6 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/WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR HEART (Helena Springs, 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:

By 6 November the band has the material and any nerves firmly in hand. This night they exhibit well-balanced tight performances of all of the Slow Train material, especially Man Gave Names, Change My Way Of Thinking, and Slow Train. However, the real gems occur with the Saved material, including superlative performances of Covenant Woman, Saving Grace, and What Can I Do For You. The rest of this concert is quite good, a judgment perhaps exaggerated by the nice sound quality of the recording, but nevertheless one of the best shows from the Fox Warfield stand.

Curiously, the end of the concert seems to drop off in quality. In fact, as unlikely as it may be, the concert shows significantly less fire fron the point where an audience member near the taper yells "Boring!" towards the latter half of What Can I Do For You. The performances thence forward feel more tentative, less powerful. Simialrly, the audience behavior during this performance of Pressing On captures the broad range of responses Dylan faced most evenings on this tour. There are scattered boos and shouts of "Boring!" from those who were disappointed by this new Dylan before them, while scattered others shouted encouragement, sometimes explicitly Christian encouragement. The larger audience clapped along, enjoyed the music and applauded enthusiatically throughout.


ANNOTATIONS:

Audience Chatter: "Have you seen this? (Inaudible) I think it's great."

SERVE SOMEBODY

I BELIEVE IN YOU

Dylan: "God don't make promises that he don't keep."

Crowd: "Amen! Hallelujah!"

WHEN YOU GONNA WAKE UP?

WHEN HE RETURNS

MAN GAVE NAMES TO ALL THE ANIMALS

PRECIOUS ANGEL

#EDIT - during applause

Dylan: "From a hard rain to a slow train"

SLOW TRAIN COMING 

#EDIT - during applause (end of tape said A)

COVENANT WOMAN

Dylan: "You're gonna hear some songs that we're gonna be recording in February or March. There's one song here that Helena is going to sing for you called "What Are You Doing With Your Heart."

#EDIT - Clips "What Are You Doing with Your Heart"

WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR HEART (Helena Springs, vocals)

GONNA CHANGE MY WAY OF THINKING

DO RIGHT TO ME BABY -

Dylan: "You know we're living in the last days of the end of times. In the last days of the end of times, you're going to need something strong to hang on to, so this song is called "Hanging On To A Solid Rock Made Before The Foundation Of The World." You're gonna need something that strong."

Crowd: "Preach It Bob!"

SOLID ROCK 

#EDIT - during applause and clips first notes of next song

SAVING GRACE

WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU

SAVED

IN THE GARDEN

#EDIT - during applause (end Tape Side B)

Dylan: "On keyboards tonight, let's hear it for keyboards, Spooner Oldham. On the other set of keyboards, Terry Young. Bass guitar: Tim Drummond. And on lead guitar tonight is Fred Tackett. On the right, the right girl is Mona Lisa Young. The center girl is Regina Havis. And on the end is Helena Springs."

BLESSED IS THE NAME

#EDIT - during applause

PRESSING ON


 SOURCES:

One known reference tapes circulating:

The first (61179JMMC) is a dual mono audience recording which lacks the seven opening songs by the band and the eighth song, "What Are You Doing With Your Heart" by the band and sung by Helena Springs following "Covenant Woman."

 This is a good audience recording, marred by destructive edits eliminating "What Are You Doing With Your Heart" and clipping the first notes of "Saving Grace." Otherwise, a very good listen and some very fine performances.


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.