In the years between Oh Mercy and the MTV Unplugged performance, Bob Dylan sounded adrift. There were moments of brilliance, of course, but these years hear Dylan going through the motions. He was sounding relatively uninspired, raspy, and released little in the way of fresh material. Two cover albums, a sense he was ending his career, and even then the reliance on hits from the past, the image of old featured in the MTV Unplugged performance, was concerning. Did Dylan sell out? If he did, he traded in the broken tools of the late 1980s and early 1990s for a spritely, expansive sound which serves him and his audience well to this day. Four Hours at Hammersmith is a dream on paper. Two shows compiled and shared by bootleggers, featuring plenty of hits from the Dylan discography. But in practice, it falls short of expectations, a symptom of the rather underwhelming times for the veteran songwriter in the years before his MTV appearance.
An irritable inclusion of Maggie’s Farm opens this bulky bootleg from the ever dependable neverendingBobfan channel. It is not their fault Dylan would consistently open his sets with a version of Maggie’s Farm which sounds as though his eyes are glazed over, his hands following the pattern of decades rather than the potential for fresh grooves which guide classic songs on the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. Dylan sounds relatively grating on this recording, a sliver of support to the argument that he has lost his way as a vocalist. He has not, and Four Hours at Hammersmith remains an example of a mere off night, rather than a wider symptom of his vocal choices. Every Grain of Sand is a frankly poor effort, both instrumentally vague and vocally challenged. It is a rough time, not a rowdy one, with this Dylan performance. But there are moments of interest found within the Four Hours at Hammersmith release.
All Along the Watchtower certainly sounds as though Dylan is looking for a way out of here, but his voice at this point, early into the first set of the compilation, is warming up well. The guitar work here is sensational, a truly rocking version of the song which relies more on the instrumental experimentation than the lyrics. Many songs fare better here when the spotlight is thrown on guitarists Bucky Baxter and John Jackson. The pair are a staple of Dylan’s live shows in the 1990s, and their efforts here are often far greater than the veteran songwriter struggling to pave a new path through classic songs. Still, there are some truly great moments tucked away across these two sets. Pull all the best bits from each set, be it the Mr. Tambourine Man of the first night or the Tangled Up in Blue of the second show, and you have a solid listen on your hands.
But this is not the case. Even a best-of compilation can only cut one of the four hours from this performance. It is far from the quality Dylan had set in performances both immediately before and after these shows. It is a reality check performance. A moment to accept the veteran has a changing voice which, despite sounding cool in the context of crooner covers or contemporary material, was struggling to adapt to the swing of his greatest hits. He would revive the older sound, the model which had given him such success, a short while later for the MTV Unplugged performance. We can jot Four Hours at Hammersmith down to tour fatigue, to a moment where Dylan’s voice was simply not as strong as it was in other years.
