I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website
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Dylan on Tour: Previously: What Dylan played on 7 July 2024, and how it sounded. Notation and commentary by Tony Attwood.
This time we have a recording of the whole show from…
Shoreline Amphitheatre – Mountain View, California; 3 August 2024
This is an audio recording of the show – there is no video – but I have chosen this because the quality of the recording really is rather good in comparison with many others we have used in the past.
I commented before that Dylan’s singing voice has declined quite a lot – as indeed is common with men in their 80s, and indeed the fact that he continued as long as it has meant that he has had to adjust how he is going to sing his songs.
Highway 61 starts the show and here again we have that declamation of lyrics with some singing thrown in, plus Dylan on the piano playing a bit of background to the band. The main variation in the song is the constant descending line.
Shooting Star starts at around 4’25”, and once more we have a half-sung half-declaimed run through of the lyrics.
There’s nothing much between the songs – Love Sick starts at around 8’20”. And again I’m finding that these are mostly the songs as we know them but with declamation rather than singing. And my comment is simply that this is not to my taste – I like the melodies, even if they are simply and repetitive as they were in the early days of rock n roll. I also like the variations that Bob has introduced over the years and which I’ve tried to pick up on in the “Never Ending Tour Extended” series of which the most recent edition is God Knows.
Thus for Love Sick, the really interesting instrumental moment around the lyrics “I’m sick of love” remains much as before.
13’15” brings us “Little Queenie” – the Chuck Berry song. Here’s a copy of the original.
Next up comes at 15’09” is Mr Blue which appeared on the Basement Tapes Complete. May 23, 2021 was an American songwriter active since the 1950s.[3] Dewayne Blackwell wrote the song and it was a hit in 1959 for the Fleetwoods. As time went by his songs were picked up by the Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison and Bobby Vinton, all of whom you will remember if you are of a certain vintage.
At 18’23” we have Early Roman Kings with Elvin Bishop who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 2015 and here the solid blues feel is emphasised even more than on the recording. We really are into the solid 12 bar blues world now.
Can’t Wait comes in with a Dylan solo recitation at 25’21” in a performance used to build an atmosphere.
29′.15″ then brings Under a Red Sky is perhaps a bit of a surprise and for me nothing much is added to the song that we know. According to the official statistics the only other time Bob has ever performed this was 12 November 2000. I would love to know the thinking of Bob, behind bringing this song in now. But of course he doesn’t normally tell us.
34′.35″ provides a complete contrast with “Things have changed” and hearing this contrast with Under a Red Sky makes me wonder not for the first time how Bob goes about choosing his songs for the shows. Is it just what comes to mind – in that he chooses one and thinks, “what next?” Or is he seeing the concert as a complete whole, giving a vision of life as he now sees it?
Stella Blue which starts at 40.02, as far as I know has not been performed prior to this tour. It was written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. Here’s the original version
“Six Days of the Road” comes next and was written by Earl Green and Carl Montgomery and is being played regularly on this tour. It was a hit in 1963. It starts at 45’20”. Again here’s what the original hit sounded like…
50’03” takes us onto Soon After Midnight from Tempest recorded in 2012.
And then given all that has gone before it was a surprise (at least to me) to get to Ballad of a Thin Man at 54’29”. The introduction is unmistakable of course, and the recitation style is indeed suited to this song.
“Simple twist of fate” is performed on the one hour mark with a recitation start, which gave me the thought it might turn into an upbeat version of the song, but no we move on to a song in the style of the rest of the concert. We do however get a harmonica solo.
And so on the one hour mark we finish with “I’ll be your baby tonight” which starts with the same tempo (or perhaps lack of tempo) as the “Twist of Fate” – but then “I’ll be your baby” picks up into a gentle rock n roll song with Bob playing the same chord sequence (or the same note on occasion) over and over, before a slow end after nine minutes of this finale, and that’s it.
Here’s the concert