A bountiful compilation of shows on a tour following one of the best moments for Bob Dylan on stage is always going to be worth a listen. The Rolling Thunder Revue has been documented by everyone from the passing bootlegger to Academy Award winner Martin Scorsese. Dylan may claim not to remember much of his Joan Baez-featuring tour, but fans certainly seem keen on these tour dates. Carried out around the time Blood on the Tracks and Desire were making waves in the charts, Dylan incorporated hits, unreleased pieces and a steady trickle of contemporary noise across his oldest greats. For those who fell in love with Hard Rain and The Complete 1974 Recordings, these bootleg tapes are an essential listen. They are pulled from arguably the best moments of Dylan on stage. Bar the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour, which recontextualised Dylan as a performer, these Rolling Thunder Revue shows are phenomenal.
They, like the baby grand piano-led tones of modern times, were instrumental in rehashing classics. When I Paint My Masterpiece here is elongated, a screeching and howling Dylan fighting against a tattered personal life and exhaustive touring schedule. It is an incredible experience to hear the thrill of performance soon turn sour. How an artist adapts to the lethargy, the constant pressure for more on stage, is often interesting. For Dylan, it meant giving his songs a floaty, rock-adjacent sound. A frankly venomous vocal performance is what defines these performances. One of the very best sounds Dylan has ever made on stage can be found across this tour. It Ain’t Me Babe is a phenomenal listen, and backed by comfortable instrumentals, Dylan finds he can take these songs to darker places. His divorce and the rumblings of critical failure over the last few years had certainly taken their toll. It builds an anger in his performance, a rage rarely heard after this point.
His fire did not diminish from here on; Dylan merely found God and calmed down. But there was a period of freefall from the artist, which he responded to with some of his all-time greatest moments in the studio and on stage. Best of The Rolling Thunder Revue (Pt. 1) establishes that. Dylan sounds completely different on The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, a performance which has him stagger his words, deal each lyric with a vicious blow recounting the killing of the eponymous barmaid. Staples of this tour, like Romance in Durango, are found here and nowhere else. A one-off performance in 2003 is all you can get for live versions of this classic song, making the Rolling Thunder Revue a must-listen for fans of Desire. It was already a must-listen, but the quality of performance found here is far beyond most other gigs in the Dylan bootleg discography.
Dark as a Dungeon and I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine are phenomenal additions while I Shall Be Released serves as a monumental show closer. Best of The Rolling Thunder Revue compiles some excellent soundboard recordings from a tour which had Dylan dip into the old classics with Baez on Blowin’ in the Wind, but also adapt to modern times. He still has a soft spot for the acoustic-driven songs of his discography, but much of the joy to come from this set is in hearing the new instrumental flourish on well-remembered songs. Many of these songs are from a Madison Square Garden performance, but lend an ear to those early moments from Plymouth, Montreal, and Waterbury for some of the very best performances from Dylan.
