East Rutherford, NJ (12-Jul-87)

After first watching this I thought it would earn 3 stars, but despite a lackluster performance: the Sound quality is very good; the video is a low generation transfer from excellent footage shot from people close to the band. After some thought I decided on 4 stars due to historical importance. Dylan had played shows with the Dead the year before (see D007.ra) but this was the third of five shows that year that he played with the Grateful Dead as a back up band. This series of shows had some other historical importance. The Dead encouraged him to search out his '60's and '70's catalog of songs, resulting in many live debuts. From this tour onwards Dylan has played much more varied sets, often deciding the set list right before the show and then changing it on stage. Also no more lengthy raps on stage. Starting with this tour and up to the spring tour 1990 Dylan uttered barely a word on stage. I attended this concert and after seeing him twice in 1980, twice in 1981 and once in 1986 this was my first disappointment. As seen in the video he is much uninspired. He hardly moves at all, I remember people joking that night that Dylan must have had an X on the stage with an arrow pointing toward the audience. The first song of the evening is missing and the first song shown gives a very rough start to the video. This show has some very high points though, including the set list. Dylan seems to react as the crowd recognizes the Dead’s staple “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” This show is clearly a Dead show with Dylan singing, quite slow as opposed to the energy of D824.su two nights before. Please don’t be discouraged from watching this as the pros far out-weigh the cons for any Dylan fan. “All Along The Watchtower” is cut after only about 20 seconds, but the three missing songs are included as audio set to some varied photo’s on the second segment on the disk but can be found on D457.a. Also this show has very concise chapters which align well with the songs.

This is one of the rare "Dylan Moments In History."
It is a MUST HAVE.
althought the picture is not that good, the singing is suppurb.

GET IT GET IT GET IT!!!!!

I find this sound upgrade to be a significantly better view than the 'original' version. Thanks as always to whomever is behind the scenes providing the labor for the rest of us to enjoy. The video misses some songs, but it is what it is. We are lucky that, for better or for worse, the Grateful Dead organization has always been looser with this material that Mr. Dylans. I find it interesting that there is no proper menu for the video portion of this DVD, but that a nice menu is provided at the end of the video to select audio of the 'missing' tunes.

In terms of the performance, I agree that the 1987 run with the Grateful Dead had it's share of lower moments and that some are to be found on this video. However in terms of arrangment, downright fun on the part of the performers, and passion of performance, just take a look at the Joey ( as one example ) on this DVD and decide for yourself whether this collaboration was fruitful. To my mind, this is a interesting and often enjoyable part of the history of all the musicians involved.

An easy 4 stars for this DVD, worth having.

It's hard to define my thoughts after watching this disc. First, it is a disappointment that the opener and pretty much the last four songs are missing. Second, this was a really nice video-- and still is. It may not be off-master, but it's still very clean quality-- a bit dark, but still quite good. Third, the performance is horrid. After watching this disc, I think this tour may have been the nadir of Dylan's career. He botches the Hell out of his songs here-- "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" is like fingernails on a chalkboard and Dylan can almost never finish a verse of "John Brown" the way he wrote it. I ended up giving this disc four stars, because it is a really nice video. Make sure you want something from 1987 before you go after this one though. The performance is really dire!

Nice picture and excellent audio. Being a huge fan of both Dylan and the Dead, I must admit that their colaboration in '87 is not my favorite. However, after seeing this performance, my attitude has change quite a bit. It's great fun to see Bob enjoying himself while the Dead just "wing" it. This is great roadhouse rock-n-roll and a rare opportunity to see Garcia behind the pedal steel. Note that the first and last songs of the set are cut from this video. A nice document for those who missed the tour or need a refresher course.