Aware of the shifting tides of the business and the culture, Dylan aimed these rearrangements at an audience that was maturing toward the middle of the road, partially inspired by witnessing a Las Vegas spectacle by Neil Diamond—another Weintraub client—in 1977. “Vegas” became a common buzzword in the reviews that greeted both At Budokan and the tour once it arrived Stateside later in 1978, an intended pejorative surely stoked by the spectacles staged by Weintraub. Time may have softened those Vegas associations, yet a listen to The Complete Budokan 1978 shows they’re warranted. A galloping soft-rock instrumental rendition of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”—a hoedown performed as a show tune—sets a suitably loungey tone, one sustained by the snazzy flourishes scattered throughout the concerts. “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” punctuates each verse with stabs of horns; the blues of “Maggie’s Farm” is reduced to a glitzy stomp; “I Shall Be Released” gets consumed by swaths of saxophones. Hints of modern radio drift into the arrangements: The tropical gale blowing through “Shelter From the Storm” evokes Jimmy Buffett and the island vibes intensify on the reggae bounce of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” As telling as the specific arrangements are the straightlaced performances of Dylan and the band: They’re dutifully hitting their marks, playing the songs the same way both evenings.
Dylan was still in the process of road-testing his band and these arrangements, which could explain some of the restraint heard throughout The Complete Budokan 1978. The North Carolina show from December 1978, captured on the bootleg Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte, showcases a band playing with energy and verve absent from the Budokan concerts. Compared to the original At Budokan release, the expanded length does offer glimmers of a livelier set, primarily in a pair of blues covers performed early each show to help loosen up the band: from the first night, “Repossession Blues” by Roland James, and from the second, Tampa Red’s “[You’ve Got to] Love Her With a Feeling,” both played with a raucous vigor that makes the rest of the record feel straightlaced.
Those two blues covers vaguely hint at the roadhouse ramble that came to characterize Dylan’s Never Ending Tour a decade later, as do the startling rearrangements of familiar songs. A case can be made that the 1978 world tour is the genesis of Dylan’s latter-day incarnation as a restless and mercurial road warrior. That knowledge doesn’t change that, as an album, The Complete Budokan 1978 isn’t just a drag, it’s often dorky, too. Hearing the band galumph through an attempt to turn “All I Really Want to Do” into a cheerful shuffle crystallizes how Dylan’s attempt to entertain just winds up as enervation.
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Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
