Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings - Sony 36-CD box-set - November 11th 2016

I remember being enthralled when this new footage came out, but I now see that it's password protected. Is it permissable to ask for assistance on this forum? Apologies if not

 

We have a system of secret knocks and handshakes here...you have the right credentials but unfortunately I didn't save a copy of this video to share! Thanks for bringing it up, I'll be looking around for it now. If I recall correctly it was only a short promo clip but nevertheless had precious seconds of unique 1966 film.

 

Thanks for that. Glad my credential check out! IIRC, there were clips of Just Like A Woman, It's All Over Now Baby Blue and Tell Me, Momma (all from RAH 26/5/66) and some more press conference stuff. However, I couldn't recall if that was all the '66 footage in the clip. Strange that the video is password protected now, given that it was released by the Bob Dylan Centre itself.

 

Hello all! Without going through 292 pages what are some of the highlights of this set? I already own the Royal Albert Hall show on the separate release. Thanks for any recommendations!!

 

An easy one to start with: Positively 4th Street from Sydney (CD2).

 

Period documents like the Basement Tapes safety or acetate, BOTT test pressing or Beatles Get Back can really complement a comprehensive release quite nicely and provide additional perspective.

I really really love the RSD vinyl releases that accompanied the Basements and BOTT.

 

Yes, I especially like the Blood on the Tracks test pressing. It's a great release with interesting alternates.

 

I’ve been wanting to make a playlist with the best (my favorite?) performances of each song. But the sheer number of performances makes that a daunting task. Would be great to get a group project aimed at that.

 

Looks like the video has been reinstated at Vimeo. It was taken down for a while there.

Thanks to @trumpet sounds , your "like" on the original post alerted me that it's back up. Let the 1966 tour continue.

1966 Restoration

 

I wanted to do the same but there are way too many good performances. I prefer to play a complete show or just the accoustic or electric part so I can hear them as a whole and not as a isolated track.
There is one exception for me, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues from Liverpool. I find it the perfect 1966 live performance and maybe that's why it landed on the B side of the I Want You single. I play that song for more than 54 years now.

 

It's really like trying to think of highlights from a volume of encyclopedias. Every show has a slightly different mix and ambiance. Lots of strange between-song talking. Occasional riffs in the same old songs that are unique to one performance.

No one has collected a comprehensive list of nuances, it would be book-length. Clinton Heylin issued a companion book to this set that does an admirable job, but a person cannot actively recall all details. It comes down to whichever show you happen to play being just as manic as another.

 

A scan of the filmed performances seem to show that Desolation Row is incomplete at all shows. The recordings might or might not overlap. All other tracks seem to be complete.

 

I haven't given up hope.

 

There is a scene in NDH where a audience member asks Bobby "What happened to Woody Guthrie, Bob?" which Bob replies with: "These are all Protest Songs now c'mon... This is not British music this is American music now c'mon." Does anybody know in what Concert, in 1966, an audience member asks Bobby that during the show? I know that Bob's reply is from the 1st Royal Albert Concert, but I don't know about the audience members question. I read that it is from the 1st Royal Albert Concert too, but I don't hear there.

 

Fearing a thread lock due to inactivity - a slightly off-topic post-

I like to watch old film footage from vintage eras and recently saw this from "NYC 1960s." AKA Bob's world. A few movie marquee shots date this (no Dylan content) footage to 1966. The vivid quality is stunning to me, but I might be a dimwit.

 

There are those who listen to things in order, often with scholarly ambitions. And then there are people like me, who pull shows out at random or based on what city was playing on a Premier League broadcast or some other reason or none at all. So I still have a few shows that haven't been listened to yet.

Of the soundboards I still have Bristol and Manchester, although the latter I've had bootlegs of since the cassette days. Of the AUDs I have Hempstead, Melbourne, and Stockholm. Melbourne I've heard many times before, at least some of it.

And I have listened to some of the shows more than once (and heard several many many times as boots), especially 5-27 as I put that on my phone for car listening.

For lesser quality audience recordings like the ones included in this set or early King Crimson boxes I tend to listen to them in the kitchen when they're played in a room down the hallway with the door open. So the sound just bounces around, leaks into the hallway on down to the kitchen where I'm chopping vegetables and such. It sort of mimics the sound of outside the music hall when you arrived a bit late for an opening act or had to take a bathroom break.

It's the laziest I've ever been with a box set, but given that it's pretty much the same setlist (I know, performed different ways) I didn't want to run it into the ground. There is a limit and you only get to a show for the first time once. I believe I played 3 other shows during our 2 years of Covid.

 

I listen to quite a lot of music in a similar way. I love hearing it played from a different room than the one I'm in. Not just audience recordings, but everything. With heavy rock music I'm fascinated with how the bass sounds from a distance or another room, bleeding through the walls. Audience recordings indeed sound like a real event is happening, albeit at a distance from where I am. Tom Waits had a quote years ago about this. He said his favorite music is whatever the neighbors are playing - and he wasn't kidding - he likes sound from a distance because the emphasis changes and he mishears all the lyrics (and consequently makes up his own).

With the 1966 Box, I also listen for arcane and random reasons. Never in order. Not even once.

 

I tend to take my potatoes down to be mashed.

 

I can now proudly say I've listened to it in order. Twice. Except the second time, I listened to this before the second Royal Albert Hall show.

 

That video explains a lot about the 2nd RAH show, doesn't it! I tried to listen to the shows in order...but several things happened to me along the way:

The first thing I know, I'm in a card game. Then I'm in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13-year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down. I go down to Dallas. I get a job as a "before" in a Charles Atlas "before and after" ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year-old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy - he ain't so mild: He gives her the knife, and the next thing I know I'm in Omaha. It's so cold there, by this time I'm robbing my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble onto some luck and get a job as a carburetor out at the hot-rod races every Thursday night. I move in with a high school teacher who also does a little plumbing on the side, who ain't much to look at, but who's built a special kind of refrigerator that can turn newspaper into lettuce. Everything's going good until that delivery boy shows up and tries to knife me. Needless to say, he burned the house down, and I hit the road. The first guy that picked me up asked me if I wanted to be a star. What could I say?

Playboy Interview

 

In 1966, Dylan would run away from a delivery boy armed with a knife. In 2022, he'd hack the boy's arm off.

 

He ain't nearly as cool or forgiving as he sounds. Guess he's seen enough heartache and strife

 

Maybe so. But a gambler, or pimp? He ain't neither one!

 

He ain't him.

 

Thanks for sharing i love this video.