Another Compilation #15

D149 ANOTHER COMPILATION #15

D149 features five items offering increasingly little reward to the viewer, as follows:

(1) GOTHENBURG, 9 JUNE 1984 (50:25)

Fresh, close, hand-held concert footage catching excerpts (heard more than seen) of four of this show’s first six songs, then a continuous forty minute recording of all of 7-13 i.e. Licence, T Man, Me Babe, It’s Alright Ma, Baby Blue, Masters and Thin Man. (After When You Gonna Wake Up, the next two on the set-list were Every Grain and Simple Twist - sad misses both - but so it goes.) Audio, off-camera, is good (electrics) and very good (acoustics). All sounding too good to be true? Well, our taper’s not too tall, so there are as many shoulders, backs, heads and shots of the stage awning and lighting rig as there are of D, and his footage is also very shaky. But, if you can accept all of that, there’s lovely clean, close, colourful film here of acoustic Bob, looking in radiant health and good spirits - the D, indeed, who should have showed up at Live Aid thirteen months later. Taylor is glimpsed once or twice and again (see D401.su review) has a tab nipped in his guitar strings. Addicted, it would seem, to the weed.

With so many top-notch DVDs - D048.su, D218.su, pick your own - to savour, it’s easy to forget just what the tapers go through to catch for us D’s lightning in a bottle. If you want a salutary reminder, this Gothenburg footage will serve very well. A good deal of it is a trial and not worth a second look. But some, too, is, if not quite fine, still fascinating beyond a doubt, and much the best thing here.

(2) AUGUSTA, MAINE TV SPOT, 1978 (6:00)

A nice little retro ABC (US) TV package, also found (in much better quality) on D371 and D441.2. For further comments, see D441.2 review.

(3) BLACKBUSHE AERODROME, 15 JULY 1978 (6:40)

Bob played a mammoth 32 song set at Blackbushe before the UK's biggest ever rock crowd, then or since - a special day, even in his remarkable career - and it was noting that D149 included footage from "The Picnic" that first induced me to give it a whirl. Hmmm. Good decision? Taken from stage-left, not close, we have nearly seven minutes of short, choppy, blurry fragments of performance that could be anybody, anywhere. Image quality is poor enough to suggest (depending how your mind works) either a Jackson Pollock canvas (one of those expensive kind) or maybe an explosion in a paint factory (the red/green section). Sound is dirt-poor too. Actually, you can make out just enough to confirm that Bob's Baby Blue is hands-free and that, yes, he did indeed sport a top hat (allegedly "borrowed" from the doorman of London's Dorchester Hotel). Rough as all this assuredly is, though, through all the reductive degradation, the wreckage and ruin that strips and chips away the nuance and individuality of the music, there’s a trembling distant voice still there, unmistakable, irrepressible, his.

(4) 1981 CONCERT, UNKNOWN VENUE (21:00)

A segued series of snippets from songs recorded in set-list order. Originally pro-shot, but in video and audio quality now so grim, who cares? This might be a 49th or 59th copy of a once-watchable film. Considering the shape it’s in, it might have been beamed in from Mars via two oil drums and a very long piece of rope. A brief check in the database identifies six possible venues. By cross-checking more closely I’m sure it would be possible to identify the source precisely - but life’s too short. It’s amazing to me that anyone should consider this dross worthy of compilation, even on disc #15 of a series. Avoid like the plague.

(5) I BELIEVE IN YOU (EXCERPT), LIVE, 1981 (3:10)

Recorded off the television by pointing a video camera at the screen. Provenance of song unknown - may be Columbia, Maryland, may be Colombes, France (and if you want, you can sing that line to the tune of Serve Somebody - not an offer you get every day). Derogatory comments made about the previous '81 live footage apply here too.

RUNNING TIME 88:30. Disc has no menu and 17 chapter marks spaced evenly at (approx) 5:30 intervals. With no correlation between the marks and recording transitions, their only use is in skipping forward in five minute jumps.
THANKS Black Cat
STARS Mostly hard-core completist no-no. Though I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, I’ll be back one day for another shot of that Gothenburg acoustic moonshine, so not quite the total write-off it might have been. One and a half.