4 NOVEMBER 1979

WARFIELD THEATER - SAN FRANCISCO, CA


SETLIST:

SERVE SOMEBODY/I BELIEVE IN YOU/WHEN YOU GONNA WAKE UP?/WHEN HE RETURNS/MAN GAVE NAMES TO ALL THE ANIMALS/PRECIOUS ANGEL/SLOW TRAIN COMING/COVENANT WOMAN/GOD USES ORDINARY PEOPLE (Mona Lisa Young, vocals)/GONNA CHANGE MY WAY OF THINKING/DO RIGHT TO ME BABY/SOLID ROCK/SAVING GRACE/WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU/SAVED/IN THE GARDEN/BLESSED IS THE NAME/PRESSING ON


COMMENTARY:

4 November finds the band in fine form, sounding confident and together. Beginning with a solid Serve Somebody, Dylan moves smoothly into a finely nuanced and plaintive I Believe In You, a hopping Wake Up and a performance of When He Returns which keeps the audience rapt throughout and cheering loudly at its conclusion.

The crowd seems to grow more vocal after Man Gave Names calling for older songs - requests Dylan attempts to silence with a response which, unfortunately, is indecipherable on this recording. But the performance seems to wander a bit from here on. Covenant Woman begins to drift and is brought to an abrupt end. The band ends Change My Way Of Thinking with Fred Tackett still midnote. Tackett then carries the last four measures of Do Right To Me on acoustic guitar as the rest of the band has melted away. The crowd seems largely unfazed by these miscues and a strong Solid Rock restores the authority of the performances.

As would be the pattern on most strong nights, the band and Dylan really hit their stride with the "Saved" songs, following a rollicking Solid Rock with a nice Saving Grace and beautiful What Can I Do For You, chugging into an ecstatic Saved and a gorgeous, slowly mounting In The Garden - a song, which, once accustomed to it, gives the impression of a procession ascending to a point where the song has no real end.

The encores are actually something of a let down after these five songs. Pressing On is a very nice performance, but Dylan muffles lyrics on a song which generally receives careful attention, adding an entirely new stanza beginning "the adversary never sleeps." Most nights this song reaches a climactic tension which exceeds what Dylan has ever achieved in live performances prior to this tour. This night, strangely, it never quite tops out, but remains highly satisfying nonetheless.


ANNOTATIONS:

SERVE SOMEBODY

I BELIEVE IN YOU

WHEN YOU GONNA WAKE UP?

WHEN HE RETURNS

Dylan: "Thank you."

MAN GAVE NAMES TO ALL THE ANIMALS

Crowd: "Lay Lady Lay!" "Something Old!"

PRECIOUS ANGEL

#EDIT -- during applause

Crowd: "Mister Tambourine Man"

Dylan: "I won't play that masquerade"?????

SLOW TRAIN COMING 

#EDIT - during applause (end tape side A)

COVENANT WOMAN

Dylan: "Thank you. I'm gonna have Mona - I'm gonna ask Mona Lisa (indecipherable) out here and sing a song I think you might want to hear. Mona Lisa's gonna sing a song called, uh . . . "Ordinary People."

#EDIT - clips "God Uses Ordinary People" after first bars of piano intro

GOD USES ORDINARY PEOPLE (Mona Lisa Young, vocals)

GONNA CHANGE MY WAY OF THINKING

Crowd: "Lay Lay Lay!"

DO RIGHT TO ME BABY 

Dylan: "Thank you. Alright, we all know we're living in the end of the end of timesSo you'll need something strong to hang on to. This song is called "Hanging On To A Solid Rock Made Before The End Of The World."

SOLID ROCK 

#EDIT - clips first notes of organ lead-in to next song

SAVING GRACE

- crowd cheers Dylan's guitar solos

WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU

Dylan: "Ladies and gentleman, people, the girl on the right here is Mona Lisa Young. On the left is Regina Havis. And on the other side, Helena Springs. Tim Drummond playing the bass guitar. Lead guitar is Fred Tackett. On one set of keyboards Spooner Oldham. On the other set, Terry Young. And on the drums, that's Jim Keltner. This one is called "Saved By The Blood Of The Lamb."

SAVED

IN THE GARDEN

#EDIT - during applause (end of tape side B)

BLESSED IS THE NAME

PRESSING ON


 SOURCES:

One known reference tape circulating:

The first (41179JMM) is a mono audience recording missing the seven opening songs by the band and the eighth song, "God Uses Ordinary People" by the band and sung by Mona Lisa Young following "Covenant Woman."

This is a reasonably good recording. It is marred by a single destructive edit which clips the first notes of "Saving Grace" and the removal of "God Uses Ordinary People" performed by Mona Lisa Young.


 

ANNOTATION KEY:

BLACK TEXT = Confirmed Performance/Comments/Observations

RED TEXT = Flaw or Missing/Unconfirmed Portion of Recording

BLUE TEXT = Dylan's Comments or Statements Transcribed

GREEN TEXT = Notable Performance in my opinion

The purpose of these annotations is to assist listeners in identifying recordings. All annotations reflect any cross-referencing between source recordings, thus edits and omissions which occur on one source tape, but not another, are not reported. The "Sources" section is modeled after Simon's notes in the Unofficial Bob Dylan Free Tape Library.