Bob Dylan first performed Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ on July 8, 1988 at the Forum de
Montréal in Canada. Montréal is Cohen’s home town and it is possible that he attended the show.
Dylan’s second and final performance, on his “Interstate 88” tour, was on August 4, 1988, at the
final night of a three show residency at the Greek Theatre, Hollywood.
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Dylan and Leonard Cohen first met sometime in the late ’60s and have remained friends ever
since, meeting whenever the opportunity arises. One such occasion was after a concert in Paris,
probably Dylan’s October 7, 1987 show at P.O.P.B. Bercy. The two songwriters spent some
considerable time talking shop, over coffee, in a café somewhere in the 14th Arrondissment of
Paris. Dylan told Cohen that he especially liked the ending to his then new song ‘Hallelujah’.
“And even though it all went wrong / I’ll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on
my tongue but hallelujah!”
~Derek Barker (The Songs He didn’t write)
Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
The Finjan tape, similar to the early party tapes in that it’s a small group of people, and Dylan’s aware of the tape recorder and is trying to think of interesting songs to play, has many delights, particularly an electrifying version of Muddy Waters’s “Two Trains Running,” a fine loose rendering of “Let Me Die in My Footsteps,” and a haunting fragment of Robert Johnson’s “Rambling on My Mind.” On “Two Trains” Dylan sings, “I’m afraid of everybody/and I can’t trust myself.” The tape also features one of Dylan’s most powerful original blues (if you can draw the line between blues songs he writes and ones be assembles from existing songs; definitely a matter of degree, as is true with most blues singers): “Quit Your Low Down Ways.”
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan Performing Artist I: The Early Years 1960-1973)
Finjan Club Montreal, Quebec, Canada 2 July 1962
Released on DYLAN, BOB – FINJAN CLUB, 14 January 2013.
(The release is unauthorized and is not associated with or approved by Bob Dylan or his current recording label)
I married Isis on the fifth day of May
But I could not hold on to her very long
So I cut off my hair and I rode straight away
For the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong
~Bob Dylan (Isis)
Dylan gives one of the finest shows of his career, as well as the longest of the 1975 concerts. A 23-song set (the opening Rolling Thunder show had just 16 Dylan songs) includes a six-song Dylan/Baez set and a three-song solo spot.
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: A Life in Stolen Moments Day by Day 1941-1995)
Forum de Montréal Montreal, Quebec, Canada 4 December 1975
Bob Dylan (vocal, guitar)
Bob Neuwirth (guitar)
Scarlet Rivera (violin)
T-bone J. Henry Burnett (guitar)
Roger McGuinn (guitar)
Steven Soles (guitar)
Mick Ronson (guitar)
David Mansfield (steel guitar, violin, mandolin ,dobro)
Copps Coliseum
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, 14 January 2013.
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