On January 12, as a warm-up for two stadium shows in Brazil and ten further dates in Paris and London, he played his first club gig in over twenty-five years, at Toad’s Place in New Haven. The seven hundred lucky witnesses saw this forty-eightyear-old man play for a total of four and a half hours.
Starting at a quarter to nine, with a cover of Joe South’s ‘Walk a Mile in My Shoes’ (‘before you accuse, criticize, or abuse I walk a mile in my shoes’), Dylan finally left the Toad’s stage at twenty minutes past two in the morning, after four sets, interspersed by three breaks of just twentyfive minutes each, having played fifty songs in total, only eight of which derived from his supposed halcyon days of 1963-66.
~Clinton Heylin (Behind The Shades)
The show had 4 sets:
Set | songs | time |
I | 1-11 | 55 |
II | 12-20 | 40 |
III | 21-34 | 65 |
IV | 35-50 | 80 |
1, 4-7, 14, 21, 30, 40 are all live debuts.
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After almost four hours of singing, Dylan launched into a stinging Highway 61 Revisited and the wistful Precious Memories, from Knocked Out Loaded.
Finally, after a few false starts, Dylan swung into Like A Rolling Stone, requisite even on such an unprecedented night.
hough his voice was starting to show signs of fatigue from its arduous workout, and the audience was exhausted,
it was a final, exultant moment, releasing everyone for home at 2:30 am.Dylan is only one year away from his 50th birthday and his 30th year as a recording artist. Yet here he was, in close contact with his fans once again, still experimenting with new songs, still working on numbers he has been playing for decades. It was an awe-inspiring performance, as close to a comprehensive retrospective as Dylan is ever likely to offer onstage.
–Rolling Stone, 8 March 1990
The single weirdest show in Dylan’s career. This four-and-a-half-hour marathon set was a warm-up before the 1990 leg of the NET kicked off. Extreme rarities like “Man Of Peace” and “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” are mixed with shocking covers like “Dancing In The Dark.” By the end he’s taking requests, and playing whatever the crowd yells for. You have to hear it to believe it.
-Andy Greene (rollingstone.com – May 10, 2011)
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