November 13, 2024

Skylight Webzine

Online since 2000

Bob Dylan Bootleg Series on Hybrid multichannel 5.0 SACD


This 5.0 SurroundSound mix of Bob Dylan’s October 31, 1964 “Halloween” show at New York’s Philharmonic Hall is a complete recording and has never been released in this format until now. This 2-CD Audio Fidelity collection presents the entire concert from the original Columbia Records (SONY) master tapes. The package also includes a 56-page book filled with historical photographs and informative notes. The Halloween concert of 1964 had been previously bootlegged on vinyl and CD, but those releases were incomplete and taken from poor dubs off the soundboard tapes.
This 1964 concert is the first all acoustic live performance to enter Bob Dylan’s discography. This recording certainly has its share of firsts and highlights, including the only known live version of “Spanish Harlem Incident,” the premiere of the songs “Gates of Eden” and “If You Gotta Go, Go Now.”
Here is Dylan as an eager-to-please 23 year old with nothing between him and his audience but a guitar and a harmonica. His voice is in top form throughout the 19 song set and when Joan Baez joins him on stage the voltage only increases.
In marked contrast to the tight-lipped living legend of the mid-’70s, here is Dylan as entertainer, joking and bantering with the crowd and he proves to be a very masterful performer.
While much has been made of the later electric performance of the 1960s, it is here that you can see how good Dylan really was. He shows all the budding facets of his art up to this time, from the protest songs, the more introspective material and the radical new direction he was pursuing.
Of course, as with all Audio Fidelity hybrid multichannel releases the SACD is compatible on all standard players and includes the 2-track stereo mix layer as well.
2-CD set/5.0 SurroundSound/includes 56-page book
Mastered by Steve Hoffman and Stephen Marsh at Stephen Marsh Mastering
Disc one
1. The Times They Are a-Changin’ 3:29
2. Spanish Harlem Incident 3:07
3. Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues 4:06
4. To Ramona 6:01
5. Who Killed Davey Moore? 4:46
6. Gates of Eden 8:32
7. If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Or Else You Got to Stay All Night) 4:06
8. It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) 11:26
9. I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) 4:01
10. Mr. Tambourine Man 6:33
11. A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall 7:44
Disc two
1. Talkin’ World War III Blues 5:52
2. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right 4:34
3. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll 6:57
4. Mama, You Been on My Mind 3:35
5. Silver Dagger 3:47
6. With God on Our Side 6:17
7. It Ain’t Me, Babe 5:11
8. All I Really Want to Do 4:01

Source: Audio Fidelity