Like Rolling Thunder (Thinman-36/37)
War Memorial Auditorium, Plymouth, MA – October 31st, 1975
Palace Theater, Waterbury, CT – November 11th, 1975
Disc 1, War Memorial Auditorium, Plymouth, MA – October 31st, 1975: When I Paint My Masterpiece, Romance In Durango, Isis, Never Let Me Go, Mamma You’ve Been On My Mind, Diamonds & Rust (Joan Baez), I Don’t Believe You, Hurricane, Oh Sister
Disc 2: One More Cup Of Coffee, Sara. Palace Theater, Waterbury, CT – November 11th, 1975: A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, Blowin’ In The Wind, The Water Is Wide / I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine, I Shall Be Released, Chestnut Mare (Roger McGuinn), Just Like A Woman, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door / This Land Is Your Land (cut)
On Like Rolling Thunder, Thinman collects two soundboard fragments from very early in 1975’s Rolling Thunder Revue. The bulk of the release is the tape from War Memorial Auditorium in Plymouth on Halloween night. This was the second show of the tour and a very good audience tape and a PA tape exist for most of the Dylan tracks. The soundboard tape that circulated before contained “I Don’t Believe You”, “Hurricane”, “Oh Sister”, “One More Cup Of Coffee”, “Sara”, “Just Like A Woman” and “This Land Is Your Land”. This source was released on Plymouth Rock on Colosseum (97-C-015) in 1997 and as bonus tracks on Cowboy Angel Blues on Q Records (Q-21/22) released in 1998. The new tape source is from the Bill Graham Wolfgang Vaults and has been playing on Vault Radio since February. The sound quality is the same excellent quality as all the other tapes that have been in rotation.
The rest of this release has a half hour fragment from a soundboard recording from the November 11th Waterbury, Connecticut show. A tape containing the songs “Hard Rain”, “Romance In Durango”, “Isis”, “Blowin’ In The Wind”, “The Water Is Wide”, “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine”, “Never Let Me Go”, “I Shall Be Released”, and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” exists and was used on Tell It Like It Is on Spacematic (004) released in 1993, Satisfied Man (Blue Eye Records BER002) in 1997, and the aforementioned Plymouth Rock and Cowboy Angel Blues. The mono soundboard of the entire concert (except for “When I Paint My Masterpiece” and “It Ain’t Me Babe”) was released in 2004 on Waterbury 1975 on Palm Drive (PDCD-014/015/016). The tape used by Thinman is still excellent although a bit dull sounding compared to the Plymouth tape.
Some claim the early Rolling Thunder Revue remains Dylan’s greatest artistic achievement and these two documents make a compelling argument. The excitement and power of these performances comes through clearly. “When I Paint My Masterpiece” from Plymouth was used for the film Renaldo And Clara. “Romance In Durango” was still a brand new, unreleased track and has a laid back quality to it. Dylan delays his entrance and the band keep playing the melody until he finally sings the first lines “Hot chili peppers in the blistering sun”. “Isis” is dedicated to “Keith Richards” and has the line changed “she said are you gonna stay, I said I might as well yes”. “Never Let Me Go” is dedicated to David Crosby and “Oh, Sister” is to Bingham Young. Thinman use very common but excellent photos in the inserts. They didn’t try to improve the tapes with excessive mastering and the Plymouth tape sounds as it does on the internet radio. They did a very nice job. (GS)
