BOB DYLAN : FRANKFURT 1996

 

Disc One (56:54)

  1. Drifter's Escape
  2. Pretty Peggy-O
  3. All Along The Watchtower
  4. Under The Red Sky
  5. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
  6. Silvio
  7. Tangled Up In Blue
  8. Masters Of War

Disc Two (55:20)

  1. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
  2. Seeing The Real You At Last
  3. She Belongs To Me
  4. Seven Days
  5. Alabama Getaway
  6. The Times They Are A-Changin'
  7. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

Label : no label

Venue : Alte Oper, Frankfurt, Germany

Recording Date : June 19, 1996

Quality : Audience Recording (A+)

Review : Highly enjoyable remastered recording of Bob's concert in Frankfurt in the summer of 1996.

Review (Expecting Rain) : Here’s another top-notch show in what is shaping up to be a stellar European run. It’s the perfect complement to the Berlin show, with over half of the setlist changed from the previous night but with certain key songs retained, such as the opening “Drifter’s Escape” and a near-definitive acoustic take on “Tangled Up In Blue.” Some songs not played the previous night include “Pretty Peggy-O,” which gets nice and loose in the ending jam with some gliding pedal steel work from Bucky Baxter, and a note-perfect “Under the Red Sky” which is leaps and bounds above than the original studio version. There are plenty of other highlights as well: including a menacing acoustic “Masters of War,” a smoldering, stripped-down “Seeing the Real You At Last” that reveals what the band was trying to do with it in Berlin, and a white-hot “Alabama Getaway” to kick off the encores. The acoustic rendition of “The Times They Are A-Changin’” that follows is not to be ignored either - a towering 13-minute performance with Bob delivering the vocals like a benediction in between long instrumentals with richly layered guitar and dobro interplay. But let’s talk about that “Tangled Up In Blue” for a minute. As it has been for the past year or so, "Tangled" is performed without Winston Watson - just Bob and JJ on acoustic guitars, Bucky on mandolin, and Tony on standup bass. Bob sings the lyrics over the band's understated backing with laser focus, as if in a trance, culminating in his beautiful delivery of the closing lines: “We always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view / Tangled up in blue.” The instrumental breaks are just hypnotic here, from Bob’s rhythmic two-note guitar solo in the first, to the interweaving mandolin and bass lines during Bob’s long and meditative harmonica solo towards the end. It’s one of those perfect renditions of a classic song that doesn’t necessarily stand out on the setlist, but casts a spell as you listen. Coming right on the heels of the widely circulated Berlin show two nights before, it’s not surprising that Frankfurt tends to fly under the radar. Still, this is a show worth rediscovering as an equally essential companion piece to the Berlin show, and I would be hard-pressed to say that one is better than the other.