Fact check: "Fan auction session" isn't accurate. It was part of an art project called Experiment Ensam, and it was in 2014. Still On The Road: 2014 US Fall Tour
It has never been confirmed officially, but everything seems to indicate that the intention behind the 2017 Ardmore Sessions was to film a Nobel Lecture (a film of a performance counts as a lecture and the delivery of a lecture is mandatory if you want to collect the prize money of 1 million dollars). The Nobel Banquet in Stockholm City Hall took place on December 10, 2016. The recipients of the Nobel Prizes need to deliver their lectures within six months after the banquet. The window for Dylan to deliver a lecture closed on June 10, 2017. The sessions at Ardmore Studios in Ireland took place on May 12–14, 2017, right after the European Tour. The audio recording that Dylan finally handed in as his lecture on June 5 was recorded in LA on June 4. Post-production on the Ardmore Sessions to put together a lecture probably took place in the second half of May, Dylan rejected the result and then hurriedly recorded the lecture we know six days before the delivery deadline. Dylan usually never records new "product" on the tail end of a tour with everybody's energy spent, so the Ardmore Sessions must have been something that he felt he had to do (e.g. record a Nobel Lecture). Then again there is also the possibility that Dylan felt that the Ardmore Sessions were too good to give away to the Nobel Academy and that they will comprise the Shadow Kingdom stream. I hope that Shadow Kingdom will be a live-in-the-studio performance of MMF/RARW in its entirety (with the mannequins looking on) plus an encore of selected songs from the catalogue.
I think since it has been given a title, there will be some meaning behind the songs chosen, but only Bob will know the real meaning. This seems to be like his Springsteen on Broadway, but without six shows a week and monologues between songs. Anyone want to wager they sell merch of some sort?
The wording of the official announcement "as he performs songs from his extensive body of work, created especially for this event" also leaves room for the (faint) possibility of the stream being the premiere of a new group of songs. The title Shadow Kingdom is too good not to use as the title of a new album.
Well, the Beatles are getting a documentary that will ultimately run about 6 hours. Not to be outdone, Dylan is going to do a 24 hour long performance, Jerry Lewis Telethon style. My old man, not at all a Springsteen fan, said that his shows contain long rants about his truck in between songs. He also told me that people would pay just to go boo Dylan.
Its going to be very interesting indeed! I don't think this is the 2017 Ardsley thing, but something done either in the latter part of 2020, or more probably in the first half of 2021, likely, if I'm guessing right, on or after March-April, when he and enough of the crew he would need, musicians, etc probably got the vaccine. Of course, I'll be watching!
This would have been easy for His Bobness in 1993. He'd only have to play around 30 songs before he hit overtime.
It will also be interesting to hear how his voice is doing, since he had more than one and a half year to rest it.
I hope it is a live "livestream" personally. Adds an extra frisson of excitement and tension knowing that it's happening in real time I think. A pre-recorded show could have just as easily been sold to a network and put out on dvd presumably.
Logging this post now in the hope I can gleefully mock it later, assuming such gimlet-eyed, killjoy cynicism turns out to be wildly wrong and we get something fresh and thrilling.
I was just thinking the same thing. It will be interesting to hear how his voice is doing, since he had more than one and a half year to rest it.
Does this mean Dylan will be performing WITHOUT TONY GARNIER ON THE BASS GUITAR? I don't know what world I'm living in anymore.
Back in 2001 Dylan said something about re-recording his old songs and putting that out as an album. Maybe this is that album?
Might be the crew of youngsters he had involved with "Murder Most Foul." Blake Mills, Fiona Apple...I think that crowd?
I have been a supporter or at least a "it's Bob he can do what he pleases" about every move he's ever made, but have to say the FIRST thing he might do that would make me boo Bob would be a "re-recording my classics in the studio" thing. For whatever reason---I know it might be an irrational prejudice---I find that the lamest thing an old musician can do. (Even tho, hypocritically, I have enjoyed some albums like it in the past.)
