Bob Dylan "Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Tour Recordings" (14CD box set; 7th June 2019)

Honestly if you are willing to pay for the box even if you only listen to the concerts once, it is worth the relatively low retail price.

One day when it does go OOP, you either will shrug your shoulders at not owning it, or you will pay 2-4 times the price to do so.

Either way the music is fantastic, and the box is a beautiful piece to own. I hope for more like these to come out along with the Bootleg Series (1976 I'm looking at you).

 

I've been intending to order this set for a long time. After seeing this thread pop back up I just did. For all you get it is really reasonably priced.

 

You mean kick myself in the butt.

I've passed by some of the recent Dylan mega-boxes. This one probably tops the list. A Desire/1976 RTR set - I'll call it After the Break-Up and/or Before the Divorce, also would be of interest. For some reason, 10-15 years ago I would have committed high crimes and misdemeanors for the kind of Blood on the Tracks set that was issued a few years back. By the time it came out, I'd lost interest.

 

Nice, but not overly done, presentation. Reminds me of some of the classical music sets I have.

It won't fit on a standard CD shelf. I would need to find a special area for this bad boy.

 

And that is the dilemma of the collector....pay now or regret later. Personally I'm over the moon that these SDE of great albums are coming out. Bootlegged tracks that I only ever heard about are now on an official release, in the best quality we can hope for. It truly is the human condition to lust after what we cannot have, and ignore what is easily obtainable.

It is only in the last few years I will immediately buy any release that I would want to own*, as even non-limited editions are actually limited, and will one day be OOP. I have many items I have only listened to once, but that is not the point. The point is that I own it, and I can listen to it anytime I want.

*I only do this for a few select artists. Other bands I am content with not owning everything, or just the old albums. So far Dylan's archival releases have exceeded all my expectations, and I find myself listening to the Bootleg Series more often than the albums. And I only bought the 6cd version of Cutting Edge, as even then it was more than what I wanted to hear.

 

Very nicely expressed!

 

I have it on the same shelf as my other clamshell boxes and MFSL/Japanese mini-LPs:



(Yeah, I even kept the shrink wrap)

 

That's what I've done with my classical boxes, but I don't have any similarly-sized rock/pop boxes (I have a few long boxes) and I'm not putting Bob next to Wagner, Gould, Beethoven, Etc. Not even any room next to Benny Goodman. There's 2.5" next to where I keep my Bose headphones. That should work, as Amazon says it's 2.38" wide.

 

They vary enough, but it really depends on your taste. They're all good shows, but I think the later ones are better. In the end, there were only two shows that I wanted to keep to supplement the Live 1975 set - one of the Boston shows (forgot which) and the December 4th show. Otherwise the Live 1975 set does a great job of cherrypicking. (The Dec. 4 performances of "Romance in Durango" and "Isis" are better, I would have preferred those, but per the liner notes, they chose not include those because they were already on Biograph.)

But if you can afford it and you're more or less a collector, the presentation is worthwhile - they did an impeccable job with it and who knows if it'll fall OOP and stay that way.

 

Which brings me to what I wish they had done for the vinyl version - issued the entire Montreal concert on LP. I have the Side Tracks LP set and I think "Romance in Durango" and "Isis" sound fantastic.

EDIT - I think I'll listen to some of the samples, especially the rehearsals, here - https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/poprock/de...r-revue-the-1975-live-recordings/hnum/9212698 - and decide.

 

I hear ya. They did something like that with the 1966 box set - the real Royal Albert Hall show was issued concurrently as a standalone (not to be confused with the 1998 release of the Manchester show that was misidentified as "Royal Albert Hall"). It would've made sense to do the same here, with Dec. 4 being the cheaper standalone, but maybe there were financial reasons? Who knows.

 

Looking for a way to get in.
Says GA but having a hard time getting past the guards

After cd's 1-3 and 14, and choosing favorites from them, I decided to go straight into the Dylan-Baez sets and the solo Bob spotlight number or two,
one piece of concert after another.

Haven't arrived in Montreal yet though!

Some preferences fwiw...

For the Dylan with Baez sets, haven't found a Blowin' in the Wind I like yet from the previous 4 concerts.
Haven't found a Mama I didn't like! They're all very good to excellent imo.

For solo Dylan, ah, that evening in Boston take of Tangled Up In Blue is a winner! Didn't care as much for it in Worceseter, but am happy I got my favorite now.

Back to Dylan with Baez, there's at least one very good to excellent take imo of Dark As A Dungeon, Wild Mountain Thyme, and a sublime Never Let Me Go, and at least a couple great takes on I Shall Be Released.

Back to solo Dylan, I was rattled and charmed by Mr. Tambourine Man.

For my selfish purposes parts of this set have taken hold and I long got my ticket and am finally in.

 

I love this box! This thread perking up is good prompt to revisit; it’s been a while.

Also re: the Live 1975 Bootleg Series, that’s a great compilation but in addition to being more extensive this box also improves on the sound quality.

 

Just slip by at The Changing of the Guards

 

Whats awesome is that the majority of the tour now exists officially released or on excellent audience recording

 

This thread getting a few hits in recent days prompted me to revisit this jewel of a box again. When I first purchased it, I powered through all 14 discs in a matter of days, and then would revisit a show at a time here or there. But in doing that, I also neglected the rehearsal discs - something that has now been amended.

Wow, these three discs are fascinating. You can hear, in a matter of days, the band coming together, testing out material, and getting steadily tighter. Bob sounds like he's having a brilliant time, never heard him so animated and positively passionate. As a listener, you really feel like a fly on the wall during the first two discs. Tracks come together slowly, and break down, and the musicians all chat to one another. And then you've got disc 3, the Seacrest rehearsals from Oct 29, which is amazing. This in itself could have been released as a mini-album. Fantastic runs of some classic songs and deeper cuts.

Special mention to 'If You See Her Say Hello' on disc 2, I love that minor variation during the end of each verse run. I wanna hear a proper run of that arrangement!

 

Fabulous Box set. Trouble no more is really great too.

 

I can't get into those rehearsals, i'm a Dylan fan but this is too much. It just feels like, you know, rehearsals... The"If You See Her..." you mention i don't like it, the singing is too unfocused..

Yet Tears of Rage, Easy and Slow and People Get Ready at least are worth hearing more than once, i shall try again...

 

This set's much work, for me lol, but rewarding for each performance I like. Oh, Sister and Sara, One More Cup of Coffee and Knockin' On Heaven's Door, and many more. I guess the set comes out to 100 tracks for the concerts alone. I've tried to go about it with the Dylan-Baez sets, the closing pair (still stuck on that take of Just Like A Woman from CD3) of songs each night, the opener each night, Hurricane, and the 2 'Desire' (+more) sections, listening to those parts of each concert, finding which ones I enjoy most, so to more easily return to them when finishing with all this listening. Maybe because the setlists are primarily the same and (yet) the shows so relatively sprawling, I can only listen for a half hour or hour at a time. I think the sound quality is good but that and some of the song repetition plays into how long I can listen for an extended period of time.

 

"Easy and Slow" is just marvelous, sublime. It is uncanny how there are moments, songs, Dylan playing them, when, how, where, he seems to truly inhabit, and for lack of a better word - what some other artists whether painters, writers, singers, all, more, etc. might mention once in awhile - something that seems akin to channel. Or 'simply' the result of pure expression, intuition, skill, and craft, all coming together...

I was stuck on a few performances on CD3. I will have to give the 1st 2 cd's another try. "Hard Rain" and to a lesser extent "She Belongs To Me" (incomplete with fade) were not promising messengers of repeat listens, for my taste, anyway. Although hearing a different take or any take of She Belongs To Me has its merits or my initial interest in hearing.

 

Can anyone remind me which show/s had the strangest/fastest (overall) phrasing?

I'm sure those qualities can be said for all of them, but I used to have a mental note (which I've misplaced) that says one in particular was nuttier than the others. Currently assuming it was Harvard, which I'm listening to now. Wow, this sounds great after shelving it for the past year.

 

Montreal. Spirits were high.

 

Montreal is cocaine fueled mayhem. They even start singing in French!

 

Oui, Montreal! It's coming back to me now, the character of each show.

But I seem to remember a particular version of "Hurricane" being strangely off kilter, too fast, off beat. Montreal is overall really fast, but this Hurricane isn't the CAT5 storm that I seem to remember.

Guess I'll have to hear 'em all!

Edit: I think it was Boston Evening "Hurricane" that I was looking for. The cadence and vocal rhythm wanders a little off-center.

 

Thanks for inspiring me to open the box again.