Bob Dylan – Temples in Flames Review 

What should be a great, all-round stage experience for Bob Dylan on Temples in Flames is, instead, a sign that the wheels of his rock and roll vehicle were coming off. Pairing once more with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Dylan finds himself trotting out hits with a relatively unconvincing instrumental style. It’s one of many such cases for the Dylan and Petty pairing, though the latter man is not to blame. The mid-to-late 1980s were a difficult time for Dylan in the studio and on stage. He never quite stuck the landing for any of his material, contemporary or otherwise, and felt more comfortable playing guitar with Grateful Dead than he did being in the spotlight. It makes for awkward listening before he took it up a gear for the Never-Ending Tour. This performance comes just a few years before that uptick in quality, but you can hear the ineffective tone spawned by Dylan’s desperate times in the mid-80s.  

Fourteen songs over the course of an hour and ten minutes is standard practice. What is not the standard here is Dylan’s work. He trots out the likes of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Highway 61 Revisited, and Forever Young, but they feel a tad muted. Dylan had lost his way on stage during the 1980s and performances like this, below par they may be, are crucial listens for those wondering how he crawled his way back to an instrumentally intense and interesting period. There are the hallmarks of that present here. An extended instrumental introduction to Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, for instance, is a solid start. Vocally in good nick for this performance, a strong selection after those gruff howlers preceding this. It’s a chance to hear Dylan in strong form vocally, but the instrumental meaning and power is lost a little. They’re never quite convincing of the wider proclamations made by his work. Even his vocals suffer from this at times. Not the quality, but the direction.  

This is Dylan the crowd-pleaser at work. Audiences who want that from him on modern tours had best listen in to this performance and change their minds. Not every bootleg needs to capture the hearts and minds of an audience. Dylan is not Walter Cronkite, after all. But what this displays more than anything is that Dylan is tired. It happens to the best of us and the burnout comes for all artists. It affected most of those prominent 1960s musicians throughout the 1970s. A performance of I Want You is clear evidence of this. Light and whispery in its presentation, too light, in fact. Piano and acoustic guitar additions here provide nothing remarkable other than a chance to hear a Blonde on Blonde hit. Dylan is not yet reinventing the fundamentals of his work, and a performance like this reflects a rolling out of the hits for the sake of it. A real shame to hear it come to that. 

But then there are moments of interest to cling to throughout Temples in Flames. A neat performance of Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power) has a swagger to it that has Petty to thank. Highway 61 Revisited is changed up a little, too, without the aplomb of the album version. Instead, it’s a rockabilly experience led by a catchy beat and fairly straight-laced performance from Dylan. Rare it may be to hear him not reinvent his works, but this is the awkward middle ground of no great changes being made, and yet not sounding anywhere near as strong as the recorded originals. A bit of an awkward pairing that does linger a little too long on Temples in Flames, but worth a listen for those wanting to hear one of the many shows that kickstarted the Never-Ending Tour concept.