Ever a man of moods, Dylan returns to blazing form with a terrific 95-minute, 17-song set. Again a wealth of songs are introduced, five songs in the electric sets being performed for the first time on the 1988 tour: “Joey,” “Watching the River Flow,” “Tangled Up in Blue,” “It Takes a Lot to Laugh,” and Glen Glenn’s “Everybody’s Movin’.” Also introduced into the acoustic set are “San Francisco Bay Blues,” which is met with whoops of recognition by the Bay Area audience, “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” and a sensitive “Rank Strangers to Me,” the second selection from Dou:n in the Groove. Neil Young joins the band for the second electric set, staying on stage for the remainder of the show.
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: A Life in Stolen Moments Day by Day 1941-1995)
Greek Theatre University Of California Berkeley, California 10 June 1988
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
G. E. Smith (guitar)
Kenny Aaronson (bass)
Christopher Parker (drums)
Neil Young guitar on songs 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 & 17
The heavyweight music press was full of praise for the Wembley show. “Oh yes: this was a rejuvenated Dylan,” Melody Maker’s Allan Jones concluded, “the master in all his raging glory. Unforgettable, unsurpassable.” NME’s Gavin Martin enthused: “Tonight all the images of Dylan fused into the crucible of his raw genius …. Poet, seer, mystic, iconic rocker, ravaged salvationist, virulent misanthrope – such descriptions are paltry. The meaning of the songs weren’t simply buried in nostalgia or in the lyrics, it was in the way he played with inflections and the sounds of the words, the way he changes the timbre of his voice
to exact the most from the frazzling guitar cauldron or the weird, disfigured acoustic interludes … tonight he proved that on form he was still unimpeachable, miles ahead of pretenders both young and old.”
~Andrew Muir (One More Night)
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