Bob Dylan - Live 1964: Concert At Philharmonic Hall - Hybrid Multi-Channel & Stereo 2 x SACD

out of print - last copies

This 1964 concert is the first all acoustic live performance to enter Bob Dylan's discography. This recording certainly has its share of firsts and highlights, including the only known live version of "Spanish Harlem Incident", the premiere of the songs "Gates of Eden" and "If You Gotta Go, Go Now".

This 5.1 Surround Sound mix of Bob Dylan's October 31, 1964 Halloween show at New York's Philharmonic Hall is a complete recording and has never been released in this format until now. This is the first time the 5.1 has ever been available commercially. This 2-disc Audio Fidelity collection presents the entire concert from the original Columbia Records (Sony) master tapes. The package also includes a 56-page booklet filled with historical photographs and informative notes. The Halloween concert of 1964 had been previously bootlegged on vinyl and CD, but those releases were incomplete and taken from poor dubs off the soundboard tapes.

Here is Dylan as an eager-to-pleas 23 year old with nothing between him and his audience but a guitar and a harmonica. His voice is in top form throughout the 19-song set and when Joan Baez joins him on stage the voltage only increases.

In marked contrast to the tight-lipped living legend of the mid-'70s, here is Dylan as entertainer, joking and bantering with the crowd and he proves to be a very masterful performer.

While much has been made of the later electric performance of the 1960s, it is here that you can see how good Dylan really was at such a young age. He shows all the budding facets of his art up to this time, from the protest songs, the more introspective material and the radical new direction he was pursuing.