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Gazza
Cologne's a good show indeed. 'Why do I have to choose' is excellent.

This is 'Blowin' in the wind' in Barcelona. A great singalong for 2 am!

Great version. What's striking is how much Dylan seems to be enjoying himself.

Barcelona show is indeed a great one. Only other shows I have are 6/6/84, Rotterdam and "What's Real?"London, England July 7, 1984. The London show has Clapton,Santana,
Chrissie Hynde, and Van Morrison sitting in.

Barcelona is my favorite of the three.

Damn Real Live is an absolutely awful piece of shit. But maybe I should look into some of these boots.

The trouble with Real Live is the song choice, I have a few of the boots from that 84 tour and they left off so much good stuff, I dont know how many shows were recorded by the record company but what made it onto the album didnt do justice to the tour. Its funny how most of Mick Taylors good work is only on boots and not for general consumption. If the Stones Brussels Affair and the unreleased live album from 72 had made it to the masses, he would be a true guitar god. Both Taylor and Richards did their best live work on boots, its a shame really. There is a Dylan doco which doesnt mention Taylor beyond the tour, he did appear on the Empire Burlesque album because Dylan had a tape of Taylor and Knoffler left over from Infidels, he erased Knoffler but used Taylors part, similar to waht the Stones did on Tattoo You.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2011-05-04 10:53 by lapaz62.

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Ferret
Damn Real Live is an absolutely awful piece of shit. But maybe I should look into some of these boots.

It's a great, great live album, imo.

Its not shit but could have been a lot better.

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DandelionPowderman

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Ferret
Damn Real Live is an absolutely awful piece of shit. But maybe I should look into some of these boots.

It's a great, great live album, imo.

Really? It just sounds like them turning all these great Dylan tracks into boring, generic boogie shit. The lyrics mean nothing and the music is bland. Taylor plays so boringly. The only songs I find listenable are the solo acoustic ones.

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lapaz62
The trouble with Real Live is the song choice, I have a few of the boots from that 84 tour and they left off so much good stuff, I dont know how many shows were recorded by the record company but what made it onto the album didnt do justice to the tour. .

Real Live comes from Newcastle (5th July), Wembley Stadium (7th July) and Slane Castle (8th July) - the final three shows of a 27-date tour.

They also definitely recorded Paris (1st July) as there's a 'Real Live outtakes' tape which features selections from that show. Its an excellent gig too, with a guest appearance from Van Morrison on 'Its all over now baby blue' (which was repeated at Slane) and that wonderful version of The Times They Are A Changin/Les Temps Changent with Bob singing his own English lyrics and Hugues Aufray doing it in French...

I'd imagine the logic behind the track selection would be to avoid repeating songs from previous live albums as much as possible, because this was Dylan's fourth live album in the last decade - and two of the previous three had been doubles.

Only four of the ten songs - Maggie's Farm, Highway 61, It Aint Me Babe and Ballad of a Thin Man - had featured on live albums before, and only two of them (Maggies Farm/Thin Man) had been included on the most recent live record (Budokan).

The album could have been a lot worse. They could have included Bono's butchery of the lyrics of Blowin' In the Wind which ended the otherwise excellent Slane concert on a low note. Imagine being asked by Bob Dylan to sing onstage with him - and then not only blowing your credibility by NOT knowing the words to possibly his most famous song, but having the absolute shitwittery to improvise your own instead.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-05-04 19:34 by Gazza.

the trouble with real live is that it documents one of dylan's worst-ever tours. period.

I just seen him in Melbourne, he was rubbish. He seems to treat his own songs with distain, songs do evolve over time but he destroyed almost all of them. His band is good though, Dylan just mumbled his way through. The voice is shot but he is 70, so you can understand that. 1984 was many times better, even in muffled old bootlegs, it was better.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-05-05 14:10 by lapaz62.

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Ferret

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DandelionPowderman

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Ferret
Damn Real Live is an absolutely awful piece of shit. But maybe I should look into some of these boots.

It's a great, great live album, imo.

Really? It just sounds like them turning all these great Dylan tracks into boring, generic boogie shit. The lyrics mean nothing and the music is bland. Taylor plays so boringly. The only songs I find listenable are the solo acoustic ones.

Boringly???

I'm not the biggest Taylorite on this board, but there's no way around the fact that it is Taylor, especially, that makes this album great.

imo, some of his playing on this album surpasses much of what he did with the Stones.

Can anyone pinpoint the moment Dylan went from what was a normalish singing voice in his early records to the vocal performances in 84, even as far back as Desire his voice was relitively normal but somewhere, somehow it began to whine and didnt stop. And why didn't he do Sweetheart like mine on that tour.

He started his 'whining' already 1966 if you listens carefully to his England concerts...I kind of like..it's like vocal saxophone-jazz ...

2 1 2 0

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Gazza

The album could have been a lot worse. They could have included Bono's butchery of the lyrics of Blowin' In the Wind which ended the otherwise excellent Slane concert on a low note. Imagine being asked by Bob Dylan to sing onstage with him - and then not only blowing your credibility by NOT knowing the words to possibly his most famous song, but having the absolute shitwittery to improvise your own instead.

This photo of Bob glancing over to Bono says a lot . . .

[dylanstubs.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-05-05 17:03 by Fuman2.

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DandelionPowderman

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Ferret

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DandelionPowderman

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Ferret
Damn Real Live is an absolutely awful piece of shit. But maybe I should look into some of these boots.

It's a great, great live album, imo.

Really? It just sounds like them turning all these great Dylan tracks into boring, generic boogie shit. The lyrics mean nothing and the music is bland. Taylor plays so boringly. The only songs I find listenable are the solo acoustic ones.

Boringly???

I'm not the biggest Taylorite on this board, but there's no way around the fact that it is Taylor, especially, that makes this album great.

imo, some of his playing on this album surpasses much of what he did with the Stones.

taylor plays like taylor....and, yeah, he is arguably the singular bright aspect of the tour....but he's part of the problem with it in a sense too. there's absolutely zero chemistry in this band and dylan has zero presence and command...the beginnings of what would be a very fallow artistic period for him.

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lapaz62
Can anyone pinpoint the moment Dylan went from what was a normalish singing voice in his early records to the vocal performances in 84

june 4, 1973...4:35 pm EDT...i remember it well...i had just back from my paper route and was shocked by what i was hearing....one of those moments you remember forever.....kennedy shooting, moon-landing, dylan's 84 voice, 9/11.....

4 years after I started the thread I am arrived to the conclusion that Mick Taylor's peak as a guitarist was during this very tour with Dylan.

More mature, more confident, beautiful tone, wonderful melodies, less frantic.

C

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StonesTod
the trouble with real live is that it documents one of dylan's worst-ever tours. period.

But not worst-ever. That would be the one with the Grateful Dead. I am not saying this because I don't like the Dead, Dylan was just awful during this phase and this collaboration was ill-conceived. His tours with Tom Petty weren't much better.

i agree - the dead/dylan tour was a lowpoint for both bob and the dead. and his '86 trek with petty & co wasn't much better. oddly enough, the '87 tour with petty was much better and was apparently inspired by his time earlier that year with the dead....and was a harbinger for the dylan revival which started in earnest the following year....

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71Tele

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StonesTod
the trouble with real live is that it documents one of dylan's worst-ever tours. period.

But not worst-ever. That would be the one with the Grateful Dead. I am not saying this because I don't like the Dead, Dylan was just awful during this phase and this collaboration was ill-conceived. His tours with Tom Petty weren't much better.

The GD/Dylan collaboration comes off horribly on the official release. The shows
themselves had their moments, but they were few and far between. It is entirely
Bob's fault. The Dead were starting to fire on all cylinders again in this period.
Bob just wasn't into it, the Petty performances were brutal too (again due to him).

That said, the GD collaboration, and working with Jerry in particular, was the
spark for his live re-birth (his words, on multiple occasions).

Had Jerry got his act together, who knows what they could have pulled off together in the 90s or 00s

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shakeydeal
The shows
themselves had their moments, but they were few and far between. It is entirely
Bob's fault. The Dead were starting to fire on all cylinders again in this period.

i can't agree with that...'87 was not a good time for the dead. they picked it up again by 89/90, though...

I am a huge Dylan fan and was talking him up to my bride-to-be in 1988. We ended our wedding day with a Dylan/Petty show in Vancouver (Aug. 20, 1988). Imagine my disappointment went the show was awful and Dylan seemed like he would have preferred to be almost anywhere else. He redeemed himself in '93 with three magical shows at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, one of which I took my wife to. So I guess I can't blame Bob entirely for our later divorce.

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71Tele
I am a huge Dylan fan and was talking him up to my bride-to-be in 1988. We ended our wedding day with a Dylan/Petty show in Vancouver (Aug. 20, 1988). Imagine my disappointment went the show was awful and Dylan seemed like he would have preferred to be almost anywhere else. He redeemed himself in '93 with three magical shows at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, one of which I took my wife to. So I guess I can't blame Bob entirely for our later divorce.

don't know much about your personal timeline, but i assume you meant 1986, not 1988. dylan didn't tour with tom in '88. the only bob/tom show in vancouver was august 1, 1986....maybe this was a different bride-to-be of yours?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-05-05 19:10 by StonesTod.

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71Tele

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StonesTod
the trouble with real live is that it documents one of dylan's worst-ever tours. period.

But not worst-ever. That would be the one with the Grateful Dead. I am not saying this because I don't like the Dead, Dylan was just awful during this phase and this collaboration was ill-conceived. His tours with Tom Petty weren't much better.

The Dylan/Dead tour of 1987 was horrible IMO as well, even though there are some nicer performances available than the official document. But 1991.....that's the worst ever live year for Dylan, I think - most concerts of this year is simply impossible to listen to, for me

When it comes to 1984....I can see why some think of it as Dylan's nadir, as there's not much intergrity in Dylan this tour - apart from a few exceptions, he's mainly a "vocalist" in a R&R band in 1984....which doesn't really suit him - as he's so much more than that, to say the least. Just like 1974 - Bob's just trying his best to do "his part" without letting it all go and do what he feels like....maybe he was starstruck of having Mac and Mick Taylor in the band.....? And maybe also because of him seeing the stadium shows of other artists in early 80s, and wondering about which way to go, concerning his live act?

But - still I really like a lot of the shows of 1984
One can't compare it with other tours, like 1980 or 1981.....if so; one just has to dismish it - 1984 was different times

Highlights for me on the official Real Live.....the re-written Tangled Up In Blue, I and I, License To Kill, Highway 61....
I actually really like the official album, even though I prefer (some of) the complete shows......Barcelona 1984 being the "ultimate" show/recording



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2011-05-05 19:17 by Erik_Snow.

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StonesTod

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shakeydeal
The shows
themselves had their moments, but they were few and far between. It is entirely
Bob's fault. The Dead were starting to fire on all cylinders again in this period.

i can't agree with that...'87 was not a good time for the dead. they picked it up again by 89/90, though...

I will acquiesce somewhat, but "Starting to fire" is the proper statement. The peak was '90, with some nice moments in '91 and then, a show or run aside, it was all over. But '87 was a good time for the band and certainly love was in the air. No, the Dark Stars, etc. had not returned, but they had traction and played well albeit more straight ahead stuff (and certainly weren't botching things for Bob).

At least you give props to the era in general, unlike a lot of other "picky" heads who would
pipe up over anything post '69, '73 or '77 in response to my initial statement.

It's not all good certainly, but what is bad is always up for debate in Dead/Stones circles (and very rarely resolved to any individual's satisfaction).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-05-05 19:19 by shakeydeal.

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StonesTod

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71Tele
I am a huge Dylan fan and was talking him up to my bride-to-be in 1988. We ended our wedding day with a Dylan/Petty show in Vancouver (Aug. 20, 1988). Imagine my disappointment went the show was awful and Dylan seemed like he would have preferred to be almost anywhere else. He redeemed himself in '93 with three magical shows at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, one of which I took my wife to. So I guess I can't blame Bob entirely for our later divorce.

don't know much about your personal timeline, but i assume you meant 1986, not 1988. dylan didn't tour with tom in '88. the only bob/tom show in vancouver was august 1, 1986....maybe this was a different bride-to-be of yours?

You are wrong, sir. August 20, 1988 Vancouver with Tracy Chapman as the opener. I have witnesses.

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Erik_Snow

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71Tele

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StonesTod
the trouble with real live is that it documents one of dylan's worst-ever tours. period.

But not worst-ever. That would be the one with the Grateful Dead. I am not saying this because I don't like the Dead, Dylan was just awful during this phase and this collaboration was ill-conceived. His tours with Tom Petty weren't much better.

The Dylan/Dead tour of 1987 was horrible IMO as well, even though there are some nicer performances available than the official document. But 1991.....that's the worst ever live year for Dylan, I think - most concerts of this year is simply impossible to listen to, for me

When it comes to 1984....I can see why some think of it as Dylan's nadir, as there's not much intergrity in Dylan this tour - apart from a few exceptions, he's mainly a "vocalist" in a R&R band in 1984....which doesn't really suit him - as he's so much more than that, to say the least. Just like 1974 - Bob's just trying his best to do "his part" without letting it all go and do what he feels like....maybe he was starstruck of having Mac and Mick Taylor in the band.....? And maybe also because of him seeing the stadium shows of other artists in early 80s, and wondering about which way to go, concerning his live act?

But - still I really like a lot of the shows of 1984
One can't compare it with other tours, like 1980 or 1981.....if so; one just has to dismish it - 1984 was different times

Highlights for me on the official Real Live.....the re-written Tangled Up In Blue, I and I, License To Kill, Highway 61....
I actually really like the official album, even though I prefer (some of) the complete shows......Barcelona 1984 being the "ultimate" show/recording

yeah, well i said '84 was ONE of his worst. '91 was arguably so bad that it was good (in a campy kinda way).

and, no i don't think bob was star-struck - i think he was just completely uninspired and coasting (he says he was in his book) during this time. he had competent musicians to distract concert-goers in 84 and 86, so many didn't really even notice so much, i think.

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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71Tele
I am a huge Dylan fan and was talking him up to my bride-to-be in 1988. We ended our wedding day with a Dylan/Petty show in Vancouver (Aug. 20, 1988). Imagine my disappointment went the show was awful and Dylan seemed like he would have preferred to be almost anywhere else. He redeemed himself in '93 with three magical shows at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, one of which I took my wife to. So I guess I can't blame Bob entirely for our later divorce.

don't know much about your personal timeline, but i assume you meant 1986, not 1988. dylan didn't tour with tom in '88. the only bob/tom show in vancouver was august 1, 1986....maybe this was a different bride-to-be of yours?

You are wrong, sir. August 20, 1988 Vancouver with Tracy Chapman as the opener. I have witnesses.

ok - but he wasn't playing with petty - that was my point - and the vancouver show occurred on august 21, not 20....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-05-05 19:27 by StonesTod.

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StonesTod
and, no i don't think bob was star-struck - i think he was just completely uninspired and coasting (he says he was in his book) during this time. he had competent musicians to distract concert-goers in 84 and 86, so many didn't really even notice so much, i think.

Maybe the new "stadium-style" way of doing concerts in the 80s, by many bands, made Dylan think of his act as "an act" - and not something that would really *move* the few attending.
I think the sterile touch of performing Dylan did in 1984 has something to do what happened around him in the music-business at the time

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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71Tele
I am a huge Dylan fan and was talking him up to my bride-to-be in 1988. We ended our wedding day with a Dylan/Petty show in Vancouver (Aug. 20, 1988). Imagine my disappointment went the show was awful and Dylan seemed like he would have preferred to be almost anywhere else. He redeemed himself in '93 with three magical shows at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, one of which I took my wife to. So I guess I can't blame Bob entirely for our later divorce.

don't know much about your personal timeline, but i assume you meant 1986, not 1988. dylan didn't tour with tom in '88. the only bob/tom show in vancouver was august 1, 1986....maybe this was a different bride-to-be of yours?

You are wrong, sir. August 20, 1988 Vancouver with Tracy Chapman as the opener. I have witnesses.

ok - but he wasn't playing with petty - that was my point - and the vancouver show occurred on august 21, not 20....

You are correct, I apologize. Memory is a funny thing. I amy be mixing up the Vancouver show he played on our anniversary in 1990. I did see Dylan/Petty, but that was earlier.