The 1966 Live Recordings

Trouble starts when Bob Dylan and the Hawks flourish their dazzling and mysterious music in front of audiences eager to see the real Burl Ives – with hilarious results. Some of the high-wire fun that follows is badly recorded or cut off in mid-flow, but it still features the spooky moment at almost every concert where the whole house bursts into laughter as the singer admits he can’t find his knees, several numbers dedicated to the Taj Mahal, and that now notorious episode when the future leader of the British Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn (well, it certainly sounds like him) yells out: “Judas!” Hearing all that will cost you serious time and money. Is it worth it?Yes and no. The Manchester and Albert Hall sets are available separately at a far lower price, and probably represent the fiercest nights of the tour. Other discs contain murky material that only the devout will play more than once. But limiting yourself to those two stand-alone CDs will also rob you of some very necessary jewels – notably, “Just Like a Woman” and “Mr Tambourine Man” from Scotland and Paris, where Dylan’s harmonica work threatens to soar into orbit and completely leave the planet.Other parts aren’t so sublime. “Many Mornings” and “Tom Thumb” are really the same trudging tune, and Dylan is audibly bored to death with “Desolation Row.” It’s like a good joke that he’s already told far too often. Elsewhere the Hawks back him to perfection, but Robbie Robertson sounds under mortifying pressure. Early concerts reveal how hard it was to slot his brash, roadhouse style into Dylan’s nimble assault, and it’s not until the last run of shows that he finally comes to grips with the proper sound of these songs, prising their spines apart and playing through the gaps. Come the Albert Hall, he’s peerless. Even so, the suave, minimalist sideman from “King Harvest” or “Dirge” is barely in evidence, and if nothing else this set reveals the extraordinary repurposing of his skill that Robertson achieved at Big Pink.He’s also voiced his disquiet over the audience hostility Dylan attracted. It’s difficult to gauge the depth of that from this. Some gigs are rowdy, others rude, Paris utterly hushed, but you can’t help thinking Robertson may have stretched his tales just a tad in the telling. After all, with Ronnie Hawkins, he’d played at Southern backwoods shindigs where the crowds resembled tooled-up extras from “Deliverance,” so a few Stalinist folkies barking from the cheap seats can hardly have counted as much of a threat. Dylan, meanwhile, sounds unconcerned by the whole rigmarole, blithely patient in the face of fools. He’s contended in recent years that “Judas” had been a vile insult on any number of levels (though one would guess its anti-Semitism was unintended), but you wouldn’t have known it at the time. Here Dylan parades in maximum Dada pomp, the hippest of the hip, charged with a seamless, glacial, Class-A disdain. His poise rarely falters, even when one friendly voice assures him, “We’re with you, Bob.” Incredibly, he sped on at this frightening pace for another two months before that fabled bike crash - or whatever it was - brought the craziness collected in this box to a halt. Dylan was lucky to clamber out alive.Half a century on, his views on this razor-thin man and the capering uproar he incited night after night remain obscure. In old age Dylan may well dismiss it all as youthful folly, laugh at his own accelerated masquerade, mourn those playing here who are now long gone – or perhaps, like many of us, scarcely credit the beauty and naked sense of risk that these recordings still display.

Lots of other reviews here on Amazon, making good points.What do you get? 36 CDs, a slim booklet, and a well-made cardboard box with lid. CD card covers have tracklist and recording details on back, and individual (all different) live concert photos from the tour on the front.What's on the CDs? 18 concert recordings from soundboard reel tapes (in mono) or professional CBS concert recordings (in stereo, the last few concerts of the tour). Most are complete, or just missing a bit where tape had to be turned-over / changed.The last 5 discs are audience recordings of shows CBS didn't record.Why is this interesting? Firstly, it's for Bob Dylan freaks like me, who know that these Dylan concerts are among the greatest musical evenings there have ever been for rock music fans. The live recordings in Europe are excellent quality, a fine representation of the music. The concerts are generally the same songs (over and over again!), BUT in the case of the electric sets, different songs come off better or less well on different nights (especially the thunderous intros). The band listened to the tapes after the concerts, and no doubt looked for ways to make the next concert better. Even the acoustic sets show Dylan in different moods, sometimes just singing the songs nicely in tune, professionally for the people, but sometimes in touch with what the songs are about and conveying the meaning with real feeling.Even the audience tapes have a story to tell - history tells us that the electric sets were over-loud and people couldn't understand the vocals. Now you can hear for yourself, what it sounded like for those attending.I'm a Dylan-in-'66 nut - I bought the £400 studio set (and CBS then kindly gifted purchasers with all the 1965 live material too).We know that we're getting these things because the copyright is running out, but it's finally getting us as much as we can listen to, of probably the greatest rock tour that there ever was. Everything there is, is not too much! There is no other example of such great coverage for a great tour.Value for money is hardly an issue, faced with the chance to get this material - however, 36 CDs for £100-odd -you do the math.. The audience recordings may have you straining to follow the electric sets, and the Australian soundboards are not like the European recordings, but there's plenty to enjoy in great recording quality.So, a wonderful present for Dylan buffs, in barebones packaging, which keeps the price manageable. Leaflet is dull but refers readers on to the Clinton Heylin book about the tour, which is well worth acquiring. Incidentally, the re-issue of the No Direction Home DVD has live footage of a few whole songs from the tour, as extras.When I loved the bootleg of the Manchester concert in the early seventies, I never dreamed that we would (eventually!) get to hear all-there-is of this wonderful material - glad I lived long enough to see this day.

The boxset here is a true treasure trove for real Bobophiles. I am proud to say that I was at the second of the Royal Albert Hall gigs (27 May '66), so getting hold of a copy was a no brainer for me. Only having received it late yesterday I've not played anywhere near the majority but I started with the night that I was there, and can say that I trembled at finally hearing it in its entirety (I had some of it from acetate recordings etc).Probably only one for real hard-core Dylan fans but I'm always going to be one of them.I'll add a bit of info in response to other reviews. One reviewer says this isn't a new issue as it was offered as a free download if you bought the limited 18 disc version of the 65-66 (Cutting Edge) sessions boxset last year. This isn't true...what was given free THEN was the complete 1965 live recordings (this boxset covers 1966). Another mentions that there is a duplication of many songs over the 36 discs here, while not featuring songs such as All Along The Watchtower. As a trove featuring only what he played in '66 - and the gigs were almost all the same set list - this is what you should expect. Also... many of the songs that were listed as missing (Blowing in the wind apart!) hadn't even been written by '66. Hope this helps clarify.A fabulous archive boxset of every known 1966 live recording, but probably not for someone wanting a Bob hits collection..!!In short...it's bl**dy marvellous and I'm in Bob heaven.