11 May 2005


Rolling Thunder Review--
Life is funny sometimes.
Just when you think you have had enough of the old skool rock n' roll, someone comes into your life and introduces you to something that is far from new and fresh in the world but it is new and fresh for you.
Enter the Rolling Thunder Review.
This could be the best live CD ever made. When I say that, please consider that I am a big fan of live music, but there is something so special in this dual cd covering Dylan's crazed tour.
Here is how I percieve this tour coming together:
This was recorded in '75, Dylan had been in the business for a decade or so and from what I have gathered in the little bit of Dylanology that I have, he was already growing tired of the same old touring concept. He decided in the tour before this that the next tour needed to be a different and they came up with the concept of the Rolling Thunder Review. Some speculate that the name Rolling Thunder came from the codename used to bomb one of the many countries we decided to make conflict with at the time. This was considered widely the belief because several of the musicians in Rolling Thunder would constitantly wear t-shirts that simply said, "Guam", which was one of the areas that the fighters would actually take off from in their carpet bombing missions to free the world of communism...
sigh.
However, Dylan disputes this. He claims that the idea came from asking God what to call the tour and he heard Rolling Thunder outside the house--(which it turns out was fighter planes from the local military base, so same difference..)
Anyway, the Rolling Thunder Review was not known as the Bob Dylan show--his name was not connected with it whatsoever. Basically, they would send out people to the local colleges to handbill the college with the annoucement--

THE ROLLING THUNDER REVIEW COMING SOON!!

Then, a day or two before the show, Dylan and the rest of the gang would roll into town and go to see local entertainment, street musicans, local club talent and recruit them to partcipate in the Rolling Thunder Review. The show became a mix of vaudeville performance and zinzanni under one sometimes big-top roof. They would start with the locals, who would play and build the momentum and then Dylan and his gang, Joan Baiez, etc. would take the stage and perform some acoustics and part the stage, like a part of the act. Then, they would come back out later and perform a long set of electric with a final jam with all the musicians doing a ho-down of sorts. FUCKING AMAZING MAN.

If you don't feel the love for Dylan, I would say that you should still give this a whirl--it is Dylan the way that I think alot of the hardcore fans must remember him--his voice isnt as dense and scratchy as it is in the studio and his spirits in all of these tracks are so uplifting, it really makes a difference in his performance. This seems to be the end of a lot of things--a change in the air. This is the end of the hippy era of rock and roll, Vietnam was knocking hard on the door--the times, they were a changin'.

Tracks to download:
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
Isis
Hurricane
(and my personal fav) Love Minus Zero

This is not one to download, this is one to keep. The double-cd comes with a DVD with two songs filmed from Rolling Thunder and a copy of ISIS. It is worth buying again and again.

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