Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live, 1966: The "Royal Albert Hall Concert"
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Free Music Notes for The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live, 1966: The "Royal Albert Hall Concert"
Free Music Review: The CD I always come back to
Hit: 5 Stars
This Album comes in a 2 disc case, and also comes with a huge booklet. The sound is incredible. This 2 disc set starts off with Bob Dylan, an acoustic guitar, and a harmonica. Then in disc 2 he comes back out with his band. I tend to listen to the second disc more often but disc 1 is also really great.
DISC 1: This disc I wasn't too happy with the first time I listened to it, but after a few more listens I started to get really into it. The highlights of this disc would have to be: Fourth Time Around, Visions of Johanna, Just Like a Woman, and Mr. Tambourine Man. The version of Mr. Tambourine Man on this disc is easily the best acoustic performance in this set. The only thing bad about disc 1 is that at the end of both Visions of Johanna and Desolation Row it seems as though they use another live recording of the song. If you buy this you'll know what I mean. It's nothing to be incredibly mad at but it sure got my attention. Also during the performances the crowd is completly quiet so they don't get in the way yet.
DISC 2: This disc is definatly the highlight of the entire concert. I'm not going to go into the whole Judas thing just because most of the other reviewers already did a good job of that. To start off, Tell Me, Momma was never released in a studio form (I think) and makes for a fantastic opener. Although the songs I always find myself coming back to are: I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met), Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat, and Like A Rolling Stone. Like A Rolling Stone is easily my favorite song on both discs. It has much more energy than the studio version and is longer. All the songs in between are equally awesome but those three tend to be the ones I listen to the most. On this disc there are no technical things that I know of like on Visions of Johanna and Desolation Row. All around though disc two is probally the CD I listen to the most in my Bob Dylan collection of about 16 CDs.
This collection on amazon is probably the best deal you could get. If you are interested in buying this then amazon would be the place to buy it because I have yet to find it cheaper, and if you buy another CD chances are that you could get free shipping. I would recommend this for any kind of fan of Bob Dylan either the casual fan or dedicated. It is definatly worth the money and more.
Free Music Review: The "parting of the waters" for rock & roll
Hit: 5 Stars
This album will bring you to tears.Throughout the first CD, Dylan masterfully weaves the audience through an obligatory set of his poetic prowess ... Dylan stands alone armed only with his six-string and harmonica while the on-lookers gnash their their teeth just DYING for the chance to attack him should he dare to betray them by "plugging in." Each lyric is carefully enunciated (YES, His Bobness CAN enunciate!) ... each "i" is dotted and each "t" crisply crossed. Dylan, it appears, watching his "p's and q's."
He closes the first CD with a heart-wrenching rendition of "Mr. Tambourine Man" seemingly saying, "I've given you all that you have asked of me [and more!] but now, my friends, it is time for me to take you to another level of Me ... whether YOU like it or not."
They don't.
At the start of the second CD, you hear literally hear [and feel!] Dylan's "bootheels a-wandering" up to the mike as he steps defiantly into the white-hot spotlight and plugs-in. The lines, this point, are clearly drawn. Throughout this set, the crowd boos and jeers him and the Band while Dylan himself remains painfully collected and plunges ahead.
At the climax, a unruly member of the mob screams, "JUDAS!!" You can feel Dylan recoiling for a second or two as he hisses back, "I don't belieeeeve you ... you're a LIAR!!" over a few razor sharp strums of his guitar.
Does he succumb to their wishes by continuing to be their mouthpiece and rehash lyrics that he himself might not even believe any longer?
Not Dylan. Instead, at this point, Dylan parts the waters of just WHO exactly "owns" whom.
With a stomp of his bootheel, he turns his back on them, spinning to the Band and commanding them to, "Play it fucking loud!!"
With a single rifle shot, the drummer [I don't believe Levon Helm was there that night .. correct me if I'm wrong] throws them into "Like A Rolling Stone" and Dylan SCREAMS at the world, "How does it often, friends of mine who are not Dylan fans wonder what exactly made / makes Dylan "great" and how exactly is it that he re-wrote the rules of rock & roll. Then I play this "exchange" for them ... and then they know.
Free Music Review: Hailed for years by critics as a bootleg, now official
Hit: 5 Stars
This is a copy of a review found in a newspaper of this album when it was available only as a bootleg:Beginning of article>Get this classic Dylan album -- any way you can (Quoted from Daily Record (of Morristown NJ) 1/5/97) --Knight-Ridder Tribune News "GUITARS KISSING & THE CONTEMPORARY FIX" Bob Dylan and the Hawks Various bootleg labels
On this album, a young Bob Dylan blows through an epic two-hour set in May 1966 -- half acoustic, half with the Hawks, later renamed The Band. It's perhaps the best two hours of his career, distilling everything tender, raging, touching and rocking in his work into one potent show. The performance has been available for years in collectors' circles in muddy mono. But this two-CD set is in glorious stereo, clean enough to sound great yet low-tech enough to sound authenic. The electric set is just as revealing, with Robbie Robertson's sharp guitar punctuating Dylan's words. It ends with one of rock music's greatest moments, where an audience member yells, "Judas!" at Dylan for going electric, and Dylan replies with a screaming, angry "Like A Rolling Stone". "Guitars Kissing" technically is a bootleg, legal in some countries overseas, but a copyright violation in the United States.
It's difficult to track down but worth the search; it's been repressed by six labels overseas, and copies are popping up all over. A good place to start searching is on the Internet -- fans of the disc have started their own web site tribute to it. For the computer impaired, check out the ads in record-collecting magazines such as Goldmine, ICE or Discoveries. But it's one of those discs where the rights and wrongs of copyright law become obscured by the purity, importance and force of the performance. This is an indispensable performance -- one of the few truly great lost albums of rock 'n' roll and easily one of Dylan's best.<end of article
Of course now that it's available officially, you won't have to search for it and pay a premium price (usually $50). The point of this review is that if a bootleg which is illegal can draw this much attention then, ...well,..... if you haven't got it through your thick skull yet you won't ever get it........
Free Music Review: Bob Dylan: 1966 Royal Albert Hall
Hit: 5 Stars
I resisted buying this CD for a long time, because I have a bad habit of assuming that overhype = bad. In reality, of course, overhype usually indicates that something is good, and worthy of hype, just not so MUCH hype. I finally bought it, mainly because it was one of the last real holes in my Dylan collection. I never, ever expected it to be a 5-star CD.
But it is. The whole audience/Dylan interaction is every bit as fascinating as its legendary status suggests. In fact, it's all so perfect, it's hard to believe it wasn't planned: the "Judas" cat-call comes right before the very last song; and what is the last song? Only the all-time greatest Dylan classic, "Like a Rolling Stone." Dylan's response, too, is great. It's not witty at all--in fact, it reveals that the "Judas" accusation really caught him off guard. He is silent for about 10 seconds, just keeps on fingerpicking the intro to the song, and then he leans into the microphone and says in an even tone, "I don't believe you." It seems like he had to spend about 10 seconds to even convince HIMSELF that the Judas charge wasn't true! Then he delivers his verdict very calmly. But after thinking about it for another five seconds or so, he becomes more self-assured, and yells, "You're a LIAR!" People think of this concert as a defining moment for the Cult of Dylan, but when you listen to it, it seems like it was really a defining moment for Dylan himself. He may have decided, on that very stage, that he would never turn back from his rock experiment. He was plugged in for good.
So, if you are buying this set for the novelty factor, you'll get you're money's worth. However, the first disc--the acoustic set--is a real treasure, probably even the better of the two discs. I don't own much live Dylan, so I can't compare to other concerts, but in comparison to the studio versions this stuff is really great. I mean, solo acoustic versions of Blonde on Blonde songs sounds awesome, but it is even awesomer than you think. "Just LIke a Woman" and "Visions of Johanna," in particular, are way better here than on the original albums they came from.
All in all, despite my original expectations, this is a 5-star CD. Get it soon.
Free Music Review: The most entertaining electric live set I've ever heard...
Hit: 5 Stars
I'm only 22 years old, which means I haven't even been thought of yet when Dylan took the stage in Manchester, but I'm pretty aware of what was going on at the time this event took place. Folk lovers considered the kind of stuff Hendrix was putting out "devil music," so some of the people in this audience weren't exactly thrilled when Dylan finished his acoustic set and began to rock out. It's definitely a legendary concert. This well-priced, handy-dandy souvenier represents one of the most important voices of the 20th century at the crossroads. Some liked it; some didn't. It's the ones who didn't that make this "Royal Albert Hall" concert the essential live document of Bob Dylan at the apex of his career.Throughout the electric portion of the concert, Bob is greeted with boos, unwarranted clapping and cursing from his audience. At one point, when the audience tries to annoy Dylan by clappinig ferociously as he's tuning up, he leans into the microphone and begins to ramble about a bunch of nonsense. He does so until the crowd finally shuts up, at which he says, "If only you wouldn't clap so hard." Sure enough, they clap harder and yell louder. One guy in the audience even yells out "SELL OUT!"
But the real biggie here is when someone screams out "JUDAS!" after Bob plays "Ballad Of A Thin Man." I guess at this point, Bob was done being polite. "I don't believe you," he sneers. "You're a liar!" He turns to his band and yells indistinctly, "Play it f---ing loud!"
"Like A Rolling Stone" is then thrown into the audience's face with audacity and contempt. The song finally ends, Dylan sarcastically says, "Thank you," and walks offstage.
Cool, huh? The electric set is certainly the stand-out here, but the acoustic songs are nothing to shy away from either. In fact, I think "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" is better here than on the album version (ASOBD).
Another suprise you'll find with this release is how well Columbia packaged it. It comes with a fat booklet filled with glossy pages of pictures and notes of the concert and other appearances. This is truly worth your money. HIGHLY recommended.