Screaming At The Moon: Live, 1988-1989

 

Volume 1 - Electric Set, 1988

Subterranean Homesick Blues - Live - Sacramento - June 9, 1988
Pretty Peggy-O - Live - Mansfield - July 2, 1988
My Back Pages - Live - Mountain View - June 11, 1988
License To Kill - Live - Salt Lake City - June 13, 1988
Gotta Serve Somebody - Live - Salt Lake City - June 13, 1988
In The Garden - Live - Wantaugh - July 1, 1988
Big River - Live - Santa Barbara - June 9, 1988
Train To Cry - Live - Berkeley - June 10, 1988
Masters Of War - Live - Upper Darby - October 13, 1988
Hallelujah - Live - Montreal - July 8, 1988
Frankie Lee & Judas Priest - Live - Old Orchard Beach - July 3, 1988
Visions Of Johanna - Live - Manchester - September 3, 1988
Gates Of Eden - Live - East Troy - June 18, 1988

Volume 2 - Acoustic Set, 1988 - 1989

Wagoner's Lad - Live - New York - October 16, 1988
She Belongs To Me - Live - Rochester - July 6, 1989
San Francisco Bay Blues - Live - Canandaigua - June 28, 1988
In The Pines - Live - Old Orchard Beach - July 3, 1988
Mama You Been On My Mind - Live - East Troy - June 18, 1988
Every Grain Of Sand - Live - Athens - June 28, 1989
Lakes Of Ponchartrain - Live - Madrid - June 15, 1989
Eileen Aroon - Live - Denver - June 15, 1988
Give My Love To Rose - Live - Canandaigua - June 28, 1988
Pretty Boy Floyd - Live - Oakland - December 4, 1988
Baby Let Me Follow You Down - Live - Berkeley - September 3, 1989
Love Minus Zero - No Limit - Live - Chicago - October 31, 1989
Barbara Allen - Live - Syracuse - August 31, 1988

Volume 3 - Electric Set, 1989

 Seeing The Real You At Last - Live - Poughkeepsie - October 20, 1989
Tears Of Rage - Live - Patras - June 26, 1989
One Irish Rover - Live - Peoria - July 1, 1989
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues - Live - Milwaukee - July 3, 1989
When You Gonna Wake Up - Live - Poughkeepsie - October 20, 1989
John Brown - Live - Birmingham - June 7, 1989
Ring Them Bells - Live - Poughkeepsie - October 20, 1989
Congratulations - Live - Glasgow - June 6, 1989
Pancho & Lefty - Live - Cava de'Tirreni - June 21, 1989
Queen Jane Approximately - Live - New York City - October 12, 1989
Trail Of The Buffalo - Live - Atlanta - August 16, 1989
Trouble - Live - Atlanta - August 16, 1989
The Water Is Wide - Live - Dublin - June 3, 1989

 

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After a fallow period from 1985 to 1987, Bob Dylan found his muse again in 1988. As he’d done in the early 1970s, he once more taught himself to do consciously what he’d previously done unconsciously. One of the key parts of this arrangement was constant touring, as Dylan believed that intermittent years off of the road had been negatively impacting his approach to music. To that end, the so-called Never-Ending Tour kicked off with a bang in June 1988. Screaming At The Moon captures a snapshot of the first two wild years in this experimental long-form piece of performance art.

Volume 1 covers 1988, when Bob Dylan attacked his work with the ferocity of a punk singer. Few of the songs are word-perfect - especially impressionistic half-remembered anthems like “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and a rambling “Frankie Lee & Judas Priest” - but all feature performances unrivaled in pure energy since the Rolling Thunder Revue. I’m especially partial to this thoroughly on-the-edge take on “My Back Pages,” an impassioned “Hallalujah,” the only up-tempo performance of “Visions of Johanna” delivered live, and a blistering “Gates Of Eden.” The rewrites in “Gotta Serve Somebody” are a lot of fun too.

Volume 2 leads us through Dylan’s contemporary acoustic sets, which included covers alongside originals primarily pulled from his 1960s oeuvre. Among the former, “In The Pines” and “Give My Love To Rose” are rare one-offs while others - like “Eileen Aroon” and “Lakes Of Ponchartrain” - are just strong performances of frequently played gems. “Baby Let Me Follow You Down” gets one of its only post-1966 airings, and “Pretty Boy Floyd” and “San Francisco Bay Blues” recall the artist’s earliest days playing in New York coffee shops. We close with one of Dylan’s best renditions of “Barbara Allen,” a very old ballad he’d last played with electric backing in 1981.

Volume 3 is perhaps the most experimental portion of this collection. Following a year of relatively straight blues and rock in 1988, Dylan branched out into stranger arrangements seemingly influenced by Neil Young’s more avant-garde work. In an effort to capture this unique period of the Never-Ending Tour, I’ve opted to primarily include songs that contribute to a sense of place - a dark bar at the end of the night - rather than presenting the singer’s 1989 shows “as they were,” so to speak. No actual show included this many strange, brooding songs, but I like to think this approach offers a better understanding of what was unique in Dylan’s ‘89 performances. And it is unique! Just give a listen to this sinister “When You Gonna Wake Up” or the urgent plea of “The Water Is Wide.” Alternately, dig into the sharp guitar breaks in “Trail Of The Buffalo” and “One Irish Rover.” Bob Dylan’s rarely sung “Pancho & Lefty” so carelessly, but he’s also rarely sung it so meaningfully.

Longtime followers of the Thousand Highways collection will notice that most of these tracks are repurposed from previous releases: Renaissance (1988), The Water Is Wide (1989), Beneath A Diamond Sky (1989), and Series Of Dreams (1989-1993). The purpose of my effort here is to present the recordings more holistically and with a greater sense of unity, as I’ve often found myself disappointed when returning to those original CDs. Don’t worry, though - all tracks cut from The Water Is Wide and Beneath A Diamond Sky are included as bonus tracks so you can still assemble compilations that match the old versions if you prefer those.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy it. Until next time, keep yourself healthy and listen to some good tunes!

- CS