Bob Dylan – Voices in the Night Review

Even with a radio show, Bob Dylan found the time to tour. He would reduce his live sets to very limited showcases of his best work. Nothing out of the ordinary in hindsight, but a thorn in the side of those who wanted a Real Live experience. The best you will get from unofficial bootleg Voices in the Night is a moving performance of Shelter from the Storm. It is better than nothing. Dylan has moved his attention elsewhere, and so should you. Or, rather, the audiences found on these compilations of unreleased live material. Here they are. Like a Rolling Stone and Tangled Up in Blue did feature on this tour but were not the highlights of this entertaining flick through the 2007 to 2010 schedule. It simply never ends.  

We dart first to Stockholm for a deathly quiet Billy. There is not an ounce of joy to be heard in it. Not the crowd. Not Dylan. Even the band struggles to lay down a moving groove for the Pat Garrett & Billy the Kidd track. Its tinny recording is an exemplary experience of how little we have evolved in live concert recordings. An amateurish charm washes over this opener, the crackling recording and echoed fluster of a revered man on stage. Next, to Bergamo. A brief stop-off for the second song of this unofficial bootleg takes us to a year before Billy in a groovy, slowed version of Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues. These are reliant on the inspired jam-like sessions rumbling through. It makes up for the shortcomings of a vocal range not yet developed properly. A raspy period ahead but not quite up to scratch just yet. Love Minus Zero/No Limit features this too but to a stronger, sincere effect.  

Friend of the Devil may be the finest offering from this set. A wonderful surge of instrumental fury paired with an on-point and rigorous Dylan vocal accompaniment. What a treat for the ears. On those darker nights, the post-football focus back in play, Voices in the Night becomes a wonderful way to wind down. The day feels longer when you leave the house and feel a flood of sunlight on your face. It is the difference between rotting at your desk, playing endless music, and having the chance to breathe, listening to Tough Mama and Shelter from the Storm. What joy we can find in these latter performances from Dylan comes from our perspective of the man. Whether we want to face the fleeting days is not up to us, but we may as well do so with new experiences. 

So, dive into Voices in the Night, an enjoyable but not essential bootleg collection of Dylan on the stage. Three years of performances boiled down to the interesting bits and pieces, the songs which survived the recording process and time stuffed away. Files upon files of untouched Dylan performances are out there, more than most artists for the tenacity he shows on stage is electric even when there is no visual component. Plenty to enjoy with these performances. It’s All Good and What Good Am I makes for a nice pairing. We are taken on a European tour with some of these tracks, right from the safety of our desks.