What Bob Dylan did on June 7, 1988 at the Concord Pavilion, in the suburbs of San Francisco, is certainly not considered a historic concert. He was in the middle of one of the worst phases in history, he had released two disappointing records like Knocked Out Loaded And Down in the Groovecame from two years of uninterrupted tours during which he had been accompanied sometimes by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and sometimes by the Grateful Dead, but in which he had often seemed listless. When he had turned Hearts of Firein which he played a fading rock star, the film was such a box office flop that even many diehard fans didn't know it was in theaters.
In other words, the aura of myth that had enveloped Dylan in the '60s and '70s was now largely dissolved, so much so that the Sacramento Bee he had put the concert on his calendar a few days earlier in small print next to upcoming shows by Heart/Michael Bolton (ticket price $18.50), Jets ($17.50), Robert Cray (17.75) and Iron Maiden/Guns N' Roses (18.50). “Perhaps his plan is to become so accessible as to free himself from the myth he has carried with him for over twenty years,” wrote theOakland Tribune on June 5, 1988, “and just be able to be Dylan the artist.”
It was not an interpretation far from reality as Dylan himself recounted in his 2004 autobiography Chronicles Volume 1. He had asked manager Elliot Roberts to book 200 dates in 1988 and to maintain that crazy pace for 1989 and 1990. In the book he writes that he thought it would take him at least three years “to find the right audience, or for the right audience to find me”. He was convinced that after the first year the older fans would no longer come back to see him and that in the second year the younger fans would bring their friends and therefore the turnout would remain more or less the same. And in the third year even the very latest arrivals would bring their friends “and the nucleus of my future audience would be formed”.
He was in great need of a generational change “because the audience I had had grown up with my records and was not willing to accept me as a new artist”. It was an aged audience, «they came to watch, not to participate. That was fine, but the type of audience that should have found me was an audience that didn't know the past.”
The first step in realizing this plan was the concert in San Francisco where Dylan was joined by guitarist GE Smith, bassist Kenny Aaronson and drummer Christopher Parker, the thinnest lineup he has used in his history. The Attack: The First Live Performance of Subterranean Homesick Blues since 1965, one of many surprising moments including the live debut of the classic Absolutely Sweet Mariethe first performance of You're a Big Girl Now since 1978, the first of Gout Serves Somebody since 1981, the first of Boots of Spanish Leather since 1963 and the first of Gates of Eden since 1978. As if that wasn't enough, unannounced guest Neil Young remained on stage for most of the concert despite knowing very little about the repertoire and arrangements. In the finale Dylan had done it Like a Rolling Stone And Maggie's Farmbut for a good part of the concert he had almost completely avoided his most famous songs.
The reviews were ferocious. “Dylan trudged along,” wrote Joel Selvin on the San Francisco Chronicle. «The endings were frayed, the mixing was approximate and the ensemble's sound was hesitant and uncertain, a situation made worse by the presence on guitar of a Neil Young who hadn't prepared himself. Although Smith shouted out chord changes and directed the band by making hand signs, chaos ensued. Dylan, for his part, slurred the lyrics, never really entered the songs with a minimum of emotional participation and, in general, dismissed the songs as if he couldn't wait to leave.”
The conclusion of the review was particularly harsh: «There was a time when Dylan was important. His records were personal artistic statements with an integrity rare in the world of popular music. Even when he started releasing lesser records you could always count on a few gems scattered here and there. Tuesday's concert seems to suggest that he is no longer able to understand what was special about what he did.”
What Selvin didn't know, and what no one could have imagined in 1988, not even Dylan, was that he had just attended the first date of a tour which, 36 years later, is still ongoing, with over 3700 concerts under its belt. And that plan told by Dylan in Chronicles it was executed to perfection. Many casual fans and baby boomers have long since stopped going to see him in concert. There remains a loyal audience, young and old, who arrive knowing exactly what to expect. Nobody pretends to hear Mr. Tambourine Man, Knockin' on Heaven's Door or Like a Rolling Stone. Even if Dylan decides to play almost all the songs from his 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Waysand do it for five years straight, people still show up every time they pass through town.
One thing is certain: in 1988 many people were wrong. Listening back to the recording of the show at the Concord Pavilion today, we discover that it was a remarkable concert, paradoxically made even stronger by the chaos brought by Neil Young and a band that didn't know the songs perfectly.
From Rolling Stone US.
