The Complete Budokan 1978 by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan was never afraid of offending his fans. In the ‘60s he rejected his role as protest singer and purist folkie; by decade’s end he rejected the role as “voice of his generation” and withdrew into country music. But even then, Dylan’s restlessness drove him sideways and forward. He puzzled fans with his enigmatic film Renaldo and Clara (1978) and angered many with his Evangelical Christian album, Slow Train Coming (1979).
Wedged in between Renaldo and Slow Train, the LP At Budokan (1979) was comprised of select performances from his 1978 Japanese tour with a large ensemble of players and singers. The critics cried “Las Vegas!” and who knows, maybe Dylan wanted to fill Elvis’ shoes? The Complete Budokan 1978 finally gives us all four nights at the Tokyo arena on four CDs. With time and the cooling of heated musical arguments comes perspective. Some of Dylan’s rearranged familiar material sound odd, some are excellent and every track displays Dylan’s unwillingness to fulfill the easy expectations of his audience.
Not unlike Vegas-era Elvis, Dylan’s ’78 tour is an effort to incorporate many divergent strands of music into a bright showbiz tapestry. The difference is two-fold: unlike Elvis, Dylan’s voice was far from well-tuned, but he carried a large catalog of his own songs from which to construct a show. Dylan converted his jeremiad against nuclear war, “A Hard Rain’s-a-Gonna Fall,” into a long instrumental with each band member given a short introductory solo. “Mr. Tambourine Man” was given a soft pop treatment, complete with easy-listening flute, at odds with Dylan’s sandpaper vocals.
Most of his classics were revamped for the tour, including “Ballad of a Thin Man” (Steve Douglas’ wailing sax suggested what Bruce Springsteen might have done with the song). David Mansfield’s violin on “Maggie’s Farm” tilted toward prog. Some tracks, including a confidently rendered “Like a Rolling Stone,” weren’t radically rearranged but given a light flourish of saxophone and female backup vocals. Throughout most of the shows, Billy Cross’ incendiary guitar kindled fire beneath the elaborate arrangements. Here and there, Dylan threw in an obscure number such as the hard rocking blues of “Repossession Blues.”
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The Complete Budokan 1978 box set includes a lavishly illustrated book plus reproductions of posters and programs from Dylan’s Japanese tour.
Stream or download The Complete Budokan 1978 at Amazon here.
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