BOB DYLAN: THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 5: THE ROLLING THUNDER REVIEW (1975; 2002)
1) Tonight I'll Be Staying
Here With You; 2) It Ain't Me Babe; 3) A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall; 4) The
Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll; 5) Romance In Durango; 6) Isis; 7) Mr. Tambourine
Man; 8) Simple Twist Of Fate; 9) Blowin' In The Wind; 10) Mama You Been On My
Mind; 11) I Shall Be Released; 12) It's All Over Now Baby Blue; 13) Love Minus
Zero/No Limit; 14) Tangled Up In Blue; 15) The Water Is Wide; 16) It Takes A
Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry; 17) Oh Sister; 18) Hurricane; 19) One
More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below); 20) Sara; 21) Just Like A Woman; 22)
Knockin' On Heaven's Door.
With the predictably warm reception organised
for Live 1966, it was only natural
that the subsequent evolution of The
Bootleg Series would focus on live Dylan some more. But what would be the
right period? On stage, the man evolved and recreated himself in different
images even more radically than in the studio, so it must have been a tough
choice to make — yet the compilers of the series managed to make exactly the
right one. An uplifted, hyper-energetic, crowd-defying Dylan in the 1960s could
only be matched by an uplifted, hyper-energetic, crowd-defying Dylan in the
1970s, and no moment in time could be more right than the first leg of The
Rolling Thunder Revue, played out in the last two months of 1975.
We already had us Hard Rain from the second
leg of the tour — recorded and released in 1976, after Desire had already come out — and it was a live album that was
nowhere near as bad as its original reputation goes, but for quite a long time,
there was nothing to compare it to (unless you were there in the first place or
collected bootlegs). Live 1975 set
out to remedy that omission, putting together a coherent, but mixed set of 22
numbers from five different shows, played at various locations in New England
and in Montreal.
Some people complained about the album being a
mix rather than a single complete show, and it is true that multiple fadeouts
are a turn-off for those who want to feel themselves as part of the audience —
yet it is also true that the tour, due to its spontaneous and chaotic nature,
was uneven, and the compilers obviously did not want us to sit through
particularly sloppy stuff, choosing instead the best of the best. So yeah, there
is a touch of «fakeness» to the album in its historical function, but then let
us not forget that many «regular» live albums are sewn together just like that
in the first place, and that most of the «regular» Dylan lovers have no need to
hear inferior versions of Dylan classics when they can easily have superior
versions.
Anyway, what's so special about Live 1975 and why have so many people
hastened to declare it the greatest live Dylan album on Earth? (And I count
myself among these people every now and then — although, since no two live
Dylan albums sound the same way, making a choice here is only a good way to
kill some time). In a way, The Rolling Thunder Revue was an attempt to fight
time and fate itself. In an era that was beginning to be more and more dominated
by corporate ventures, pre-planned, well-calculated commercial tours, meticulously
worked out market strategies, etc., Bob suddenly felt tremendous nostalgia for
the era of Woodstock and Festival Express — nostalgia all the more fueled by
the fact that he himself had pretty much missed out on in its heyday — and
decided to single-handedly «bring it all back home». Of course, in order to
turn back time you had to be a Bob Dylan, and even then, you could reopen that
door for only a few minutes, but, luckily, somebody had time to thrust a few
mikes in the opening, and preserve that little time trip for posterity. At
least in audio form. (Video footage was shot for Dylan's 4-hour experimental
movie Renaldo And Clara, panned by
the critics for its clumsy avantgarde pretense and shelved for posterity,
although a few bits have been mercifully released for viewers on a bonus DVD
that came together with the first pressings of Live 1975).
The original atmosphere of the Revue is mostly
felt in this music when you realize how many people there are onstage —
approximately a dozen musicians playing together with Bob, including not only
understandable superstar choices like Roger McGuinn and Joan Baez (who, like in
the old times, duets with Bob on four of the songs), but also completely
out-of-the-blue characters like Mick Ronson: if you thought the former «Spider
from Mars» would be the least likely choice for a Bob Dylan sideman, think
again — there are no musicians who
couldn't step into the shoes of a Bob Dylan sideman, period, because Bob Dylan
is... well, adaptable. With a crowd
like that, chaos is inevitable, and there is some, but not too much: Dylan's
songs are so flexible, and so easily stretch in any direction, that messing
them up is dang near impossible as long as Dylan himself is inspired and
interested.
And he is clearly inspired. The choice of
ʽTonight I'll Be Staying Here With Youʼ, formerly a pleasant, but minor country
ditty on Nashville Skyline, as the
album opener is perfect — not only do its lyrics perform a welcoming function
in a most original manner, but the song itself is reinvented as a loud,
bombastic roots-rock anthem that promises a brand new start in life. The opening
line — "throw my ticket in the wind!" — just cuts through the air
like a samurai sword, prompting a cheerful response from the audience. Of
course, Bob has completely rewritten the lyrics (more for fun than anything else
— why the heck should "throw my suitcase out there too" become
"throw my mattress out there
too"?), restructured the melody, and turned the song from a settle-down
decision into a ceremonial pledge of honor, but isn't that just what we mean by
saying «the song lives on»? Let's
hear it one more time for musical evolution.
Bob shouts a lot throughout the album, much
like he did on his Before The Flood
tour, but he does not do it all the time, so that the music is not reduced to a
monotonous arena-rock buzz. The most questionable decision was probably to
reinvent ʽHard Rainʼ as a martial rock stomper which is now more melodically
similar to ʽHighway 61 Revisitedʼ than to its troubadourish origins — but it is
still fun to hear it trod along that way. On the other hand, ʽIt Ain't Me Babeʼ
works great in its sped up version, making Bob sound cooler than ever in his
anti-heroic poise; and the resurrected ʽLonesome Death Of Hattie Carrollʼ now
laments the lonesome death in near-symphonic format without losing the mournful
spirit of the song.
Most importantly, Live 1975 is probably the one live Dylan album on which his «human»
side opens up to us better than anywhere else. Not only was he totally inspired
by what he was doing, but he also happened to be going through some turbulent
rough shit at the time (specifically with his marriage on the brink of
collapsing), and while he is on that stage, it never feels like he is «playing
a character», as he usually does. It may have been the one tour on which he was
wearing a real physical mask (white clownish
paint, probably to match the spirit of Children
Of Paradise, a movie to which Renaldo
And Clara paid heavy tribute), but, paradoxically, the singing seems to
come straight from the heart this time around — and you can most clearly notice
it on the acoustic sub-set. Listen to this ʽMr. Tambourine Manʼ: he sounds
nervous, agitated, eager to let it all out without any stage mannerisms or specially
conjured poetic trances. Listen to this ʽSimple Twist Of Fateʼ: it does not
hold a candle to the studio original, but that is because in the studio
original Bob played the part of a sympathetic wise onlooker, an experienced
Buddhist master contemplating the young folks, whereas here he jumps right in
the fray as if he were part of the story — losing subtlety, but gaining in
urgence.
This intense combination — Dylan in his most
disturbed and exuberant state, caught in a rare moment of opening up; and this
huge band, fueled by the man's energy and buzzing around like a swarm of
roots-rock-hungry bees with their slide guitars, dobros, mandolins, and violins
— ensures that the album never gets boring, not for a second. Echoes of the
past pursue the performer in the guise of an occasional listener shouting «play
a protest song!» («here's one for you», Bob replies as the band goes into ʽOh
Sisterʼ), but then what else would you expect from an old fan who has just
witnessed his idol crooning out ʽMama You Been On My Mindʼ with Joan Baez like
it were 1964 all over again? And, actually, Bob does protest songs, old as well as new: ʽHurricaneʼ, performed
very close to the studio recording because the tune was brand new at the time,
is presented together with a plea to the audience for help — "if you got
any political pull at all, maybe you can help us get this man out of jail".
So, in a way, we do go ten years back
in the past here: never ever again would Bob sound so rejuvenated.
It does get darker towards the end, where there
is a streak of four numbers in a row from Desire
that culminate in a particularly sinister, bass-heavy rendition of ʽOne More
Cup Of Coffeeʼ and a creepily personal rendition of ʽSaraʼ, a song that, as it
turns out, Bob was not afraid to perform in front of a live audience. But the
darkness is still chased away at the end, as all the band gathers round the
campfire to sing a spirit-lifting rendition of ʽKnockin' On Heaven's Doorʼ (one
verse is gracefully given over to McGuinn, whose angelic vocal tone suits the
song so well) — and then ends the show with a little happy country jig as Bob
announces, traveling-circus-style, that "we'll be in the area for a few
days, maybe we'll see you tomorrow night!" Yes, tension and trouble aside,
it was quite a merry-go-round.
It was also the last time that Bob would get so
friendly: for the tour, he got together with many old friends, only to part
ways with them completely once depression and disillusionment got the better of
him by early 1976, and never again would a live Bob Dylan show have this sort
of camaraderie attitude (certainly this was the last tour on which the
Dylan/Baez connection was still seen to work — on the 1984 tour, Joan was only
used as an opening act, and quit midway through in protest). In short, this was
a unique event from just so many sides — technical, emotional, historical,
cultural — and Live 1975 captures and
bottles its essence to perfection. «Legendary» baggage aside, it deserves to
be soaked in every bit as much as Live
1966, and as I am giving it out the obligatory thumbs up, I seem to understand that
I have actually listened to it quite a few times more than to Live 1966.
It might be, of course, that I am at heart just a bigger fan of Mick Ronson
than of Robbie Robertson, but who knows?
Check "Live 1975" (CD) on Amazon
"So yeah, there is a touch of «fakeness» to the album in its historical function"
ReplyDeleteWhile I had promised not to comment anymore I'll make an exception here, because I have to defend BD this time or rather the record company. Made in Japan is taken from three shows. Live in Germany from three or four. How the West was Won from two. Side One of Rory Gallagher's BBC-sessions from a gazillion. Nobody cares.
The question is not of "fakeness", but how well the different shows merge. I the result coherent? Then I don't have a problem. Kudo's if an artist records a live performance and it's a total gas from beginning to end. But I think we should judge any artist on his best output. We don't dismiss Mozart for his early childish symphonies either, do we?
"In an era that was beginning to be more and more dominated by ...."
The keyword here is "beginning", with Pink Floyd being a main culprit. But even in the 2nd half of the 70's there were still enough bands upholding the old values: Rainbow, Rory Gallagher and Status Quo all earned a reputation for their exciting live shows based on music alone. Let's not forget the punkbands either. BD was absolutely not the only one (not that you argue this).
You should definitely watch the Rolling Thunder Revue documentary on Netflix. It takes some liberties (stating that Bob got the white face paint from Kiss when he actually got it from old theater acts) but it's definitely worth checking out.
ReplyDelete