BOB DYLAN : COMING FROM THE HEAT OF ST.PAUL

 

Disc One (72:14)

  1. She's Love Crazy
  2. Mr. Tambourine Man
  3. Shelter From The Storm
  4. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
  5. Tangled Up In Blue
  6. Ballad Of A Thin Man
  7. Maggie's Farm
  8. I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
  9. Like A Rolling Stone
  10. I Shall Be Released
  11. Coming From The Heart (The Road Is Long)
  12. The Times They Are A-Changin'
  13. It Ain't Me, Baby
  14. Am I Your Stepchild?

Disc Two (72:15)

  1. One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below)
  2. Blowin' In The Wind
  3. Girl From The North Country
  4. Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)
  5. Masters Of War
  6. Just Like A Woman
  7. To Ramona
  8. All Along The Watchtower
  9. All I Really Want To Do
  10. It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
  11. Forever Young
  12. Changing Of The Guards
  13. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight

Label : Thinman Records

Venue : Civic Center, St.Paul, Minnesota, USA

Date : October 31, 1978

Quality : audience recording (A-)

Review (Collector's Music Reviews) : One can see Bob Dylan's excursions in 1978 as an extension of the 1975-1976 RTR tours with Dylan wanting to create a big band with an eclectic palettes of sounds and styles. But whereas the RTR was meant to convey a loose confederation of musicians acting as troubadours, in 1978 the arrangements were tightly rehearsed and choreographed. The new tour is further distinguished by greater co-opting the styles of the late seventies and those reviewers who dubbed the tour "disco Dylan" were not too far off the mark. Others refered to this as "Vegas Dylan" which also hold merit. This was a time when he was emphasizing his role as performer over artist and poet and took a cue from the later Elvis years even to the point of wearing a white sequined jumpsuit on stage (a photo of Dylan in this suit appears on the back of Street Legal). This ethic affected also the material recorded of the new album which is very much a product of its time and only "Seņor (Tales Of Yankee Power)" surviving past this tour. St. Paul occurs right in the middle of the long US tour at the end of the year. Thinman use a very good and clear but constricted sounding audience recording. There are little cuts after "Mr. Tambourine Man," "It Ain't Me, Babe," Where Are You Tonight?" which cuts off the opening notes of "Masters Of War," and "It's Alright Ma." There is a bit of significant distortion at the beginning of "Am I Your Stepchild?" where the taper adjusts the levels. These flaws are very minor since most of the music and Dylan's introductions are all preserved. It is a challenge recording this music on cassette given the amount of instruments on stage, but every thing is very well balanced with nothing overpowering anything else. Red Tampa's "She's Love Crazy" opens the show and is followed by "Mr. Tambourine Man." This is the second arrangement of the year and, in contrast to the version played in Japan, this is very slow and deliberate which picks up the pace halfway through but never really takes off. "Shelter From The Storm" in contrast is played with a disco beat, funky saxophone, and a bluegrass inspired solo played to a happy, optimistic melody. "This is a love ballad I wrote a few years back about three people in love, all at the same time" Dylan says before a very slow, melodramatic arrangement of "Tangled Up In Blue." "I left Minnesota I think in 1960. I went to the East coast for a while. Anyway, I played this song at Newport Folk Festival, 1963, and they ran me out of town. Anyway, I'm not too concerned of that. But I still play it anyway, called I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more" is his introduction to an arrangement emphasizing heavy scales on the guitar and violin over a moody Hammond organ. The first half of the show ends with Dylan saying, "We're gonna take a short vacation right here. Take about ten minutes to regroup, load up. Anyway, this is a new song that I wrote a while back, not yet recorded, but we'll try it out on you." This is the live debut of "Coming From The Heart (The Road Is Long)" a song that has yet to see official release. The second half of the show begins with the mournful violin of David Mansfield beginning and ending "The Times They Are A-Changin'." "It Ain't Me, Babe" is played by Dylan along on the acoustic guitar and is followed by a "new song I recently wrote called Am I Your Stepchild?" This is another unreleased outtake from the Street Legal era which was played constantly on this tour with ever changing lyrics. It is a simple blues progression with harp solo in the middle with lyrical themes keeping with other songs written at this time. "Masters Of War" is a stand out performance with the heavy metal licks by guitarist David Cross. What is particularly impressive is Ian Wallace's drums which sounds like an unstoppable machine. Many Dylan fans don't like this arrangement but none captures the insanity of the words as well. The set ends with "Forever Young" which Dylan introduces by saying, "Thank you! All right, we're going to get out now. It was a pleasure coming this evening, it really was. I'll come back here more often. Right, well, I'll be back, I've had enough of that New York. Anyway, here's a song I wrote for one of my babies, when he was a baby. He's not a baby no more and he's not here but I wanna play it anyway." The first encore is the mysterious "Changing Of The Guard" played as it was recorded for the album and is followed by a short performance of "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight." The late seventies Dylan right before his conversion is a fascinating period and produced some of his most outlandish arrangements and musical experiment. Coming From The Heat Of St. Paul (the title is obviously a play on the unreleased track "Coming From The Heart") is another interesting release by Thinman.

Review (Bob's Boots) : Well, it looks like the only thing missing from this bad boy is a consonant. You have to assume that the compiler typed up the info and inadvertently spelled out Heat. The info passed the spell checker, so it was sent off to the designer, and then to the printer with this glaring mistake. "Coming from the Heart of St. Paul" is the obvious intention. This show isn't just the live debut of Coming from the Heart, but the only time that the song was played on the tour! It remains unreleased to this day. The Civic Center is in the 100 block of West Fourth Street... right in the heart of Saint Paul. It was all thought out so well! It's truly a shame that the title was goofed, because they basically got everything else correct. It's the best recording in circulation, and it's an absolutely scorching performance. What a great show! Thinman is using an even thicker paper stock than past issues, which makes for a more durable package. The recording was originally on cassette tape, and there are a few very minor limitations that it reveals. The show started off with an instrumental version of My Back Pages to bring Bob out, but he didn't play on it. The original taper had to pick and choose pause moments due to the length of the tapes, and did a fantastic job of it. There is over 72 minutes on each disc, with only a few insignificant breaks heard on the recording. Add to that a couple of instances where the mic seems slightly obstructed, and the fact that the recording tends to gravitate to the midrange frequency, and you have an idea of the flaws. This is nit-picking, however!. Overall, it is top rate. The music is very well balanced, the vocals are clear, and all instruments are defined. As for the performance, some don't care for the 78 Vegas-like tour, but I always enjoy seeing Bob go through his various phases. I think that the world of Dylan would be a lot less colorful without the 1978 tour. I might be a bit biased since this is the time of my life when I began switching from a casual Dylan fan into a hardcore one. Bob is very talkative. After all... this is his old stomping grounds where he started to feel the itch after being recorded at the home of Karen Wallace, and then having a live performance at the Purple Onion! He talks about leaving Minnesota and going to the East Coast only to be run out of town at the Newport Folk Festival when he played Maggie's Farm as an intro to that song. Other highlights include a powerful Masters Of War and a splendid Changing Of The Guards. Two thumbs high up on this one!