BOB DYLAN
Nassau County Coliseum
Uniondale, New York
November 13, 2006
Download FLAC: Amazon Drive
Source: DPA 4021 > SD 722 (96k/24)
Peak Pro 5.2 (gain boost; sample rate conversion; bit-rate reduction) > xACT
LB-4266
Disc 1:
1. introduction
2. Maggie’s Farm
3. She Belongs To Me
4. Honest With Me
5. Spirit On The Water
6. It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
7. When The Deal Goes Down
8. High Water (For Charley Patton)
9. Visions Of Johanna
10. Rollin’ And Tumblin’
Disc 2:
1. Ballad Of A Thin Man
2. Tangled Up In Blue
3. Nettie Moore
4. Highway 61 Revisited
(encore)
5. Thunder On The Mountain
6. Like A Rolling Stone
7. All Along The Watchtower
—
setlist from bobdates
http://www.bobdates.org/111306s.html
themidnightcafe.org 
The MP3s for the previous Grateful Dead show are now updated.
for whatever reason, the mp3 links here are going to the GD files from the previous post.
the flac files, (at least the first) seem to line up.
thanks again
At last, after more than 40 years, a live arrangement of
Maggie’s Farm (a song I normally skip) that I can get on
board with 🙂
Love the song in this incarnation.
Thanks Mat
matt, the mp3 links seem to lead to the grateful dead gig?
looking forward to this recording. went to the show with my Ma
New one for me, we are deep in ‘organ country’ here – not the best era but the blues songs usually stand up well and Nettie Moore is usually a highlight. I guess a bit of Blonde on Blonde organ inspiration on ‘Visions’ is too much to hope for.
I’m also guessing this is still basically the 2003 arrangement of ‘Maggies Farm’ if so then I am very much in agreement with Tony on this one! I did manage to get quite into the ’76 version and on occasions (89-90 mostly) the NET floor shaking encore versions could be quite a good final fix on a solid night
Unfortunately the encore songs featured here had already become predictable (and uninspired) throwaways by this time. A state of affairs which largely continues to this day. I hate it when a gig drops down a gear or two in the encores, a lot of nights you’d b better off leaving with some solid memoroies and getting a jump on the traffic quite frankly!
Sorry Mat, forgot to say thanks for filling another gap
MP3 links are now correct. Sorry for the trouble.
I almost said that I was about out of Dylan shows to share, but that’s not really true. I still have quite a few more to share but I can definitely see the end from here. Especially when one considers that many of the show I have left come either from DylanDave or the links to other blogs that he’s commented on.
Luckily the move comes in just over a week and with luck I’ll be back in fast internet land. No doubt I’ll find new Dylan torrents to grab and will be sharing like crazy.
Mat,
keep ’em coming and let me know when you need some more.
I’m still ‘leaning towards’ some of the other tour anthologies as the other blogs seem to have neglected this essentilal element of any Bob collection.
At the very least they spare you from having to listen thru yet another flat rendition of ‘Spirit onthe water’ surely one of the most boring songs Bob has ever penned. The only thing that can make it worse is having to sit in some revolting plastic bucket seat in some soulless arena somewhere while we wait for Bob to finally get to the end!
Also we can skip the distinctly average Ameriana/R&B of ‘Honest with me’ or ‘Summer Days’. Songs which would have been long forgotten if they had featured on one of Bob’s less inspired albums of the 80s such as ‘Down In The Groove’ rather than on the ‘critically acclaimed’ (oh please…!!) ‘Love and Theft’.
Sorry to rant, the above, along with the remarks re the encores, would apply to prettu much any show since 2002
as I said keep ’em coming whenever you are able. God didn’t give us a ‘next/forward/skip’ button without good reason!!
Stay strong August is approaching fast
Looking forward to hearing this one – thanks Mat!
BTW, I’d say the era of predictably-great Dylan shows goes a bit further than 2002, in my opinion DylanDave – I’d say “predictably great” goes thru 2005. After that, greatness is still absolutely possible, but it’s more sporadic.
I’ve thought a lot about why… age is part of it, of course, and 100-shows-a-year-for-25-years style touring. But I wonder if part of why the quality, for me, generally gets more spotty in 2006 might be because, ironically, 2006 is when Bob started hosting Theme Time Radio Hour, which continued for 100 episodes thru 2009.
I wonder if the responsibility of doing those shows might have drawn Bob’s attention ever so slightly away from the focus of putting on a great concert each night. It’s just a random theory I have.
And I say it’s ironic to think that because you’d kind of expect the opposite – you’d expect a deep dive into favorite music from the past (as TTR was) would reinvigorate Dylan, like the Basement Tapes era and the two acoustic folk cover albums of the early 90s did. Those two dives in the past re-invigorated his mojo, but it’s hard to say that TTR did.
OK, all of that being said – I still enjoy a ton of shows from 2006 onwards, up to the present day, so I’m looking forward to hearing this one. Thanks again Mat!
I was curious…did Dylan at some point this time change his stance on taping & sharing? The reason I ask is I remember during the Dylan/dead/petty tour (87?) i got busted for taping the dead. That’s not supposed to be possible, right? but it happened. The explanation I got was thst no taping was allowed due to Dylan policy. Dylan had already played his show & this happened later while I was taking the dead. I was flabbergasted. Anyway, since coming here & seeing all the boots & sharing w/no apparent problem, is the basis for my wonder. Ironic it seems, especially in light of the restrictions & all the pulls mentioned, for a band who encouraged taping & sharing, ABB. Just wondering.
For the record, there was a 2nd time I got busted for taping the dead. Nothing to do w/Dylan this time. It was somewhere around the same time period & I remember it was at rfk stadium in DC (I think that’s where rfk was?) & it happened as the dead were playing sugaree (pretty sure..). How can this be they ask? Well, I 4got the damn little red led light on the front of the camcorder, lol! I remember seeing the security guy come bounding out from behind a curtain the was hung from the stage to the floor. Pretty ironic that of the 3x I got busted for taping, 2x was for the dead (the other time was BB king). So what changed in the Dylan share scenario?
I was doing a search to see if my memory served correctly on the sugaree at RFK and/or to figure out the year & came across this pretty interesting article (I thought) about the dylan/dead collaboration, but even more so about how it was apparently such a boost to help Dylan get back from his feeling that he had lost his mojo at this point in time. The most interesting fact I noted was something I had never heard before, that Dylan proposed join the dead after then 87 tour & then dead declined. Wow! Pretty cool factoid… if true.
http://folkmusic.about.com/od/bobdylan/a/Bob-Dylan-Grateful-Dead.htm
I was doing a search to see if my memory served correctly on the sugaree at RFK and/or to figure out the year & came across this pretty interesting article (I thought) about the dylan/dead collaboration, but even more so about how it was apparently such a boost to help Dylan get back from his feeling that he had lost his mojo at this point in time. The most interesting fact I noted was something I had never heard before, that Dylan proposed join the dead after then 87 tour & then dead declined. Wow! Pretty cool factoid… if true. And equally, if not more interesting, that his tour w/the boys taught him the way of the “continuous tour”, which the article says he consequently did from then til now. I wonder who was the old jazz singer who provided the magic for Dylan to go & do what he had walked out on, the tour w/the dead & what was the trick actually, that enabled him to do so. According to this read, one might conclude that that rather than his music going dead, Dylan was possibly saved BY the dead!
http://folkmusic.about.com/od/bobdylan/a/Bob-Dylan-Grateful-Dead.htm
Clinton Heylin tells the story of the Dead turning him down…
Yeah, hilarious !!
I’m guessing (assuming true) that it was Lesh responsible for that.
Jerry would have said Yes, surely?
DylanDave – i dug out Wembley 2003, the later 06 arrange of Maggies Farm
is similar but different. In fall 2006 the verses take a turn into the minor key
I think (or something like that) – to soul wrenching effect. (I’m thinking of the
boots ‘And A Cannonball Blew My Eyes Away’ / ‘Rock & Tangled Up’).
Wembley is such a great performance in my view – I can’t understand why it
seems to get overlooked in favour of the other London gigs. Bob is on fire
and singing like he’s 10 years younger.
thanks mat, good luck with the move.
Interesting guys! few points, pl excuse note form
Grant – i’m with you really, it’s always been about the night itself with Bob, just more so after 2002. In fact the 90s were no guarantee of great performances anyway, summer 89 was variable/patchy, summer 90 was dull, 91 was just pants etc etc. One day i’ll get that berlin 2003 gig up on this blog to confirm that true greatness of performance is always a possibility with Bob. It’s the encores i have real issues with. Hate to see the performance and tempo come down, hate to see the inevitability of song selection (gotta feed the myth/icon stuff right?) Most of all the arrangements of LARS and Watchtower in particular are just horrible. These are truly great songs with a flow that come from chord structure/progression, lyrical greatness and more than anything the marrriage of these factors. The stop/start avant garde (bored of doing this) arrangements just kills all of this. Watchtower works acoustically and in a high energy electric arrangement (just ask Jimi), it just doesn’t work when you keep interrupting the tempo!
Jeff re taping – i remember the stealthy efforts required by the principal tapers in the late 80s and early 90s an Dylan gigs. In more recent years i’ve just strolled in so you may have a point.
Tony, the sound quality at wembley varies by location so much it is difficult to be really objective about it. I was there rockin’ along to maggies farm and ready for a ‘blinder’ then the sound qual took a nose dive. I was on the floor sitting next to the mixing desk console. The sound was hollow, boomy and raspy, just horrendous, i positioned myself to look at the mixer controls and the spectogram and slider positions directly reflected the sound i was hearing. ie cranked to max at either end of the spectrum and all zeroed in the middle!! I left the gig having dismissed it as pants. more uninspired arena renditions of the love and theft mediocrity i mentioned previously. Many months later I obtained a copy of the Crystal Cat boot. I kept putting off listening to it for ages, my memories were still that bad and that strong. When I did finally play it I had to extract the CD and double check it was actually the same gig I was listening to!!
I have listened to all of the CCs of all the london nights and my opinions of the tour in general have mellowed somewhat. Foe me however Jokerman and Durango stand head and shoulders above everyhting else. Still love Maggies Farm from Wembley though.
Should add that at the 2000 wembley nights i had side tickets more than half way up and the sound quality was excellent on both nights.
Final point re dead. It is obbvious Bob and Jerry had a long term mutiual appreciation and this is reflected in many of the Dead inspired covers Bob incorporated into his set in the 90s. It is also clear from the consistently excellent way in which he performed those songs, even on very average nights. Bob’s singing is surprising on the 87 tour in view of the high energy soulful wailing of the Heratbreakers tours (i know it wasn’t the greatest tour but boy some of those covers were great!) however I have subsequently come to the opinion that Bob was trying to find a voice that ‘fitted’ with the Dead sound. This becomes more apparent if you listen to the rehearsals. All of this seems to fit with Tony’s comment above. However i truly cannot believe that Bob was looking for more than some kind of temporary hookup/association with the Dead, or any other band for that matter.
Really hope that with Mat’s cooperation we will be able to get that definitive Dylan/Dead series of posts up at some point.
For all the flack that tour/album got it still represents the definitive arrangements of ‘Serve somebody’ and particularly ‘Slow Train’ IMHO. Also Bob was correct in his praise of Jerry’s soloing on ‘watchtower’ – how we could do with some of that magic in the encores now!!
Yeah, I can’t really imagine them all getting along together for
too long without problems !
Imagine Sir Bob let loose to bang away at his electric guitar for
half an hour of Playin’ in the Band. It’s the stuff of nightmares!
But picking up on something that Jeff I think mentioned above….
I do think tho that the EXAMPLE which the Dead set was a real kick in
the pants for his Royal Highness. I mean in respect of the question
of the SETLIST, the “Show”.
For most artists even now, the norm is to tour with a predetermined
setlist and never to deviate from it. Boring!
Look, even, at Van’s setlists prior to 1990.
This was as true (nearly) of Dylan as anybody else. Though admittedly,
since exceptions and ‘one-offs’ were always finding their way into the
sets, the final song count over a whole tour (eg in 1981) can be
surprisingly high.
I think the Dead made Dylan realize that static set lists are Not Cool !
And he must have rapidly begun to sense that playing what felt right in
the moment actually suited his peculiar genius. Let’s face it, if
anybody ever had a song book to stand decades of mining, it’s Bob !!
And today we can see modern bands do what My Morning Jacket did
over a 3 night stand at (yes) Port Chester a couple of years ago… not a
single song repeated over the whole 3 nights. How it should be.
Tony
I think it is important to differentiate between a band such as the Dead and an artist plus backing band (often just for one tour) like Bob and Van. I think truly great and prolific songwriters need to freshen up the conntext of their repetoire and changing the personnel often seems to help with this. I accept your point about rotating setlists prior to the Dead tour but only upto a point. Both Bob and Van have always rotated and changed certain elements of their setlists over the years. I think a central core of rehearsed/grooved material is beneficial in performance terms and also allows the band a bit of flexibility to jam it up a little.
With Bob the ultimate expression of song rotation is Hammersmith/PARIS 90 as rehearsed at Toads Place (the 4 hr plus rehearsal gig) I think the core element of a setlist also helps to keep performance qual high. hammersmith is the ultimate expression of this when compared to the changing every night nature of most of the ’89 shows. Personally I find Van’s pre-90 material and shows far superior to the Georgie Fame era performances, of course things picked up considerably in ’93.
Yes but by the same token the “act” can peak and grow very stale.
For me 1993 (say) to 2001 offers a Dylan experience
unparalleled in any other era partly because the set lists
are fluid, and there is always the possibility of surprise, and,
overall, there is a wealth of variety.
Compare 1966, or 1975, or 1979-1981…. all produced
great, great shows. But the fact is that Dylan was going out
each night in effect prepared to perform the same show –
and it shows as one listens to show after show. Who needs
show after show even from 75 ?? (And it’s one of my favourite
years in many respects – after seeing R&C as a kid I lusted
after bootlegs of the tour, something I could only dream about
in those times).
Also, apologies, there’s something I meant but didn’t really state,
tho its associated in my mind. I mean that the Dead at the same
time reminded Dylan that the arrangements — like the set lists —
need not be written in stone. I think the two are related.
Definitely true Tony
I would draw a distinction between Rolling Thunder and other Dylan tours apart from some legs of the gospel tours. I mean early shows from ’74 are very different in feel and also setlist from the end of the tour. Same for the ’78 tour. The late ’80 retrospective tour again shook up the setlist and had a feel all it’s own. Also most tours upto 86 included a solo Bob set and of course Bob never really sings the same song twice when left to his own accompaniment.
So yes I agree with you and the mid-late 90s thru to 2001 are a touring purple patch for me but Hammersmith Paris 90 covers all bases. You have the energy and variety of a constantly changing setlist, but you also have the most focused performances by Bob for many a year and all arrangements are properly worked out and rehearsed in advance. In short the best of all worlds.
Seperate point but for me the setlists for Van might not change dramatically in the 80s but the art is always evolving and the arrangements and feel of the songs does vary significantly. Also Van’s band from this period are full blown experienced jazz musicians in their own right. When you are dealing with musicians of such class and pedigree the setlist is just a starting point
I should have said I love Van’s tours from 92-95. For me Hymns to the silence is a real masterpiece of an album and for whattever reason Van moved up a gear at this point. I don’t really think it had anything to do with the touring band or Georgie Fame however
At random –
ATW I normally skip (with a vengeance!)…
but as an encore 2003 in London (esp Wembley), I love
it… ha ha, not to be contrary!
Wembley 2003, sound from CC is excellent, much better
from them that night than later in the smaller venues.
I wasn’t there, what was the set up? The acoustic, the crowd,
all sound small scale on CC, but it must have been a huge echoing vault right?
Didn’t you shoot yourself in the foot there, arguing in defence of
a “fixed” set list but against routine encores ?? (Half joking).
Van in the eighties… ?
Actually just listening now to Opera House, by co-incidence…
Rave On parts one and TWO !
But so much, like “You’ll know what etc” just keeps turning up year
in year out, zzzz
That said, the “experienced jazz musician” Pee Wee does consistently
redeem it all – he da man, no question. But his name doesn’t rhyme with
‘man’ unfortunately for him.
Imst, Tirol? 1987? – great set, isn’t Georgie playin’ in the band though?
What a brain dump! – soz folks
All Van’s men are great musicians IMHO, I’ve seen many of them in other jazz clubs etc playin’ around London, even chatted with many of them over the years.
Interesting that you are listening to one of my favourite ever Van albums – as i was typing before i had in mind just how different in feel many of the trax are on the excellent Milan boot from 83 (recently posted)
I don’t like encores which are basically not encores at all but just to please the more casual gig goer, basically so they can say Bob did Rolling Stone etc. reminds me of pub gigs where people clap just because they know the song!
Wembley has all the character and acoustic qualities of a zeppelin hanger. Other smaller venues are well known to me and have massively superior acoustics, being old theatres, cinemas etc. I wasn’t at those particular gigs in 2003. Crystal Cat use multi-point recordings with much post prodn so their recs never sound like the actual experience of any particular gig goer.
ps never argued for a ‘fixed’ setlist. Question is balance, you need a core of well rehearsed material so the band can play a little rather than stare at Bob all night trying to guess what he’s going to jump into next. You also need some rotation and variation both in terms of setlist but also in terms of arrangement etc. Personally i think all the best Dylan tours are built around these principles
One more point about Van – I mean if ever an artist represented different things to different people. For some it’s all about the early albums, for other people he’s the jazz/scat/R&B singer of more recent years. For others such as myself he is a true songwriter and artist who created great albums and true art, both recorded and in live performance. Many Van fans I’ve met and know over theyears agree with me that his creative and performance peak was the decade 77-87.
It would be interesting to discover where the Van followers on this blog align themselves?
Mat, can you repost the FLAC links for this one?
Links have been updated
Thank you very much
Comments from a deleted repost:
kid charlemagne says:
March 5, 2016 at 11:57 pm Edit
I was there. even brought my mom that night
Reply
Mat Brewster says:
March 6, 2016 at 5:07 am Edit
That’s awesome.
wrote this way back when I was just a kid
now I am a child
Kid Charlemagne says:
July 26, 2014 at 12:13 pm
looking forward to this recording. went to the show with my Ma