Judge not the first moments of a bootleg live performance but the midsection of the show. It is where the voice begins to warm, where the instrumentals are more understandable not in listening quality but in reasons for change. Hanging in the Balance opens with a staggered, gruff-sounding I Believe in You, but it improves from there. Scrunch your face up as you hear Bob Dylan slur his way through a Slow Train Coming rip. There are classics to follow though Dylan, whose vocal range shies away from the brilliant and comes apart on a few of these songs, defines the early part of the 1980s. The double LP bootleg recorded by a fan at the Bad Segeberg, Germany gig is of incredible sound quality. A smooth transition into Like a Rolling Stone may be heard on this album, but it is the overall appeal can be linked to those A Musical Retrospective performances from the year before this recording.
Those performances gave listeners a chance to hear the hits reformed. It is quite unlike the instrumental tone he sought with The Band and on the Hard Rain live album, but they are satisfying sounds, nonetheless. Dylan, like Neil Young and Paul McCartney, lost his way to experimentation in the 1980s. Say what you will about Dylan’s voice during this period, there is no excuse for the flat-sounding style. This mixture of backing vocalists and the soft rock, pop attitude of the times may work for some, but it rips a layer of context from the classics. It adds little to the at-the-time contemporary material too, with Man Gave Name to All the Animals sounding far better on its streamlined studio version. That is not to say Hanging in the Balance is lacklustre, though Dylan is in the state this title would describe. He finds it hard to separate the new sound, the inevitabilities of the pop surface, from those classic tracks.
Girl from the North Country and Ballad of a Thin Man are clear examples of this, moments where Dylan is hoping to keep hold of the magic heard on his 1960s efforts but also adapting them to the new style. One of the great changes to these songs though, is the percussion and staggered guitar work of Ballad of a Thin Man. It features across the decade but Hanging in the Balance feels like a closer link to the classic while also adapting it to a style of performance which the Trouble No More release would highlight. Pair it with Dead Man Dead Man and Forever Young, and the performance begins to feel for the right emotive turn. That spirited performance so necessary to these classics, which dominate the latter half of the show. Whoever kept shouting “Bob” at the end of every other song is a hero. What an energy. It is an easier way of noting when a song ends and another is set to start.
Hanging in the Balance improves vastly after its first few songs. That is not to discredit classics like Maggie’s Farm or the underrated qualities, the lighter thrill of the religious storytelling of Man Gave Name to All the Animals, but it does paint a picture of Dylan as an artist who demands the modern sound fit his stage presence. It does to a degree, but it pales in comparison to those rocking seventies pieces, or the flourishes of stage reformation heard in the late 1990s. Hanging in the Balance is a enjoyable listen for those wanting a glimpse at the sound Dylan had gunned for. Electric, energetic renditions of Just Like a Woman and It Ain’t Me Babe are found later in the bootleg, but the bulk of this show is about showcasing the promise of a new sound Dylan did not quite make good on.
