Bob Dylan at Budokan
Occupation
- Vocals, electric guitar, harmonica Bob Dylan
- Electric Guitar: Billy Cross
- Drums: Ian Wallace
- Keyboard: Alan Pasqua
- E- bass, vocals Rob Stoner
- Acoustic guitar, vocals: Steven Soles
- Pedal steel guitar, violin, mandolin, guitar, dobro David Mansfield
- Saxophone, Flute, Recorder: Steve Douglas
- Percussion: Bobbye Hall
- Chorus: Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Debi Dye
At Budokan is a live album by Bob Dylan from 1978 ( part only published in 1979 ). It was recorded on 28 February and 1 March 1978 in the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. The original LP was a booklet in English and Japanese, plus a DIN A1 poster that Dylan with electric guitar shows during a performance in Japan. All titles come from the pen of Bob Dylan, with the exception of Oh, Sister, he wrote the lyrics together with Jacques Levy for the album Desire.
The album consists almost exclusively of the " greatest hits" of the artist, which were live, played in some radically different arrangements. Is Your Love in Vain (track number 10 ) is the only new song on the album. It was played at the concert on 28 February for the first time live and only half a year later - published in the studio version - on Street Legal.
The band, with whom Dylan was traveling on this tour consisted of the musicians with whom he recorded in the same year, Street Legal.
Recordings and versions
The recordings come from two different concerts on 28 February and 1 March 1978. It is the fourth and fifth of eight shows at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo, Japan. Columbia Records released the double LP on 21 August 1978. The original edition was intended exclusively for the Japanese market. Later, in the same year, the album was also released in Australia and New Zealand. In April 1979, the album was released worldwide - so Columbia reacted to the many imports to Europe and North America.
Criticism and success
Dylan received some of the worst reviews of his career for At Budokan. They called the album " smooth" and " sterile". Music critic Jimmy Guterman even called it " one of the worst albums in the history of rock music ." Clinton Heylin, who talked apologetically from a " recording from the wrong end of the tour " - the later performances in Europe would have been much better.
In Europe the album was recorded much friendlier. Janet Maslin, music critic for Rolling Stone, saw in it a "liberation Dylan from the original versions ," which, " as beautiful and durable as they may be, a terrible burden on the artists ' represented. She heard above all the then newer songs like Oh Sister and Shelter from the Storm " significantly improved " than as if they " had not been thought through properly for the first shot ."
At Budokan arrived in the U.S. at number 13 on the album charts and went gold. In the UK, the album made it to # 4
Title list
- LP 1 / CD 1
- LP 2 / CD 2