Definitely the most frustrating album of 1989. Don't let anybody tell you Dylan and the Dead are mismatched: this the the best live Dylan since Dylan's and the Band's Before the Flood. Those of you who follow these things will know that's not saying much: Dylan's half-dozen or so live albums since Before the Flood have been various shades of unlistenable.
All the right moves are here: "Slow Train Comin'" and "Serve Somebody" are rife with born again doom and gloom. Both songs are tonally scary: The Dead impart Dylan's proselytizing with a dramatic edge that elevates it above the preachy lecturing of the original versions of these songs. The Dead's slow train is an ominous, palpable entity backing up Dylan's rhetoric with authority. Unfortunately, Dylan mumbles "Slow Train Coming" and doesn't do much better with "Serve Somebody." Buried in the mix, the words are so much white noise.
"Joey" is a good Dylan song that's been unjustly maligned by the same sleepy people who call the Dead's lyrics "patchouli oil philosophy." An updating of Woody Guthrie's "Pretty Boy Floyd," "Joey" is so ironically deadpan that people have taken it at face value, thinking it tries to exonerate the mafia killer Joey Gallo. Lester Bangs even wrote an extended piece admonishing Dylan on the subject. Dylan knows the answer to his question, "What made them want to come and blow you away." "Joey" may have even been the bookend opposite the righteous "Hurricane" - it works as a sour exploration of the myth of the working class gangster and seems to reside squarely on the side of the law when all is said and done. Dylan's sentimental reading calls the authorial voice into question. But that is what the song is about, not what it sounds like here. Although the Dead are good at spicing up long songs, this is Dylan's show and, as his voice drones on and on, the Dead seem paralyzed behind him.
On a smaller scale, the same is true of "Queen Jane Approximately" and "I Want You."
On the other hand, "All Along the Watchtower" and "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" are nice. Dylan's forlorn, deathbed delivery of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" is so tortured, you have to laugh at the guy's sincerity. Dylan's voice has taken a lot of knocks lately. Justly. But it rises occasionally to the task. It would have been great if Garcia's solo on "Knockin'" had lasted several bars longer. He's always been a more exciting player on the second or third series of sequences, rather than the first series, due perhaps as much to what the band can add when given the room to move as it is to Garcia's ability to get excited along with them. The Dead back up Dylan with the idea that less is more, and it works here. The ending tails off slowly and Dylan's character is left "knocking." There is no reason to believe the door will ever open. Typical Dead ideas that fit neatly into Dylan's often sinister way of seeing things.
Dylan gives a good reading of "All Along the Watchtower." His weary, descending note interpretation is full of fatality - it's all happened before - the storm really is approaching. A prophet's nightmare coming home. After all this time, Dylan can still sound angry. Garcia's competes with the ghost of Hendrix and he pulls out all the stops. It's a grand performance, perfectly suited for apocalypse.
But where's the rest of the tunes? They recorded many more than this. Feel cheated? Well, look forward to the Bootleg Tapes, Volume 15 arriving in 2035.
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