13 NOVEMBER 1979

WARFIELD THEATER - SAN FRANCISCO, CA


SETLIST:

MONOLOGUE (Regina Havis)/IF I'VE GOT MY TICKET, LORD/IT'S GONNA RAIN/DO LORD, REMEMBER ME/LOOK UP AND LIVE BY FAITH/OH FREEDOM/THIS TRAIN/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/SAVED/WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU/IN THE GARDEN/BLESSED IS THE NAME/PRESSING ON


COMMENTARY:

This is another excellent performance. Dylan and the band are now completely comfortable with both the material and the setting. The introductory gospel set is superlative, the three singers sounding buoyant and well-received by the audience. Dylan and the band rattle off the Slow Train material with confidence and verve.

One of the highlights this evening is "Covenant Woman." Throughout the Warfield Theater shows, Dylan fiddles with phrasing and the lyric pace of this song, particularly its awkward chorus. This evening Dylan strips the song down to its love-ballad core, singing with tenderness and understatement, eschewing the higher, harsher tones he often employs for a lower register and descending notes to resolve phrases. Dylan's phrasing is nicely echoed in Spooner Oldham's solos. Indeed, this may be a case of the accompaniment influencing the singer, as Oldham's solos have consistently wound themselves meditatively around the lower cadences of the melody, while Dylan often tinkered with the rhythmic structure.

"Covenant Woman" is one of the songs on this tour which barely seems to reach the Saved recording sessions in February 1980. In my opinion, the performance on Saved lacks much of the power found in the live shows, as though Dylan and the band have already mined that seam and lack the drive to dig any deeper. In fact, following the February recording sessions, Dylan will drop "Covenant Woman" from his setlists for the remainder of the tour, revisiting the song briefly in November 1980, but then only very sporadically thereafter.

"In The Garden" is another song worth noting in this concert. So often "In The Garden" teases at being a roof-raiser and this time it budges the roof beams, an astonishing feat when one considers the song. The modulation in melody is so improbable, yet so consistently achieved, that it keeps the listener off-balance, depriving us of the comfort more anthemic songs provide. Furthermore, the song swells with each refrain, then subsides into introverted instrumental interludes between stanzas, further depriving us of the rave-up hinted at by the bass line throughout the song. Much of the visceral energy in this song seems a matter of choreography, holding back elements of the instrumental accompaniment so they can build to a crescendo at the refrain stanza beginning, "Did they speak out against him, did they dare?" And yet, there's never an actual release to the song, as it again subsides to build again with the next stanza.

In this sense, the song is itself a tease. Lyrically, it asks what appear to be rhetorical questions, but are, in fact, statements of faith, challenging the listener to take sides between belief and unbelief. No answer is given, no chorus bridges the stanzas, the song is simply a series of questions. Musically, it swells and ebbs, again without any bridging chorus or clear start and end points. The overall effect is one of tension and promise, Dylan suggesting there's more to come, suggesting that resolution is within reach, conveying the potential power of his music and message by holding back the punchline. There are obvious theological parallels to this in the doctrine of Jesus' resurrection and return which are beyond the scope of my project, but may well be the animating force to Dylan's creation and performance of this song.


ANNOTATIONS:

 

MONOLOGUE

- Regina drops the part about "Jesus' got your ticket."

IF I'VE GOT MY TICKET, LORD

IT'S GONNA RAIN

DO LORD, REMEMBER ME

LOOK UP AND LIVE BY FAITH

OH FREEDOM

THIS TRAIN

SERVE SOMEBODY

I BELIEVE IN YOU

 Dylan: "Well, thank you. (indecipherable) We've been playing here twelve nights, same place, same time, the message is always the same: God don't make promises he don't keep. Same yesterday, same today and the same tomorrow."

WHEN YOU GONNA WAKE UP?

#EDIT - during applause

WHEN HE RETURNS

CROWD: "Jesus loves you!"

Dylan: "He loves you too."

MAN GAVE NAMES TO ALL THE ANIMALS

PRECIOUS ANGEL

SLOW TRAIN COMING 

COVENANT WOMAN

Dylan: "Thank you. I'm gonna ask Mona Lisa to come out here and sing a song called "God Uses Ordinary People."

 

GOD USES ORDINARY PEOPLE (Mona Lisa Young)

CROWD: "Bob, just one old one, please!" (laughter)

GONNA CHANGE MY WAY OF THINKING

DO RIGHT TO ME BABY 

Dylan: "Thank you. You know you read about that situation in Iran, but we're not worried about that because we know the world is going to be destroyed. We know that Jesus is coming back.

CROWD: "Praise to god!" "Where is he?" "Bob Dylan all the way!"

This one is called "Hanging On To A Solid Rock Made Before The Foundation Of The World." You got to hang on to something. It might as well be the real thing."

SOLID ROCK 

SAVING GRACE

SAVED

WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU

IN THE GARDEN

Dylan: "Thank you. Playing keyboards tonight, give him a warm hand, Spooner Oldham. Playing lead guitar, Fred Tackett. Let me say that again, now. On the keyboards, Spooner Oldham. And on the other set of keyboards, Terry Young. On the drums tonight, Jim Keltner. On the electric bass guitar, Tim Drummond. Alright, singing bottom tonight, Helena Springs. Singing in the middle, Regina Havis. Singing on top was Mona Lisa Young."

BLESSED IS THE NAME

#EDIT - during applause

PRESSING ON


 SOURCES:

Two known reference tapes circulating:

The first (131179CBM) is a dual mono audience recording which includes 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." Unfortunately, it cuts off immediately after "Change My Way Of Thinking."

This recording is of excellent quality, the only flaw perhaps being Dylan's voice is high in the mix at the expense of bass and drum sharpness. Unfortunately, this recording lacks all the songs following "Change My Way Of Thinking."

The second (131179PBM) is a dual mono audience recording which lacks the seven opening songs by the band but includes the eighth song "God Uses Ordinary People" by the band and sung by Mona Lisa Young following "Covenant Woman."

 

This recording is also of excellent quality, with slightly more hiss than the first, perhaps suggesting that it is simply a subsequent generation of the same source master. There is a brief drop-out during "Do Right" and some obtrusive audience chatter during "Saving Grace," Sadly, the quality of the recording suffers a great deal of fluctuation beginning with "Solid Rock" and marring every song thereafter.


 

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.