Thursday 24 May 2012

Happy Birthday Bob!

Thirteen songs into the sixth and final night of Bob Dylan's legendary February 1990 Hammersmith Odeon residency, the piano which had sat to the side of the stage throughout the whole week, remained untouched.

Finally, after concluding the acoustic set with Mr Tambourine Man, Bob put down his guitar and ambled ever closer to the piano as the crowd willed him on. He sat down, summoned his inner Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis and gave us this...




Not his greatest song by any means, but what a performance - and listen to the reaction of the audience!

Happy Birthday Bob!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is incredible. A superb choice with which to celebrate the bard's birthday. I must try and find a DVD of the whole show. I think I probably have an audio recording somewhere of this but have not dug into the Dylan archives for a long time. Bob really, really gets into this and sings like an angel. I always think that his strange piano style comes from the fact that he tries to play it like it's a guitar - see how he almost 'strums' it and seems to play guitar-like rhythms on it. Pretty weird. I love this.

The Swede said...

I also have audiotapes of the whole run, purchased from Camden Market back in the day, which I should really get transferred to a more permanent medium.

Live clips come and go on YouTube and I'm not sure how long this one will be around, but I'm pleased to have found it - good memories!

Old Pa's Corner said...

Well done Mr Swede I really enjoyed this ....By thye way there are many programmes available to copy You Tube Videos to your Hard Drive,either the video or just the audio....it was the only place I could find your suggestion of the Danndy Warhols version of to Love Somebody, but quality was dogy.....managed to find copy for £1.25 in Amazon

The Swede said...

Dandy Warhols, Old Pa's Corner? I think I recommended Gallon Drunk's take on 'To Love Somebody' - at least I hope I did!

Thanks for the downloading tips. I'm in extreme hard-drive overcapacity at the moment and need to consider some cloud based storage, but don't know where to start. Does anyone have any advice?

Old Pa's Corner said...

Sorry I meant Gallon Drunk....was listening to somthing by the DW and got the names mixed up.....

clearwater63 said...

this was a really great night - i can hear myself scream ;-) !

Michael Macken said...

Great to see this. I was at these 6 shows and the piano became a source of amusement . One wag held up a sign saying "For sale ! grand piano in perfect condition, hardly used"

The Swede said...

clearwater63 and Michael Macken, thanks for stopping by. I'm pretty sure my one scream of that week (and indeed only scream ever at a gig!) was the previous evening when 'Most of the Time' got it's only airing of the run. I need to find a clip of that one.

Anonymous said...

I was that wag..the sign said "For Sale One Piano Never Used. I was in the fron row next to Larry for 5 of the six shows. Of the 100's of shows I have seen this was without doubt the most exciting live music moment I have witnessed. Sadly cut from the end is his step to the front of the stage arms open to the crowd and the question "Okay?"

The Swede said...

Yes, Anonymous - now that you mention it, I remember the 'Okay?' moment. Need to locate a longer version of this clip!

Thanks for looking in.

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