Bob Dylan With The Grateful Dead - Unauthorised Live Vol.2 (1993) Bootleg

(U.S  1961 - Present)
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The Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead 1987 Tour was a concert tour by Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead taking place in the summer of 1987 and consisting of six concerts. Each concert began with one or two lengthy sets by the Grateful Dead of their own material (sometime broken into a first and second set, per the Dead's usual practice), followed by a roughly 90 minute set of the Dead acting as Dylan's backup band.

This bootleg is a recording of one of these six concerts, the venue being the Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon and took place on July 19, 1987.  The day before the concert there was a record rainfall. Concert day was a record high heat day. . . Humid and Hot.  It was amazing that the Dead could even play in such conditions. The atmosphere was festive and sweaty, the portable showers set up near the back of the stadium got a fair amount of use.  A skywriter wrote 'IMPEACH REAGAN' during The Grateful Dead's concert bracket, which got the crowd going.

This concert has been released as a bootleg under many titles: 'Bridget's Album' (Pharting Pharoao Records), 'In The Heart Of Oregon'. (Flamingo Records), 'Mad Mystic Hammering' (B & W Records) and 'Together We’re Strong'  (Archive Series); and also officially as 'Dylan & The Dead' in 1989.

The sound on this 70+ minute CD is pretty good, maybe a 8/10 (although Dylan's vocals on the first 3-4 tracks are a little faint), and if it was any better it would be as good as the official release 'Dylan & The Dead'. The audience applause in between songs has been expertly edited to allow the full show to be presented. It is a shame that Dylan doesn't like to banter with the audience but I guess he's too focused on remembering the lyrics to his songs. This CD, along with companion Vol. 1 (does anyone have this?), was manufactured in Australia.

In the early 1990's there was a loophole in  the copyright law there that allowed such pieces to be distributed, as long as the pieces were clearly identified as not being authorised by the Label who owned the controlling rights. Joker went overboard with the statement, and created this incredibly ugly, nameless title. The spelling of unauthorised is the Aussie spelling. The titles were sold at discount prices at grocery stores and the like. Dylan shows little to no emotion in his singing of these songs, but at least the sound quality is there.
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Concert Review (by Augy)
I remember and from my recordings I have in storage, this was the most interesting of the three west coast Dylan/Dead performances, although Oakland was probably best overall. I was particularly enthused about the rare numbers they played at each show, but this one especially!
Namely, "Heart of Mine" I just love that tune ! It has just a beautiful, although repetitive chord progression.

Autzen Stadium Eugene 1987

Also, "Watchin' the River Flow" which, although only a blues, it has a is a maybe not completely unique, but a very elegant or novel, for lack of more appropriate adjectives, (I probably sound like I'm writing a scientific journal paper with words like that), approach to the turnaround; which was perfect for Garcia, in the same way Anaheim's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" was, since I always referred to Jerry as the "king of the turnaroud" ! I say that because he could throw in a turn around virtually anyway, I mean in places that were anything but blues or folk; so given "Rainy Day Women"'s obvious repetitive turnaround who more appropriate to play it but Garcia. So the same goes for "Watchin' the River Flow".

Dylan & Garcia

There are other things I like about that tine as well in the lyric, etc. but of course as most of you probably know if one doesn't already know the words from the studio release, it is difficult at a live Dylan performance to understand the lyrics often because Dylan deliberately accents or inflects his words differently on different beats and/or holds a syllable for a a different length of time as a way of improvising from one performance to another.

Dylan & The Grateful Dead, 1987

Moreover, "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" is another rare tune that I like, although kind of creepy but so are some Grateful Dead tunes, to which perhaps some may take exception to, in the same way I take exception to the person who though this Dead/Dylan performance was "uninteresting". Furthermore, they did a great version of "Tangled up in Blue" in Garcia's usual rousing approach to that tune, but not quite the same style as Garcia Band show ! The rest of it was more or less the same as the other two west coast shows.

This post consists of MP3's (320kps) ripped from my JOKER CD bootleg and includes full album artwork.  The track listing for this concert indicates that they played 2 songs for their encore  "Touch of Grey" and "All Along The Watchtower".
For some reason "Touch Of Grey" is missing from this bootleg which is strange, as there would have been room on the CD for its inclusion.
Nevertheless, the other 14 tracks are all here for your enjoyment.
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Tracks
01 Maggie's Farm 
02 Dead Man Dead Man 
03 Watching the River Flow 
04 Simple Twist Of Fate 
05 Ballad Of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
06 Stuck Inside Of Mobile 
07 Heart Of Mine 
08 It's All Over Now Baby Blue 
09 Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 
10 Queen Jane Approximately 
11 Ballad Of A Thin Man 
12 Highway 61 Revisited 
13 Tangled Up In Blue 
14 All Along The Watchtower 

Personnel:
Bob Dylan — vocals, guitar
Jerry Garcia — lead guitar, backing vocals
Bob Weir — guitar, backing vocals
Brent Mydland — keyboards, backing vocals
Phil Lesh — bass
Mickey Hart — drums
Bill Kreutzmann —drums

Bob Dylan & The Grateful Dead Live Link (141Mb)