in a letter someone wrote to the fanzine Judas:

In the middle of all that glossy Hollywood-style stage set someone had constructed what seemed to be the back end of somebody's garage. Or maybe it was the town jail: after all, we know the guy inside is an outlaw. Well whatever it was, it contained Bob Dylan, 'all boxed in, nowhere to escape'.

Interestingly, this setup may have been a last-minute decision. A report from the Grammy rehearsals the day before describes Bob's setup pretty differently: "The rock and roll elder statesman and his four-piece band performed under a mesh awning that resembled a massive mosquito net. Taking low-concept staging to stratospheric new heights, Dylan and company were illuminated by a single frosty white spotlight." 

Low-concept though the staging (or stagings) may have been, Bob actually stood out less in the Grammys than he did in other years. While plenty of younger artists performed - including the extremely 2002 combo of N'Sync featuring Nelly - Dylan was hardly alone in the "elder statesman" camp that year. U2 opened the show with "Walk On." Tony Bennett and Billy Joel did a duet. Emmylou Harris and Ralph Stanley anchored an O Brother performance. Honestly, Bob fit right in. He sounds positively modern next to Stanley singing "O Death."

"Cry a While" was not the obvious song choice. Not that "singles" really matter at this stage in a career, but it wasn't one of the promotional songs released to push Love & Theft (those were "Honest With Me," "Tweedle Dee," and "Mississippi"). Perhaps more important, it wasn't the one Love & Theft song actually nominated for a Grammy (again, "Honest with Me," which would lose "Best Male Rock Vocal Performance" to Lenny Kravitz's "Dig In"). It wasn’t even a song Bob performed much in concert; “Honest” and “Summer Days” led the pack there. But it fit the spooky setting, and Bob and the band sounded great.