Saturday, February 20, 2021

Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan, July 4, 1987

I missed the Grateful Dead's 1987 tour with Bob Dylan, although I did see the band about a week earlier at Kingswood Music Theatre north of Toronto (and it was an excellent show). Good quality tapes of the tour have circulated for some time, but until now, I've never seen a video of Dylan's set with the Dead. This video is from July 4, 1987. 


It's was shot using a tripod from the audience and has been upscaled to 4K. To my eyes, it looks pretty good and the audio is a Healy soundboard/audience matrix. It's a pretty solid set, with several of the songs in the Dead's repertoire before the tour. I think my favourite would probably be Ballad of a Thin Man

Here's another one, this from July 12, 1987. It's more energetic than the July 4th performance. Again the video has been upscaled to 4K and the audio is a soundboard/audience matrix.


The rehearsal tapes for the tour have been floating around the tape trading world for many years. I've got several CDs of them and they're generally much more interesting than the concert performances. There's a much wider selection of songs and the performances are looser and more heartfelt. You can tell they were having fun.

This is a collection that purports to be the best of the rehearsals.


If you can find them, I highly recommend the rehearsal tapes.







No comments: