No I’m a big Bowie fan but just thought it was stale. Most of my friends all thought the same way, maybe it was just the Sydney shows but nowhere as good as Serous Moonlight/Stage shows.
Good thing we’re all individuals. 
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We are indeed.
I wish I had seen Dylan and Bowie in 1974 both Before The Flood and David Live rank as my all time favourite live albums.
Funny I use to struggle with David Live but I haven’t listened to it for years. I’ve got a hi res copy that I don’t think I’ve played should get it out and have a listen (saw that tour and it was fantastic).
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David Live is a superb album, only beat (in my opinion) by Cracked Actor & Welcome To The Blackout.
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For me Sweet Thing off David Live is the pinnacle of his vocal performances and Earl Slick’s guitar playing and tone is the best ever.
Likewise Bob Dylan on Before Flood best vocals of his career and Robbie Robertson’s guitar and that pinched harmonic tone is just amazing.
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Bob Dylan Live At The Budokan is seriously good, but you hear so many stories of him “not being on song” I think you are very wise
He hasn’t toured here that often but those that I know that went and the media have all been critical. Boring lack of connection think he even played once with his back to the audience for the whole gig.
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You never know if it will be his last tour …
I missed Leonard Cohen and thought well he’ll be back, and he wasn’t
I think “bad” is the wrong word for Dylan live. Bar his clearly alcohol driven period the musicianship has been excellent. The sound can be variable but is often superb. The issue is the vocals and the melodic reinterpretation. It’s often bewildering; sometimes downright odd, frequently unintentionally hilarious but rarely dull. Plus it’s Bob for goodness sake. Where hes always been a let down for me is the sheer lack of interaction with the crowd. He’ll often stand in the shadows for the first third of a gig. Here is one of the most storied, deadpan absolute musical legends of the past century who, judging by his rare interviews and Chronicles etc., has much to say and yet… Once you get used to it it’s just different to the usual gig experience but then isn’t different what we’re paying for.
Ultimately it’s Bob Dylan. If you’ve not seen him then you really ought. No-one who has comes away without multiple contradictory thoughts and a fair few great pub stories. When I first saw his return to Manchester at the Apollo 8 of us had completely different views on the gig. I was the only 1 who noticed him in the pub alongside the Apollo pre gig completely unrecognised in his hoodie having a quiet lemonade.
As for Bowie, he was disengaged and off his head to some extent during Glass Spider. The shows were great as spectacle and enjoyable as a kind of greatest hits with added sheen but he was by all accounts on autopilot and quite literally saying the same things and making exactly the same stage moves every night. My friend and I saw him twice on that tour and actually quite enjoyed the first gig. The second killed all the enjoyment because it was an exact replica. One of the most planned, co-ordinated and fake tours I’ve ever seen.
Saw him late 90s at the Academy during what most view as a very odd drums n bass period. He was engaged, funny, spontaneous and utterly compelling. An entirely different man and artist.
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My house is full of all things Dylan, but after seeing the 66 show I could never get into Before The Flood it just seemed to pale against the earlier tour.
I find the electric songs particularly shouty and his phrasing is poor, the acoustic songs are better though.
I remember a dreadful show at the Docklands Arena in his up singing period, awful venue awful performance.
I decided to pass on this new tour, The Palladium gig a couple of years ago was a good place to bail out.
Hi Andy,
Funny how opinions differ. I first saw Bowie in 1976 and then pretty much every U.K. tour after that including Tin Machine in Kilburn.
My least favourite tours were Serious Moonlight & Glass Spider. Serious Moonlight was passable but Glass Spider oh dear excruciating.
Prem.
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I saw Dylan at Earls Court. Review here if its allowed
https://www.nytimes.com/1978/06/17/archives/dylans-european-tour-draws-16000-in-london-variety-in.html
Personally I loved it as variable as he was even back then. Despite the review I thought he had a good interaction with the audience, not in a false ‘ best friends’ type of way but a caustic warts and all , you’re not gonna like this but this is where I am, honesty. Memory may be playing tricks of course, it was a long time ago, but it confirmed me as a lifelong fan.
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I love this bit in the review
“ Eddie Lane, a 25‐year‐old miner from northeast England, bought his ticket for $11.75 in Leeds after standing in line for nine and a half hours along with 9,000 others. It took him three days to get to London, and he spent Wednesday night in St. James’s Park, in the shadow of Buckingham Palace”
Eh by gum lad crawled on his hands and knees with no more than handful of hot gravel to eat.
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Luxury!
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I saw Dylan at the old Sydney Stadium, aka the Tin Shed, in 66. Much of the performance was dominated by Levon Helm’s loud drumming.
The stage was a modified boxing ring in the middle. Bob had the staggers and looked likely to topple into the front row a number of times, but didn’t. He was steadied by Robbie Robertson on a few occasions.
Some of the audience wasn’t pleased by the electric renditions, to say the least.
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Isn’t that where they physically rotated the stage so that everybody got a “good “ view?
The audio is available on the 66 box set
Yep, the stage was manually rotated about every 15 minutes to give the audience a better view. Maybe the motion made Bob dizzy.
More likely the drugs, somebody somewhere was “mixing up the medicine”.
I’m very jealous, would have loved to have been there.
Incidentally it was Mickey Jones on drums, Levon Helm bailed to work on an oil rig, he couldn’t take the audience booing.
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Right, I thought it was Levon.
The tin shed was just that, constructed from corrugated iron. The acoustics were terrible, akin to kicking a garbage can when loud music was played.
The old Sydney Stadium, you’re giving away your vintage if you can remember that.
What a shack I never got to go to anything there but am certainly familiar with it. I was living in Potts Point and used to go past it going to school by bus. The Beatles played their only Sydney shows there.