“It could have been a last waltz,” Bill Flanagan wrote, “instead, it turned out to be rock & roll's greatest half time show." Thirty years ago, Sony Music hosted Columbia Records Celebrates the Music of Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden on October 16, 1992. A double-CD concert album and a concert film, both titled Bob Dylan: The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration were released to memorialize the event. This episode will memorialize the memorialization, contextualize the concert within the lineage of other great multiact, multiheaded concerts and festivals, and it will also strip bare some of the event’s mythologization. In "20 Pounds of Headlines," we round up news from the world of Bob Dylan as it was in 1992 and today, including a brief clip of Dylan reading from his forthcoming THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG, an update on his current tour itinerary, and a special guest review of another much more recent Bob Dylan Tribute Concert that took place at Town Hall in New York City, this review written by our listener Jon Olson of Arlington. In "Who Did It Better?" we ask you who did "When I Paint My Masterpiece" better live, Jerry Garcia and John Kahn or The Band (minus Robbie Robertson) with Richard Bell and Jim Weider on the stage of Madison Square Garden for Columbia Records Celebrates the Music of Bob Dylan?
For past episodes featuring the music of the Columbia Records Celebrates the Music of Bob Dylan concert, look up the following episodes of HARD RAIN & SLOW TRAINS: BOB DYLAN & FELLOW TRAVELERS: 10/29/2020: “All Those Who’ve Sailed with Me: Bob Dylan & His Bands part 3,” 6/10/2021: “The Great Pretender: The Music of Chrissie Hynde,” 11/11/2021: “Bloomington,” and 11/25/2021: “Playing to the Big Crowds, Playing to the Cheap Seats: Bob Dylan & The Beatles part 2.” You might also like to listen to 10/8/2020: “The Rock Era” for some more context concerning multiact and multiheaded concerts and festivals.