..Dylan draws all the power and excitement that has been created by the tour and the two new albums, and unleashes it in a fury into the wide-eyed Carolina crowd. Dylan rants and raves, and spits the vocals out with venom. Every word rings true as if written in his soul. Possibly the finest performance of the extensive tour. The sound quality is nice as well. Rich, bright, and full. Of course, it falls well below the quality of ‘Budokan’; but the fiery performance leaves the official release in ashes.
~bobsboots.com
..By this point Dylan was playing songs from Street Legal, which was recorded with his touring band. Unlike most of his catalog, these tracks were actually enhanced by the big band. On this tape from Charlotte, Dylan is on fire as the band plays killer versions of Street Legal tracks “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power),” “We Better Talk This Over” and “Changing of the Guards.” With the exception of “Señor,” he’d play virtually nothing from the drastically underrated Street Legal over the next three decades.
~rollingstone.com
Charlotte Coliseum
Charlotte, North Carolina
10 December 1978
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Billy Cross (lead guitar)
Alan Pasqua (keyboards)
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals)
David Mansfield (violin & mandolin)
Steve Douglas (horns)
Jerry Scheff (bass)
Bobbye Hall (percussion)
Ian Wallace (drums)
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals)
In circulation from this show are three acoustic songs and three electric songs, part of the widely bootlegged Gelston acetates. Before “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” someone shouts something at Dylan, and he threatens, “Come up here and say that”” The offer is not taken up. Before a nine-minute “Like a Rolling Stone,” which Dylan dedicates to the Taj Mahal, he introduces the Hawks for the first and only time on the tour.
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: A Life in Stolen Moments Day by Day 1941-1995)
If not the best sounding recording, Liverpool is as good a performance of the electric set as you will find on the tour. Perhaps inspired by playing the hometown of the Fab Four, the band is tight and powerful. Dylan’s vocals, Robbie’s lead guitar playing and Garth’s erie B-3 all seem truly inspired.
~bobsboots.com
…… that they could go on stage in Liverpool in May 1966—the city that had so recently been the centre of the musical universe— and hurl at their audience rock music a thousand times more sublime, challenging, multi-layered and exciting than anything Liverpudlians had ever heard before? Impossible to say, but easy to prove. Play that night’s ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues’. By this point Dylan’s cawing voice and searing harmonica were both perfectly integrated instruments in amongst those of the Hawks, whose hardwon knowledge of each other’s playing freed them all to ride each moment in a ceaseless interchange of fiery, creative levitation.
~Michael Gray (BD Encyclopedia)
One of the best concerts I’ve heard from the 66-tour..
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