The Heavyweight Summit

So how did it feel when Bob Dylan and Paul Simon teamed up for four songs Sunday at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim?

Put it this way: It was a nice gesture.

One of the frustrations of Dylan’s concerts last year with Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison was that the three Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members didn’t perform some songs together.

Dylan didn’t make the same mistake again--and the audience roared with delight when Simon walked on stage at the end of Dylan’s opening, 75-minute set for a historic summit meeting between two of the premier songwriters of the modern pop era.

The applause grew even louder as Dylan began picking out on acoustic guitar the notes of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sounds of Silence,” one of Simon’s ‘60s signature songs from a time when the two writers explored some of the same folk terrain. Simon then joined in on electric guitar, and the pop-rock veterans stepped to their microphones.

Unfortunately, Dylan is no Art Garfunkel when it comes to harmony singing. And Simon’s voice isn’t well-suited to the raw, country-blues style that Dylan prefers--as we learned when they followed “Silence” with versions of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” and Elvis Presley’s rockabilly arrangement of Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” The artists also failed to establish an emotional bond on Dylan’s plaintive “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”

Still, it was disarming seeing these two legendary pop figures together for the first time on stage in Southern California--and it would have been a major disappointment if they hadn’t built the 15-minute segment into the program.

In their own sets, however, Dylan and Simon were both spectacular in very different ways. The pair, who began their first-ever joint tour June 6 in Colorado, have been taking turns opening and closing--and Dylan went first Sunday, which means he’ll likely close tonight at the Hollywood Bowl.

To escape from the burden he felt in the ‘70s and ‘80s of being looked upon as the voice of a generation, Dylan has devoted most of the ‘90s, on record and in hundreds of concerts, to drastically revising the arrangements of many of his most famous songs. He also turned to some of the old country and blues tunes that initially inspired him.

And Dylan, who frequently seemed disoriented on stage in the ‘80s, has become an increasingly comfortable and effective performer in recent years--a trend that continued Sunday.

Wearing a chic Western suit and boots, Dylan looked like someone from the honky-tonk circuit that Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell played decades ago. During a half-hour acoustic sequence, his band played upright bass, pedal steel guitar and mandolin. Dylan opened with a gospel-edged Stanley Brothers tune from that era, and closed with a stylish version of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away.”

In between, Dylan played his own songs, bending them into arrangements that both held on to the spirit of early country and blues and extended it into a contemporary rock format that his own heroes surely never pictured.

He and the band turned “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” into a country waltz, and replaced the anger and accusation of “Like a Rolling Stone” with a far more tender and understanding edge. The version of 1963’s “Masters of War” carried the urgency of a news bulletin.

The high point was probably the sensitive rendition of “Not Dark Yet,” a life’s summation that was one of the centerpieces of Dylan’s stunning “Time Out of Mind,” which won a Grammy for 1997’s album of the year.

If Dylan’s music and four-piece band seemed tailored for honky-tonks, Simon’s natural home is the concert hall. He came on stage with nearly a dozen highly disciplined musicians, including drummer Steve Gadd and percussionists Jamey Haddad and Steve Shehan.

There were enough pieces of percussion on stage to fill a small museum--and their presence was felt throughout.

Ever since ending his partnership with Garfunkel in the early ‘70s, Simon has moved toward an increasingly sophisticated pop approach. Where Dylan finds his own musical Holy Grail in country and blues purity, Simon, who is equally uneasy with sticking to his ‘60s foundation, responds to an increasingly exotic mixture of sounds from various musical cultures.

To combat nostalgia tendencies, Simon opened with a percussion-heavy arrangement that turned his most famous tune, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” inside out.

Though a few years ago he tired of the concert-recording experience, his enthusiasm Sunday suggested that he has recaptured the joy of making music.

While he did reach back for such early tunes as “Mrs. Robinson” and “Slip Slidin’ Away,” he concentrated on material from the late ‘80s and later, including “The Boy in the Bubble” and the title tune from 1986’s landmark “Graceland.” And it was a joyous musical feast.

At the end, however, Simon set aside most of the exotic textures for a gentle rendition of 1975’s “Still Crazy After All These Years.” Though written as a bittersweet reflection on a failed relationship, in the context of the evening the song seemed to be a toast to all the artists who never listened when they were told that it was foolish to pursue the dream of spending your life making the music you love.

After all these years in the spotlight, Dylan and Simon are both clearly still living their own dreams--and touching audiences anew in the process.

*

* Bob Dylan and Paul Simon play tonight at the Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., 7:30 p.m. $25-$129. (323) 850-2000. Also Friday at Coors Amphitheatre, 2050 Otay Valley Road, Chula Vista, 7:30 p.m. $36.35-$91.35. (619) 671-3600.