The first concert release of Bob Dylan from the Godfather label features an excellent audience recording from Bob's well-recieved European tour. The sound is great, with Bob's vocals clear, well defined and upfront. The music comes through wonderfully clearly, with only the odd bit of distant audince clapping between songs here and there. The taper has done a great job of ensuring that the crowd noise is kept to a minimum throughout the set.
This is early on in the tour, the sixth show, so Bob is still finding his feet, but still the performance is slick and interesting. Bob hits the ground running with the first four songs, playing electric guitar for the first time in several years and giving the songs a rockier edge. The re-arrangement of 'It's Alright Ma' breathes an astonishing amount of new life into the song. Bob switches for keyboard for the rest of the show, and you'll find yourself wishing that he didn't...still the band are tight throughout (the violin playing being a particular standout on this recording), and Bob is throwing in great, passionate and commited vocal performances and is clearly enjoying himself. It's not the best show of the tour, that has to come later with Amsterdam, Newcastle & London, but still it's a very solid performance in excellent sound quality with many highlights, especially the newer songs like 'Ain't Talkin' and 'Nettie Moore' which are sublime.
Couple of little niggles about the set: I notice I have a couple of small sound drop-outs on disc two of my copy, once in Nettie Moore, and again in Like A Rolling Stone. I'm unsure if all copies are like this (can anyone confirm!?)which is very unfortunate. Secondly only one bonus track (Desolation Row, from Dusseldorf) is a bit of a disappointment, especially considering that each disc runs for just over an hour apiece. Still, it's a nice sounding bonus track in just as good sound quality than the main recording.
Packaging, as always with The Godfather, is superb - a cardboard tri-fold 'Mini-LP' package with each disc housed in a paper sleeve. Colorful, vibrant and well thought-out design based around the souvenir programme that was available for a princely sum of money at the shows.
This is only the second ever Bob Dylan release from The Godfather - the other being 'Mercy On Us' - a collection of 'Oh Mercy' outtakes' - and as I said earlier, the first concert release from them. Here's hoping for more, especially if Crystal Cat choose only to release some of the rest of this tour, or none at all. It would be nice for a qulaity label like The Godfather to push a larger selection of Dylan releases out in the future.
