Positively Bob Dylan » Live

In my flashforward I had breakfast with Bob Dylan

Mike Hobo — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:41:37 +0000

An Internet video of Bob Dylan’s 1976 “Hard Rain” live version of “Shelter from the Storm” is featured in episode 9 (”Believe”) of the first season of the ABC TV-series “FlashForward”. The woman Bryce saw in his flashforward – Japanese office employee Keiko Arahida – watches the video on her PC in the office, trying to learn how to play the guitar like Dylan.

And here is the video of the full song:

The full song is also used as a background song at the end of episode 9.
Learn more about the live version and the album “Hard Rain”, as well as the original song and the original album “Blood on the Tracks”. You can also rate the song and post your comments.

Tom Thumb live in Madrid

Mike Hobo — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:50:07 +0000

Enjoy this pro-shot performance of “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” live in Madrid on 6 July 2008. Thanks to Marion from Austria for the upload!

You can post your comment on the song and rate it right here.

From Iceland to Portugal

Mike Hobo — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:53:21 +0000

Bob is currently touring Europe again. In six weeks he will have played 30 venues in 16 countries, all the way from Iceland trough Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe, Italy, and Spain to Portugal. For the first time Bob is going to play 11 concerts in one country – Spain, where he opens his tour at the Zaragoza Expo 2008. He also has recorded a new version of “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall” and participates in the international promotion for the event.

In case you are not one of the lucky fans who got the chance to get a ticket for one of the current shows, I found this great audience recording of the Helsinki show on June 1. Each song is provided as a separate video consisting of the recording and overlayed images.

The set list:
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (song comments)
Lay Lady Lay (song comments)
Rollin’ and Tumblin’ (song comments)
Visions of Johanna (song comments)
Things Have Changed (song comments)
The Levee’s Gonna Break (song comments)
Tangled Up In Blue (song comments)
Watching The River Flow (song comments)
Every Grain Of Sand (song comments)
It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (song comments)
Nettie Moore (song comments)
Highway 61 Revisited (song comments)
Spirit On The Water (song comments)
Summer Days (song comments)
Ballad Of a Thin Man (song comments)
Thunder On The Mountain (song comments)
Like a Rolling Stone (song comments)

It’s Rolling Thunder hat time again!

Mike Hobo — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:26:52 +0000

Bob seems to have found his RTR hat again. In a series of recent gigs he was seen wearing a hat that looks like the one from the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Keep on keepin’ on, Bob – it still fits!

Check out Bob’s latest performance of “Lay Lady Lay” at the House of Blues in Dallas on February 23, posted by sonsofjah on youtube:

Rollin’ and tumblin’ through Europe

Mike Hobo — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:56:03 +0000

It was a unique experience for 800 lucky fans to be privileged to see Bob Dylan play a rare club gig at the Debaser in Stockholm. Dylan and his “Modern Times” touring band (Tony Garnier, Stu Kimball, Danny Freeman, George Recile, Donnie Herron) are currently touring Europe for a number of concerts in Sweden, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and France.
While the live audience is happy to see Dylan playing his Fender guitar again, those fans who did not have the chance to grab a ticket are being surprised by a number of good-quality bootleg audience recordings of the first shows. So far it seems that Dylan performs more new songs than usual after having released a new studio album. Apart from the always very loose selection of classics and live rarities (”Cat’s In the Well”, “Country Pie”, “Tears of Rage”), this time Dylan’s setlists also included the new “Rollin’ and Tumblin’”, “Thunder On the Mountain”, “When the Deal Goes Down”, “Nettie Moore”, and “The Levee’s Gonna Break”.
It’s the simple fact that every live performance differs from the previous one, and the audience never really knows what to expect both in terms of the setlist and the way of interpretation of that wild selection from the Dylan repertoire, that still entertains and keeps the audience coming and coming again. Just like a bottle of good red wine, the fascination with Bob grows everytime you experience him – live or on record.
In June 2007 Dylan and his band will return to the US and Canada.

> Official Tour Information

Piano Man Standing

Mike Hobo — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:37:12 +0000

For the past three years Dylan was rarely ever seen performing on stage with a guitar. The typical set-up was him playing on the left side of the stage standing in front of a keyboard, the other musicians on their usual spots. Only for two or three occasions a night he moved into the center of the stage to play his harp.
Something is happening and we don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones? Why is he exchanging his guitars for a keyboard? The most likely reason is that Bob might be suffering from arthritis. Also his sets are no longer than 90 minutes, about 30 minutes less than a usual rock concert. But what’s “usual” in the world of Bob Dylan anyway? Isn’t it the variety of styles, performances and interpretations of songs that fascinates us the most? And having heard a few of his latest live sets, he seems to enjoy the jam-session like stage set-up. There is no electric and acoustic set anymore and his set-list mainly includes songs from the mid-60s and his latest two albums. Bob might not be a piano man like Billy Joel or Elton John, but the new arrangements are interesting to an audience that has heard the songs a million times and thinks to know them by heart.

Bandanas in a hard rain 30 years ago

Mike Hobo — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 16:39:16 +0000

Following the release of “Desire” Dylan continued his Rolling Thunder Revue in 1976, but it was hard if not impossible to recreate the spontaneity of the 1975 tour. When the Revue finally performed in Fort Collins on May 23rd, it just seemed so symbolic that in probably one of their best shows of the tour they had to confront a hard rain. The concert had been recorded on film (for an NBC broadcast) and for an album, both entitled – of course – “Hard Rain”.
The show was recorded at the Hughes Stadium of the Colorado University and broadcast on TV on September 14. Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, T-Bone Burnett, Scarlet Rivera, Rob Stoner, Bob Neuwirth, Mick Ronson and Howie Wyeth joined Dylan among others from the 1975 leg of the tour.
A month after the “Hard Rain” concert and 30 years ago on April 22, 1976 they performed at the Belleview Biltmore Hotel in Clearwater, Florida. This indoor show had also been recorded for TV, but was never released.
DVD copies of both TV recordings are circulating among traders. And now on the 30th anniversary of “Hard Rain” one can only wonder why there still is no official DVD release of those great shows.

> Hard Rain album details

Unreleased Dylan performances to be included on new DVD

Mike Hobo — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 12:44:17 +0000

In August 1971 George Harrison gathered his friends for what has probably become the world’s first benefit concert, “The Concert for Bangladesh”. A new DVD version of the concert movie including never before seen footage will soon be released. Bob Dylan had his own acoustic set at the end of the concert, where he played “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, “It Takes A Lot To Laugh,It Takes A Train To Cry”, “Blowin’ In The Wind”, “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Just Like A Woman”. The new DVD version will also include “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” which was not included in the original movie, as well as George and Bob rehearsing “If Not For You”. Proceeds will go to UNICEF.

Two new Dylan albums to be released later this year!

Mike Hobo — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 12:43:14 +0000

It’s the news that every Dylan fan has been waiting for since last year’s “Live 1964″: There will be a new release soon. The bad news about it is that there isn’t going to be any new material involved, the good thing however is that there will be two releases of rare early recordings.
“Dylan: Live at the Gaslight 1962″ will be available for a limited time at “Starbucks” in the U.S. and Canada starting August 30. The New York Gaslight Café recordings are among the earliest recordings of Dylan performing live and have been available on various bootleg releases for many years now. The 10 tracks on this release will be newly remastered though.
Plus “No Direction Home: The Soundtrack” will be released as Sony’s official “Bootleg Series Vol. 7″ at the end of August. It will include 26 previously unreleased recordings from 1959-66. They have been compiled for Martin Scorsese’s forthcoming Dylan TV-documentary in late September.

Dylan on Live Aid DVD

Mike Hobo — Fri, 12 Nov 2004 12:18:30 +0000

On November 8th 2004, 20 years after the legendary 1985 Live Aid concert events a 4 DVD set has been released. It features 10 hours of concert footage, documentary and the music videos to the benefit singles “We Are The World” (with Bob Dylan) and “Do They Know It’s Christmas”.
Dylan’s perfomance of “Blowin’ In The Wind” with Keith Richards & Ron Wood is included on disc 4. The original set consisted of two more songs, “Ballad Of Hollis Brown” and “When The Ship Comes In”. The complete set has been released on a rare 11 LPs + 7″ single bootleg box set.