If any performance from The Never-Ending Tour tops Cleveland 1996, then it would be a show worth remastering and releasing. 1996 is a vintage year for Bob Dylan on stage. On the cusp of releasing a seminal return-to-form album with Time Out of Mind, but not yet introducing those contemporary songs, for they were not yet ready. What it means is Dylan brings an instrumental overhaul to his greatest hits, as he often does, but the littering of covers, deep cuts, and special guests, is a thrill. It makes all the difference in Magdeburg 1996, where a few all-time greats are shuffled in. Any show featuring Mr. Tambourine Man, Like a Rolling Stone, and The Times They Are A-Changin’ is worth your time, even if the crowd sounds as though it is not worth theirs. Such is the hit-and-miss quality of an audience recording. Focus on the instrumental overhaul, though, and Magdeburg 1996 is a thrill.
Opening song To Be Alone with You sets the scene perfectly. Dylan and the band, which includes stalwart Tony Garnier and a double bill of skill from Bucky Baxter and John Jackson on guitar, ease into the set by giving a rock and roll tinge to the delicate Nashville Skyline classic. Tremendously fresh versions of these songs are the reason to keep returning to these bootlegs. Rocked-out, harmonica-led openers like To Be Alone with You are rare, and rarer still is it for Dylan to lead into another Nashville Skyline song straight after. But a segue into Lay Lady Lay is a welcome one, a version which defies both the studio original and the heavy elongations of Hard Rain. Slowed and electrified, it’s a delightful version. The closest Dylan gets to playing his songs with the words “crowd pleaser” hovering nearby.
Excuse the awful cover. Judge not the appearance of a poorly edited Eyes of the Idol bootleg cover, but the quality within, which far exceeds many of the shows from around this time. Magdeburg 1996, like Cleveland 1996, is playing with the fundamentals of Dylan’s sound ahead of recording Time Out of Mind. A roaring All Along the Watchtower is a tremendous example of what Dylan was doing right during this period. The MTV Unplugged set just two years before this show reinvigorated not just the performer, but audience interest. Here were the hits, performed as clearly as can be heard, but with an overhaul of instrumental structure, of vocal delivery. Elongations and shortenings are par for the course in a Dylan show of modern times, but what is not guaranteed is a positive reception. Not as boisterous as Cleveland 1996, but Magdeburg 1996 offers a jolt of similar quality. Lightning in a bottle was captured once again by Dylan and the all-star line-up.
Bucky Baxter, John Jackson, Tony Garnier, and Winston Watson are one of the best collections of instrumental talent Dylan has had on stage. Their loose playing style, drifting away from the usual notes of the song and into an improvised-sounding spot for the likes of Jokerman, Absolutely Sweet Marie, and show closer Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35. No show should sound the same, but no Dylan performance has a chance of sounding similar. It’s too much to bear for an artist to deliver a note-for-note recreation of a stage high point. With these valuable highs come fascinating low points, many from Dylan were at the start of the 1990s. But he has learned from those moments, the sheepish and sluggish Stuttgart 1991, for instance. Just five years later, he and the band were delivering career-best performances where hits like Positively 4th Street and Gates of Eden were ripped apart and rebuilt brilliantly.
