Bob Dylan - Bootleg Series 6: Concert at Philharmonic Hall

List Price: $15.99
Our Price: $9.90
You Save: $6.09 (38%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $4.98 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more CD details

CD Details

Music reviews of Bootleg Series 6: Concert at Philharmonic Hall

Music Review: As eminently listenable as it is historically important
Rating: 5 Stars

Another thing that stands out is how different these performances were from all subsequent Dylan performances. Dylan seems positively jovial throughout the show -- giggling, making jokes, introducing songs, playing with and teasing his audience. This is a stark contrast to the cynical, aloof Dylan that was on display in Don't Look Back, only a handful of months after this concert was recorded. It will also be a genuine shock to anyone familiar only with Dylan's current concerts, in which he talks to the audience only in order to introduce his band -- if, indeed, he does so at all. There are several reasons for this. Unbeknownst to the audience, Dylan's most recent acoustic album -- the then-three-months-old Another Side of Bob Dylan -- was to be his last. Dylan was only a few months away at this point from recording his first mostly-electric album, Bringing It All Back Home; soon after, he would both bring the electricity to his live shows and abandon the protest movement to focus on personal narratives and surreal esoterica. He thereby received almost constant vicious criticism from the folk crowd, producing in him a cynicism that would lead to his writing of Positively Fourth Street and spill over both into his live performances and his public persona. What we have on display here is a mostly untainted Dylan -- cheerful, exuberant, and even seemingly happy. Throughout the album, he clearly holds the adoring audience in the palm of his hand: they hang on to every word -- words which, by the way, they clearly know better than even he does -- and he plays them to the hilt. The album also offers a fascinating glimpse into a bygone era: a time of unparalleled and long-lost intimacy between performer and audience. The atmosphere gives off a mental picture of Dylan on a small stage singing songs requested by his friends -- despite the fact that this was a showcase concert at a major venue.

What can be said about the performance, heavily-bootlegged for decades, that hasn't already been said? Dylan's voice is in impeccable form: on display is a long-past epoch in which every word he sang was clear. His diction and phrasing here are perfect, revealing even words that were obscured or unclear on his studio albums. He also displays his perpetually-underrated agility on the acoustic guitar, an instrument with which he is quite adept and for playing which he never gets any credit. But, of course there are the words, unparalled words. The song selection is great, covering a spattering of songs from Dylan's first five albums -- one of which had not yet even been recorded, much less released! -- and several songs that never saw the light of day on a studio album. Dylan once said that he likes to see a person on stage "with just a guitar and a point of view; that is exactly what he himself has here, plus, of course, his trusty harmonica -- and that voice, that unmistakable voice. Indeed, he covers an incredible amount of ground for a solo performer. He plays many of the songs that constituted his signature work at the time, a good number of protest songs, and tracks from his most recent album. None of these, however, could possibly have prepared his audience for his most recent compositions -- Gates of Eden, It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding), Mr. Tambourine Man -- which had only been performed a handful of times at that point and which few, if any, in the audience could have heard before. These songs, with their surreal, phantasmagoric collages of strikingly visual and highly poetic images, seemed new and cutting-edge precisely because they were; their like had never been seen in popular music before -- and, indeed, have never been seen since.

And then Dylan called Joan Baez onstage. Although this pairing clearly charmed the 1964 crowd, all that can be said about it now is this: if you like Joan Baez, then this will be your favorite part of the album; if you don't (and many Dylan fans do not), then her lack of subtlety will ruin for you Dylan's immaculate and finely-crafted songs. Their choice of songs -- and Dylan's choice of encore -- can be seen as either playful or ironic on Dylan's part. The one exception to this is With God On Our Side, one of the most powerful songs of that or any other time; Baez's loud and powerful vocal adds an extra layer to this song that will either make one smile or make one cringe.

The sound quality on this album is immaculate: even possessors of a bootleg edition must crack down and purchase it. The packaging is also deluxe, although its one weakness is the essay by the usually incisive Sean Wilentz -- a grab-bag of cliches and questionable and/or silly statements, e.g., "even cooler, was Dylan smoking pot?" and references to "Dylan's nasal harshness" and Baez's "silken coloratura" -- which is not up to the standard set by previous Dylan liner notes. The bottom line is that this is an essential purchase for any Bob Dylan fan; for those who value his early period especially, this just might be the Holy Grail.

Description of Bootleg Series 6: Concert at Philharmonic Hall

Classic Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Country
• Folk
• Pop
• Rock