90's Live

This pro-shot compilation disc starts at it's strongest with a fantastic Hard Rain from the Nara Great Music Experience (or whatever it was called) from 1994. Backed by a full orchestra, as well as the familiar face of Jim Keltner on drums, Bob at first looks (and sounds) as though he's about to be submerged by the sheer scale of things, very nearly messing up the first line of the first verse, and all through the song I found myself half expecting proceedings to collapse at any minute - as if Bob's voice was walking a tightrope between greatness and disaster. However, the song simply gets better as it progresses, each verse sung with an increasing degree of vocal commitment. No uninspired "vocal trickery" here (see my review of D746.su), instead the much more satisfying situation of Bob actually showing some care and commitment to the words themselves. Overall, a fantastic performance, the best version of Hard Rain I've heard, in my mind far better than the 1976 version that is held in particularly high esteem by most. The remaining two songs from Japan are also handled very well in these arrangements, with similarly impressive vocals, but neither reach the level of the Hard Rain, which is well worth tracking down, either on this disc or one of the others it is on (e.g the Improved Genuine Telecasts).

Next follows a mediocre Rolling Stone, which despite having the fine combination of excellent picture, excellent sound, and a powerful-sounding band performance, comes across as boring overall - in fact, it probably would have sounded equally as good had Bob not been there, which sums up his average singing on this one.

The Hall of Fame 1995 material follows, and again the word I'd use for this is 'boring'. It's okay, and as with nearly everything else on this disc the video and sound are fine - it's just not something I'll watch too many times, partly due to the uninspiringly-meagre set list, which brings to mind the more wholesome Woodstock 1994 (D008.su), on which you can find far more engaging performances of most of these songs, in either equal or better quality.

The Prince’s Trust is better, although the picture and sound here are not quite as clean (I imagine this show can be found in better quality on other discs, with D015 a fairly safe bet, though I don't have that one to compare myself). Performance-wise, Pill Box Hat is very well done with Bob thankfully handing over guitar duties to JJ and more unusually Ron Wood, whose character seems to add much more to the concert than his less-audible guitar playing seems to. The other highlight is Tom Thumb’s Blues, finely sung and even featuring some reasonable, though still very primitive, guitar playing from Bob (with Al Kooper lending a hand on circus organ). Highway 61 is okay too, with Ron Wood playing slide guitar, although as occurs often with Bob's live performances it builds up nicely and then tails off at the end, resulting in a bit of anti-climax. Overall though, a memorable performance worth seeing at least once.

The 1998 Rolling Stone with the Rolling Stones is not something I expect I will ever watch again, with reasonably poor picture and sound, and a shambles of a performance. I’ve never really been a Stones fan, so maybe if you are you’ll like this more than I did. But it’s still pretty bad. Mick Jagger jumping around the stage makes me the laugh in the same way some people laugh at Bob’s voice. It’s all opinion I guess.

Train Of Love is okay...don’t have too much to say about that one....fine sound and picture, worth obtaining in the unlikely situation you don't have it on Through The Years Vol. 2 (D326) already.

The disc closes with the Restless Farewell from Frank Sinatra’s 80th birthday, a fantastic performance well worth seeing (you’ll never get bored of seeing this one). Not on this disc however, for the version here is edited to remove a few of the verses and the sound is over-done with reverb. A better complete version can be found on the Improved Genuine Telecasts, as well as on several other discs (type in the song title on the search page for a list of the available versions).

Overall, a reasonable compilation of 90's Bob. 5 stars? No, because the quality of the best material here is not definitive (although it's still pretty good), and there are some note-worthy exclusions (it would have been nice to have the un-edited Grammy’s Love Sick on here, and the 1993 Letterman Forever Young for example). Also much of the material here is on other, more encompassing, discs. Lastly, one of the best tracks here (Restless Farewell) is incomplete. Overall though, a worthwhile collection if you’ve not seen the bulk of this material already, though you may be better off looking at other compilation discs which have now largely eclipsed this one. So, between 3 and 4 stars.