I’m walking through the summer nights
Jukebox playing low
Yesterday everything was going too fast
Today, it’s moving too slow
I got no place left to turn
I got nothing left to burn
Don’t know if I saw you, if I would kiss you or kill you
It probably wouldn’t matter to you anyhow
You left me standing in the doorway, crying
I got nothing to go back to now
Then, in October 1987, playing Locarno. Switzerland, “and Tom Petty’s band and the female singers he now says he used to hide behind, Dylan had his breakthrough. It was an outdoor show – he remembers the fog and the wind – and as he stepped to the mike, a line came into his head. “It’s almost like I heard it as a voice. It wasn’t like it was even me thinking it. I’m determined to stand, whether God will deliver me or not. And all of a sudden everything just exploded. It exploded every which way. And I noticed that all the people out there – I was used to them looking at the girl singers, they were good-looking girls, you know? And like I say, I had them up there so I wouldn’t feel so bad. But when that happened, nobody was looking at the girls anymore. They were looking at the main mike. After that is when I sort of knew: I’ve got to go out and play these songs. That’s just what I must do … He’s been at it ever since.
~From “Dylan Lives” Newsweek 1997 cover story (David Gates)
Piazza Grande
Locarno, Switzerland
5 October 1987
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar) with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
Tom Petty (guitar)
Mike Campbell (guitar)
Benmont Tench (keyboards)
Howie Epstein (bass)
Stan Lynch (drums)
and with The Queens Of Rhythm: Carolyn Dennis, Queen Esther Marrow, Madelyn Quebec (backing vocals)
The importance of identifying Bob Dylan as a performing artist, as distinct from the popular perception that he’s a songwriter and recording artist, is immediately clear when one has a chance to hear his fall 1979 concerts. “What Can I Do for You?,” “Solid Rock,” “Saving Grace,” “Covenant Woman” and “In the Garden” as performed at these shows are some of the finest works in Dylan’s oeuvre, but you’d never know that from listening to Saved, the 1980 studio album that features these compositions.
-Paul Williams (Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, Vol 2: The Middle Years 1974-1986)
Bob Dylan only played 26 concerts in 1979. 14 of them were @ Fox Warfield Theatre (San Francisco, California) from November 1 – 16.
A video chronicling Bob Dylan’s Far East tour in early 1986 with Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. Its ten songs combine ’60s favorites such as “Just Like A Woman” with striking later numbers like “When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky.” The band is sharp, and Dylan is in good form. (Broadcast on HBO June 20, 1986.)
~William Ruhlmann (allmusic.com)
Recorded at the Entertainment Center in Sydney, 24 and 25 February 1986. The video was released in October on CBS/FOX and contains the following songs:
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