7 NOVEMBER 1979

7 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:

7 November contains a number of very fine performances. There are a number of minor miscues, Serve Somebody with the lyrics and Wake Up, and Change My Way Of Thinking, both suffer misstarts. Nevertheless, these miscues don't seem to distract the performers as they have on earlier nights. Instead, the band tightens up and delivers very polished renditions of almost every song from Slow Train and many of the newer songs as well.

Jim Keltner's drumming comes through as a propelling force this evening, whether in truth or simply due to the mix. He constantly bridges fills with rolling confident patterns that seem to reaffirm the strength of the compositions and Dylan's own idiosyncratic phrasing.

Oddly enough, Solid Rock suffers terribly this evening. The band seems on, but Dylan is forcing the tempo throughout and the band is left to scramble after him. In fact, this song will remain an unattained tour de force much of this tour, achieving its potential in the later Fox Warfield shows, but then subsiding in the following months.

The thread of razor sharp performance seems to have snapped with Solid Rock and the remaining performances, while workmanlike, simply highlight how fragile and complex these newer songs are and how easily they can slip from the grasp.

ANNOTATIONS:

SERVE SOMEBODY

begins with first notes (from lp or microphone getting buffeted)

1,2,4,guitar,6/3,keyboards,6

(2) "drugs at your command" / "you may be a . . . some high degree thief

(6/3) "you may work in a (bakery?) , maybe workin in a store; maybe love some whiskey, maybe love some more"

(6) "you may be sleepin on a matress, may be sleepin ina king-sized bed"

I BELIEVE IN YOU

nice recording, some minor distortion midway (mike bumped?) and audience chatter

WHEN YOU GONNA WAKE UP?

staggered beginning with drums and guitars missynched - Dylan comes in lower and lighter than usual

1,2,3,6,organ/guitar,5,8,7,organ/guitar,9,outro refrain

(2) "henry kissinger's got you tied up into knots."

WHEN HE RETURNS

very nice recording, nice guitar accompaniment, nice performance

enthusiastic audience response

MAN GAVE NAMES TO ALL THE ANIMALS

very nice recording as well, some audience chatter

some inaudible audience yelling ("rock-n-roll!)? throughout and a coordinated distant shout by some audience members on the other side of the hall which sounds something like "oldies!"

PRECIOUS ANGEL

more very minor distortion and audience chatter near taper

1^st chorus: "shhhhhhine your light . . . . on me" without backing

overall a gentler performance than others with a very strong voice

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

SLOW TRAIN COMING

nice performance again, nice solos by Fred Tackett, nice drumming

enthusiastic audience response

#EDIT - during applause

COVENANT WOMAN

"always so grateful I will always be" (1^st chorus)

"I just want to say that I intend" (2^nd chorus)

spooner oldham solos not up to other nights

#EDIT - during applause (End Tape Side A)

- significant audio loss

Dylan: "Helena's going to come up and sing a song she wrote called "What Are You Doing With Your Heart?""

Crowd: "You're beautiful!" "We love you!" "Yeah!" "Rock-n-roll!"

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

unfortunately much lower audio quality from first side

enthusiastic crowd, clapping along, shouting during piano runs

audio levels improve tremendously in last twenty seconds

GONNA CHANGE MY WAY OF THINKING

false start, pause, then Dylan leads in on second start

solid performance, warms up from start, Jim Keltner seems to propel performances this evening.

DO RIGHT TO ME BABY

- Very nice performance

Dylan: "You all know we're living in the end of times, near the last of the end of times. And the end of times are perilous times, and the last days perilous times shall be ____. And you're gonna need something strong to hold on to. The name of this song is "I'm Hanging On To A Solid Rock Made Before The Foundation Of The World." You're gonna need something just about that strong."

SOLID ROCK

Drum and guitar riffs foremost in mix, and propel it. Band is on - Dylan perhaps less so - his phrasing is off -time with the band on the second chorus and after Fred Tackett's solo -- Dylan is simply ahead of the band throughout -- making the band really scramble.

Fred Tackett chops into this one, but the tautness is gone.

SAVING GRACE

Audience yelling intermittently throughout is distracting and Dylan doesn't inhabit this performance to the extent he does on 6 November.

Crowd: "Bob Dylan all the way!"

#EDIT - during applause, but clips first bars of next song

WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU

Audience member yells "Rastafari (inaudible)!"

"opened up a door that couldn't be shut and you opened it up so wide, filled up a hunger that had always been so denied."

Very good harp solo, extended into third stanza

"I don't deserve what I have gone through."

Second harp solo starts tentatively and doesn't reach height of first solo, but begins to extend solo as will become new ending later.

#EDIT - during applause, clips first stanza of next song

SAVED

Tackett's guitar gives a nice rolling hop to performance, Dylan is off-time again, with the band tentatively entering fills only to have Dylan start the next stanza

Great piano solo, extended when Dylan doesn't reemerge on cue

IN THE GARDEN

Nice punctuated organ on 2^nd stanza

Dylan's vocals lack the plaintive outrage of the best performances, but hits a surprising tone on "why" of "why did he slip away to a quiet place instead."

The band has full control of this song by the fifth stanza, again giving a taste for how this song might lift right off the ground if given full throttle

#EDIT - during applause

Dylan: "Playing bass tonight is Tim Drummond, give him a hand. Lead guitar, Fred Tackett. On keyboards: Spooner Oldham On the other set of keyboards and backing vocals: Terry Young. On drums Jim Keltner. Mona Lisa Young. In the middle, Regina Havis. On the end, Helena Springs."

BLESSED IS THE NAME

The band begins the rave up during band introductions and the audience is clapping along from the start.

Brief feedback on first stanza

Again, Jim Keltner propels the band -- both backing singers and Dylan allow the chorus to go silent towards the end -- Keltner bouncing aloong ready to go another round by the time backing singers all bringing it to a close.

#EDIT - fades out during applause and fades back in

PRESSING ON

backing singers lead 2^nd chorus with dylan filling over them

Dylan repeats chorus a third time to begin,

"many try to stop me, try to shake me up in my mind"

"on and on and on and on" begins on fifth chorus and is drown out by cheering as Dylan steps forward - crowd claps along, smearing beats

nice performance and recording, though audience drowns out middle with cheering

Dylan: "Good night." Backing singers are stirred up but only repeat chorus twice.

ANNOTATIONS:

Two known reference tapes circulating:

The first (71179JMMC) is a dual mono audience recording which lacks the seven opening songs by the band but includes the eighth song, "What Are You Doing With Your Heart?" by the band and sung by Helena Springs following "Covenant Woman."

This is a very nice recording. Unfortunately, it is marred by a number of destructive edits, clipping the beginnings of "What Can I Do For You" and "Saved."

The second (71179SCMC) is a 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 recording is marred by persistent hiss in the left channel throughout the recording -- a mono recording transferred to only one channel of a stereo copy. There is also significant distortion throughout "Slow Train", "Covenant Woman", "What Are You Doing With Your Heart," and "Saving Grace". This recording exhibits identical destructive edits before and after "What Can I Do For You" suggesting it is merely a subsequent and inferior copy of the same master recording.

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.