New York, NY, MSG (17-Jan-98)

Way back in his youth, my Grandfather fell out of a tree (trying to reach a crows nest)and the resulting smashed bones left him with one leg 3/4" shorter than the other. (The army didn't mind - nailed a board to one boot and sent him out to Flanders anyway)
Now I know how he saw the world for our taper here seems to have been similarly disabled. Bob's at a slant the whole video. Tried tilting the TV but it fell over, cocking my head resulted in a stiff neck, oh for a "rotate" button on the DVD player.
Bob's about all you get here, no stage shots, no band, just Bob and blackness, for it's quite a dark video.
The DVD doesn't look as if it's from the master, I'd guess a couple of generations down the line, nothing too serious and still watchable.
The "extras" ?. I'd looked out the Thesaurus, all primed and ready, all these fine words for "waste-of-space", "scraping-the-barrel" and so on. But to my utter shock, I actually liked them. OK there is a sense of "look-where-our-obsession-has-taken-us" to them, and the iMac / Apple ads are totaly inessential, and "12 Angry Viewers" - only led to one angry viewer - me.
I was reserving my wrath for the Modern Ballet - it's not that often you get such an easy target, I mean - Dance interpretations of a pile of Bobs early songs ???? But then I went and watched it, once, twice, trice........ Hell, I thoroughly enjoyed it, not the dancing - nothing special, not the choreography - pretty pointless and/or banal in it's "interpretations", but the combination with Bobs singing sorta emphasised just "the Words", I've never "heard" House Carpenter as well before.
(Just don't tell the wife I've been watching Dance, who knows what she might force me to go and see,.....and doesn't go down too well on the building site....)
3 stars, but added another bit for the Ballet - so 4 stars it is.

This is an Excellent fan made project. Super entertaining stuff and very functional menus! The concert footage is quite nice, slightly grainy, very steady, warm and good detail. The taper is very close and there are few obstructions.
I was in NYC by coincidence this week in 98, and I caught several nights of this excellent run which also featured Van Morrison. It's real nice to see some of one show again. This is a partial set.
Thanks to everyone involved with bringing this terrific DVD to Dylan fans. 4 stars, worth having.

This is a very close video shot covertly from the audience. It's good, but Bob's head and torso are pretty much all that you will see. It's also not a complete video of the show. I remember that it opens with "Can't Wait", but I can't remember off-hand if it goes all the way to the end or not. So this is good stuff, and the filler is interesting, but it's nothing you can't live without.

Joe