Bob Dyan and The Complete Budokan 1978: the review

In due time, every misstep of Bob Dylan ends up being reevaluated. Self Portraitthe double LP that Greil Marcus, as is known, had dismissed upon release by asking «What is this disgusting?», has cleared its reputation thanks to The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969-1971)while the misunderstood «Christian period» Dylan seemed impetuous and energetic in The Bootleg Series, Vol. 13: Trouble No More 1979-1981. It would seem at least possible that The Complete Budokan 1978 can accomplish a similar feat, challenging traditional opinions about a Dylan album that critic Dave Marsh has called «his worst album by a margin so wide it’s hard to quantify». The double LP live At Budokan from 1978, one of the less acclaimed albums by the acclaimed artist, is Dylan’s next album ready to be panned by critics thanks to this new 4-CD box set containing all the recordings from the original LP.

The Complete Budokan 1978 includes two concerts, which were held on February 28th and March 1st Tokyo, at the start of the tour that Dylan had started in 1978 with the express intention of raising money he desperately needed. Fresh from divorce And broke after turning Renaldo and Clara (a rambling four-hour half-fiction, half-documentary film about the Rolling Thunder Revue’s triumphant tour), Dylan turned to Jerry Weintraubthe manager who in the 70s had oiled the right wheels to transform Elvis Presley And Frank Sinatra in touring cars to conquer the stadiums.

Bassist Rob Stoner, who played in the Rolling Thunder Revue and toured throughout the 1978 world tour, recalled that “Weintraub told Bob, ‘If you want to put your mind at rest, you’ve got to do one of these proven, profitable tours. . You go around for a year, work your ass off like that and then go back to doing whatever you want.” Dylan followed his manager’s advice. He confirmed the band that had accompanied him in Rolling Thunder, expanding it with a trio of backing singers and the saxophonist/flautist Steve Douglas, making the whole group wear coordinated stage clothes. When he learned that the Japanese organizer insisted that he perform his biggest hits to open the tour at the Budokan, Dylan responded by changing the harmonies to show what his band was capable of.

Aware of the changing trends in business and culture, Dylan thought of these rearrangements for an audience that was being created mainstreaminspired in part by a Neil Diamond (another Weintraub client) concert he attended in Las Vegas in 1977. «Vegas» became a common word in the reviews they received At Budokan as well as the tour, when it arrived in the United States at the end of 1978: a deliberately derogatory term, undoubtedly fueled by the shows Weintraub put on. Maybe time will have toned down those Vegas references, but listening to The Complete Budokan 1978 proves that they were justified. A galloping soft-rock instrumental version of A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (a rustic quadrille performed like a musical number) gives a lounge bar tone, confirmed by the refined flourishes that characterize the two concerts. In It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), each verse is dotted with trumpet blasts; the blues of Maggie’s Farm it boils down to a glitzy stomp; I Shall Be Released is consumed by swaths of saxophones. Hints of modern radio creep into the arrangements: the tropical breeze that lifts Shelter From the Storm recalls Jimmy Buffett, while the island atmosphere intensifies on the reggae momentum of Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right. As eloquent as the individual arrangements are the rigid performances of Dylan and the band, who simply do their duty by playing the songs the same way both nights.

Dylan was still testing both the band and the arrangements, which may partly explain the brake felt in The Complete Budokan 1978 from start to finish. The concert in North Carolina in December 1978, recorded on the bootleg Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte, shows a group playing with an energy and verve that was missing from the Budokan concerts. Compared to the original album At Budokanthe extended version still offers some glimpses of livelier performanceespecially in a couple of blues covers performed at the beginning of each concert to make the band relax: from the first evening, Repossession Blues by Roland Janes and the second [You’ve Got to] Love Her With a Feeling by Tampa Red, both played with a boisterous energy that makes the rest of the album seem stiff.

Those two blues covers vaguely hint at the digression roadhouse which would characterize Dylan’s Never Ending Tour a decade later, as well as the surprising rearrangements of well-known songs. The 1978 world tour can certainly be said to constitute the genesis of Dylan’s modern incarnation as a restless, fickle wanderer. This awareness does not change the fact that, in addition to being a beard, often as an album The Complete Budokan 1978 it’s also silly. Hearing the band awkwardly trying to transform All I Really Want to Do in a cheerful shuffle is the perfect demonstration of the fact that, when Dylan tries to entertain, the result is decidedly weak.