BOOTLEGGIN' ZIMMERMAN: NOTES FROM THE FREEWHEELIN' THEFT
(bootleg casings by Charles)
I have a close friend, Charles, who loves Bob Dylan and is glued to his touring schedule like most executives are to the stock-report. Every now and then he'll write saying he's just been delivered a cool show, or attended one the other night, and is ready to send it my way, and since we have different takes on Dylan, it always makes for good chat. The other morning, even, he sent me a package full of these bootlegs spread over two decades and knew I had to share 'em with everyone. Playing two or three a night, I'd take some notes on what was going down:
6-16-91; STUTTGART-- No way, two days after my birthday and Dylan's somewhere performing "Lay Lady Lay" in a wacky, unrecognizable version-- far out. He seems like he doesn't wanna sing the phrases, and already, while critics are declaring him a burn-out, is developing that ol' way of singing where he shuffles to the end of the verse and explodes in a comical Scooby-doo-wee-doo! high note. Right before riding into "Leopard Skin Pill-box Hat", he goes: Hey, anybody into fashion? You know, like, clothes? The audience looks at one another. He's in a good place-- World Gone Wrong era (his last true album)-- his voice is crisp-- the band's pretty cool-- on the verge of the Hank Williams get-up and a few years before he whiskers out the Vincent Price look and chases Katie Holmes in the video for The Wonder Boys. Ahh, the show's fine, especially when slicing out four straight acoustic cuts like Ramblin' Jack Elliot, a wrenching "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", and "Knockin' On Heaven's Door", saying beforehand, Anybody know where heaven is? It's near Chicago. And though the outskirts of the windy city are an industrial bomb, I got the feeling we were all angels.
7-7-96, PISTORA, ITALY-- "Tangled Up In Blue" has cloned itself since 1974 and the best version-- and it's a fact-- is on Blood On the Tracks. All the shows post the Rolling Thunder made the song sound like oatmeal, and twenty years later here in Italy, it's strummed along a six minute mandolin/harmonica solo. Hell, playing the song in Merida in July of '93, it's like something the Saturday Night Live band would play if Steve Martin walked out, while two months later, again, completely different. He divides this set between long acoustic portraits of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall", returning to tub-thumping rock, which in this gig, is more Tex-mex than usual. Thanks everybody, is the most Dylan says, and crunches into "Ballad of A Thin Man", all JJ Jackson funked-up, and not until the Mr. Jones organ-part, do we grasp its primal meaning. I've listened to this a few times now and find it pretty lonely. Under a twelve-minute "It Ain't Me Babe" (which begins like "Girl From The North Country"), it appears Dylan's sick of being some hero, and instead, lays back, reversing the set-list into a jam-session like The Dead tour without The Dead, ending with "Rainy Day Woman" barely singing a word. And you know, I started to miss him.
NYC, 1991, BOBFEST-- Oh yes, his 30th Anniversary show, what a bang (I had to include this). An arena filled with loyal Bob fans (hehe) in the year-of-Kristoferson and getting hit in the head with John Mellancamp's psychotic version of "Like A Rolling Stone". While this was cool watching on video with my parents a million times while growing up, I'm suspicious of it now. Sure, Eddy Vedder, Johnny Winter, Lou Reed, and Ron Wood were all dandy, but if you noticed, midway, when the camera swung down, catching Sinead O'Connor walk out, everything went wrong. The whole crowd resorted to the heat of a Celtics game at overtime in some Irish pub: SHE'S A WOMAN! SHAVED HEAD!! A DYKE!!! SHE TORE THE POPE UP ON SNL!!! EVERYBODY MUST GET STONED!!! She takes it before spitting it all back and screaming Bob Marley's "War" (yes!!!). An hour later, Dylan appears to blow his candles out, clearly pissed, and begins "Song To Woody", a tune that got it all wheeling, now peering out at his so-called fans, treating thirty years of inspiration (Sinead) as the village idiot. It wouldn't be until I heard this next concert, that I'd realize...
11-26-79, TEMPE, ARIZONA-- It sure is a muddy recording, but a classic. Slow Train Coming time. Back-up singers and the aftermath of Rolling Thunder and the holy-jellyroll Jesus. I recommend this show, and the whole time itself, as a doctrine to people studying Dylan. The audience is like a frat-house on fire and ain't chewing his new-found faith with any salt. Opening with "Gotta Serve Somebody", after two songs, Dylan looks up, You know how to be real rude. You know about the spirit of the Antichrist? (Oh no, they think:) ROCK N' ROLL! FUCK YEA! He continues with a religious story about a Guru. Shut that guy up, a girl yells. Oh, you can get rock 'n roll, he says, you can go down and listen to K-I-S-S. They don't like it and Dylan orders the white lights be centered on the whole lot.There's two types of people, he adds, Saved people and Lost people. May-day. Some ten songs later he starts the gospel again, this time warning Jesus will rise very soon and all you college kids better be paying a good tuition, 'cuz Russia's gonna invade the Middle East and Babylon will explode. Yeah, I told you the times were changing, he chuckles at a kid, I told you that twenty years ago! All the while the tambourine player jangling.
8-20-97, PHILADELPHIA-- On the verge of the Love & Theft swamp, he covers here a variety of cuts off Blood On the Tracks in versions you swear tin-soldiers played. This is a year after I saw Dylan with my folks, and though I was pretty young, could make out a few things from the balcony over the stage. One, Dylan then, was touring with a rockin-roar band, emerging from years of obscurity, Reagan, Jesus, and Empire Burlesque to bask in a new morning; no longer at a stand-off with his audience, playing Woodstock '94, and capable of dishing out any damn thing he wished. Tonight in Philly, as the crowd requests forty years of material, I recall Time Out of Mind, a grandfather clock unwinding an aging sixties with three generations now reflecting their own interpretations to the image they had heard in the anthems of these chords and cries. Ticking away. "Forever Young".
11-25-03, BRIXTON ACADEMY-- Where was I on this night? Who knows. But somewhere thousands of people were being levitated by "Blind Willy McTell"-- the ballad of the 2003 tour-- and Dylan's voice like razors in a vacuum cleaner. My friend personally remastered these sounds in his own traveling lab so I knew they'd be a strong mix (never mind his UK shows this past year are rumored to be the richest stuff he's put out so far). They open with the galloping strings of Leonard Bernstein's "Candid", where a jolly announcer thunders on, prepping everyone like those old Bulls games when Jordan ruled the court, but now it's Dylan. Of course, he ain't touching guitars anymore, and instead, surfs the stage like a marionette on a coffin-long keyboard, and depending the mood, will haul his lizard-band (way better live than on record) into Love & Theft's territory of boogie-rockaholism. Even though I can't make out a damn word he says and everybody wants Highway 61 a hundred times over anyway, and "Boots of Spanish Leather" just, well, sucks. This show works, mostly due to his insane harmonica solo on "Tangled Up In Blue". Dylan's been a full-time entertainer since '75, and really, I have no clue-- short of a million bucks-- how he stays alive pumping out "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" night after night. Well, maybe I do now.
9-11-93, JONES BEACH-- September of '93 was a very good year for Jones Beach, mainly because a lotta people hopped aboard to hear Dylan in a vessel of hot rockabilly; a transition from two months before when he was opening up with an accordion. We're in "Dignity" era, accompanied by his ferocious drummer at the time (Winston Watson), who beat the hell out of everything but the portable fan that barely kept him cool. The crowd sounds as though they've been playing tag with Dylan since '65 as "Along the Watchtower" erupts in electrocution and "Desolation Row" later simmers in new phrasing that animates the song. "You're A Big Girl Now" is easily one of my favorite Dylan tracks, but the posturing here is totally out of harmony and totally stupid and should be alone. Still, it's a prime period-- people went home humming "Just Like A Woman" and Dylan is climbing the rope with his older songs-- though not interacting much with the audience, making me wonder where he thinks he is. Heaven? His dressing-room? How many times has he done this? Is he Dick Tracy? Were you at this show?
7-7-92, MERANO-- Wow, you're still reading this? Since we've come this far, I gotta say this one didn't cut it, sorry. I love Bob like anyone else, but am honest enough to admit when he puts on a show like the remnants of a chicken-coop after a fox trotted through. What makes a good Dylan concert anyway? Jesus, there's been so many we should know by now-- a loud P.A? Hot girls in the front row? When his harmonica holder works? Well, it certainly ain't "Maggie's Farm" shredded from the inside out, nor his voice lost in wheezes. An eight-minute ride of "Mr. Tambourine Man" is heard here, perking the audience up a bit who seemed out to lunch with his true-loved "Girl From the North Country"-- a ballad which has grown wings along the open experience of his shows. As to the rest, I'm not sure what happened; Dylan seems weak, like his band's kidnapped him and is holding him hostage until he dashes out another three-song encore, closing with "Blowin' in the Wind" with the crowd chanting the chorus like ocean waves on a calm night...but not really there.
7-1-78, GERMANY-- Although we're suppose to be in Germany, there's a lotta Texan accents surrounding whoever recorded this. How did they get here? They vanish, though, when Dylan raps into a fiddle/guitar duet of "Tangled Up In Blue", saying beforehand that "Shelter From the Storm" is the story of my life; talking in an itch of rhymes and rants. He's been performing like a madman for five months now, between periods of his hillbilly-glam in Desire and the born-again insanity he would soon cope with when returning to L.A. in December for a Bible-group. These performances can be so bizarre and rockin', they're almost like a confused Kenny Rogers gig opening for David Bowie. Our show covers his Baroque period of whistles and cheese-saxophones, bleeding on "I Shall Be Released" like crash-test-dummies and exploding as he invites his singers to sing Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" midway. As I can't stomach most of these whacked-out polka versions, Dylan's obviously exploring the furnace between his legacy and translation in a land where the Berlin Wall still staggers. All deaf bastards sit down! someone yells. And then we all realize "One More Cup of Coffee" has conga-drums and, oh god, here comes "Blowin' In The Wind" in slow-motion. Dylan stands confident in the blaze, not yet baptizing, but jiving with the audience while rewriting his musical memoir in tunes of glory...er, or something. Maybe he's just stoned.
5-9-03, ATLANTIC CITY CASINO-- Speak up, how many of you baby-boomers ever thought Dylan would be playing in a casino? This concert is yet another splice of his past work, proving that no matter how much money he rakes in, anybody can sing a Bob tune, 'cuz hell, Bob can do 'em worse and better than anybody! This whole Love & Theft era/tour is an interesting one-- he might be more of a social outcast than ever before, writing secluded reflections, not of events, but of random thoughts from a man who's still forced to open with "Maggie's Farm". Tonight, everyone's winning a jackpot-- Dylan howls for the shadows of a blues singer and the band snakes its crying-guitar gator-rock, buffing out the drifterism of "Things Have Changed" and, of course, "Highway 61" (which, golden rule, has gotta be blasted, otherwise, well, you just won't understand). The crowd's all pretty young, just in the way they beckon "Dillaan", loved-up next to more unusual tarts like "Dignity" (his disco-folk song!), and overall, hugs his rock 'n roll side rather than the juke-ballads. Eleven songs into it, he introduces the band, claiming, I'm not playing my guitar, it's-out-of-tuuune, soon to have Larry Campbell add a grunge-riff to "Along The Watchtower", leaving everyone screaming mercy as Dylan walks off. After an hour his voice does split open like a cross between the Chipmunks and Wolfman Jack-- but it's cool. The tape ends, and the last I heard, all those people were still there. Someone must've won a million dollars that night, the rock was too good.
VARIOUS 2001, MARCH-NOVEMBER-- I was just going through the drawers of my desk searching for more bootlegs that I might've missed, and found this compilation Charles gave me awhile back. God, how did I forget this? These are a variety of hot tracks spread over the fountain of his 2001 tour, covering the identity of the Millennium set-list, rising in places like Tokyo, Seattle, and Liverpool-- damn! It's a ten song selection of Dylan at a fever-breakin' fahrenheit, surrounding the release of Love & Theft, and tooling around with the eternity of his older tunes. Hearing the August 18th show of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in Pueblo I found myself rolling on the floor laughing: Dylan sings it without any of the original empathy, creating an odd melody and hesitation between all the instruments like a ride on an eight-minute ferris-wheel. After much debate, I've decided "Lay Lady Lay" is his strongest mirror into the past and present, which awakens in a Wichita show as a tight, weeping production with his attempt to both redefine his songs and preserve their quality. A great cut, always has been. In November, he acoustically played "Mama, You Been On My Mind" in Portland, resembling Dylan trying to spiral back into a Greenwich singer, finishing like most of these shows you've read about, with huffing harmonica solos and a lot of big-pink fiddling. I find it hard to believe Larry Campbell and Charlie Sexton never fall flat on their faces playing these songs every night...maybe they do. Is that what I heard? No, that was just me humming somewhere between Seattle and Liverpool. Lorrach to Perugia. The freewheelin' theft.
To be continued (we promise)...
--Carson Arnold - February 27th, 2004
copyright 2004 Carson Arnold
H(ear) is an online music column consisting of interviews, articles, and investigations written by Carson Arnold. As a freelance writer for various magazines and liner notes, living in the woods of Vermont with his family, Carson widely encourages one to submit their art, writing or any interesting piece of material that you would like to share. H(ear) is accepting both promos and demos for review or any other valuable music-related subjects. If you wish to make a comment or would like to receive H(ear) weekly by email please contact Carson at [email protected]
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