Bob Dylan: The Rolling Thunder Review revisited!

"Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year…"
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 'The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere'

On the evening of April 18, 1775, Boston silversmith Paul Revere received word that the British army stationed in the city was about to march into the towns of Lexington and Concord, to arrest cousins John and Samuel Adams, leaders of the Sons of Liberty, and to seize arms being stored there.

After years of strife between the British army and local colonists seeking, among other things, the right to be represented in Parliament in faraway London, since they were paying taxes to that government, the Revolutionary War was about to begin. Revere rowed across the mouth of the Charles River, from Boston to Charlestown, borrowed a horse, and rode as fast as he could to “Spread the alarm / Through every Middlesex village and farm / For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Schoolchildren in the United States used to have to memorise this poem, foundational to the mid-19th century mythologising of the early days of the American Revolution, up to – and through – the 1970s. Certainly young Bobby Zimmerman was among them; and some of Longfellow’s other celebrated works have pollinated his own songs for decades, from the intimations of 'The Village Blacksmith' in 'Every Grain of Sand' to Dylan quoting directly from 'Daydream' in his song 'Cross the Green Mountain', written for Gods and Generals, a movie about the American Civil War.

On the 18th of April, 1976, the United States of America was in the midst of “the Bicentennial,” a year-long celebration set around the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776. The Bicentennial was happening at a deeply troubled time. From the Watergate scandal of 1972 to President Nixon’s resignation in August 1974, the 1973-1974 oil crisis, and the fall of Saigon in April 1975 (marking a horrible and tragic end to the Vietnam War), contemporary America was dealing with hard times at home and abroad. Bicentennial festivities only served to set in ironic relief the reality of what was coming to pass in the United States two hundred years later.

The night of April 18 saw Bob Dylan and his Rolling Thunder Revue return to the stage, in Lakeland, Florida. The Revue had first hit the road in October 1975, and performed in a ramshackle rambling tour with a rotating cast of guests in small venues, mostly along the East Coast of the United States, in states that were the original thirteen British colonies.

After a break during the holiday season and a big benefit concert for Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a top middleweight boxer in the mid-1960s who was then in the midst of a retrial for a murder conviction and who is the subject of Dylan’s song 'Hurricane', the Revue recommenced in larger venues in the South, Midwest, and West. They stopped and then disbanded, for good, the day after Dylan’s 35th birthday on May 25, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Dylan fans have long been split as to which iterations and shows of Rolling Thunder are “the best”: those that took place in smaller spaces and more spontaneously on the first leg, or the big stadium shows with fancier production and more rehearsed performances. Now you can decide for yourself, since the new box set in Dylan’s official bootleg series is out, and all his performances from the 1976 RTR are included.

Bob Dylan’s The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1976 Live Recordings brings together professional recordings of Dylan’s sets from all the shows that spring – thats 39 cds and 381 tracks in all. You will hear 'Lay, Lady, Lay', 'I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight' and 'Gotta Travel On' many, many times, and never the same way: this is to me the beauty and revelation of the Dylan box sets, from the very first one – Biograph (1985) – to today.

Yes, they preserve the artist’s copyright to these versions and performances of the songs, but the official bootlegs also drown Dylan fans and music lovers with bounty, from the beautiful to the bizarre, from the bombshell to the beatific.

Woody Guthrie’s 'Deportees (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)' is the most vital and consequential of the covers Dylan performs; even the partial recordings here are particularly moving, in this current age. My favourite single disc is the New Orleans Warehouse show (early show), since I’ve long been a fan of the (unofficially) bootlegged late show.

A sad thing, to me, about the Rolling Thunder official bootlegs is that they only have Dylan’s songs, and not the rest of the evening’s performances by artists including Joan Baez, Ronee Blakely, Bob Neuwirth, Kinky Friedman, Roberta Flack, Joni Mitchell – it's a long list. Neuwirth’s performance of Johnny Horton’s 'Battle of New Orleans', for example, lit up the stage at The Warehouse. Yes, this would make for a hundred-disc box set, but it would be lovely, one day, to have the whole shebang available.

As was the case with the first Rolling Thunder box set, Bob Dylan — The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings (2019), the best thing you can do is to swim around and listen selectively to sets on consecutive nights, or sometimes from a matinee and an evening show on the same day. Choose a song — I picked “Shelter From the Storm” and “Mozambique,” since Blood On the Tracks (1975) and Desire (1976) are the albums underpinning and informing the whole tour – and listen to all the performances, and marvel at the shapeshifting and emphases and, as best as you can hear, the audience reactions.

If you would like to know more about the Rolling Thunder Revue itself, treat yourself to Martin Scorsese’s fascinating and much-fictionalised account of it, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019) and Sam Shepard’s The Rolling Thunder Logbook (1976), both focusing on the 1975 leg. There is also Renaldo and Clara (1978), Dylan’s movie, filmed in the autumn of 1975 during the tour and starring its performers and family members.

For the 1976 leg, you cannot do better than Les Kokay’s Songs of the Underground: Rolling Thunder Revue (updated 2020) and Ray Padgett’s Rolling Thunder 1976: Day By Day, originally published at his Substack 'Flagging Down the Double E’s' and now available in magazine form. To get the joy of Dylan’s Revue live, watch the widely available film of the Fort Collins, Colorado show on May 23, 1976, made for an NBC television special, Hard Rain.

Arranged in their motley costumes and headscarves in front of the backboards painted by Dylan (featuring a crowned king with a bleeding heart, and a bearded guitarist under a giant key: do these paintings survive?), the band sing and play with an energy that seems as if it could go on forever.

It didn’t: two days after Fort Collins, the Revue ended and never resumed. Bandleader and bassist Rob Stoner, drummer Howie Wyeth, violinist Scarlet Rivera, multi-instrumentalist David Mansfield, Roger McGuinn, T Bone Burnett, Mick Ronson, Neuwirth – the loose and immensely skilled backing band that called themselves Guam – went on to decades of other gigs and successes. Some have worked with Dylan again. All the band members I’ve spoken to in past years remember well their days on the road with this unique ramshackle day parade, and always will.

On Halloween 1975, Dylan wore a Richard Nixon mask on stage in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the Pilgrims had landed in 1620. As summer began with the Memorial Day weekend of 1976, with all of the United States looking forward to Fourth of July and its Bicentennial commemorations, Dylan vanished for the season. He reappeared, on television screens at least, in September when Hard Rain aired and received much attention in newspapers; and then joined his old friends in The Band on stage at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco on Thanksgiving Day.

The Last Waltz was a sort of revue, a collection of longtime musical collaborators and special guests. That concept of a traveling revue, a loose collective of performers shifting and changing as they went from town to town, is an ancient one of course, far older than vaudeville or music halls—and it is one to which Dylan, in integral ways, still adheres.

At the time of writing, the 85-year-old Dylan is in Belgium on his “Lights of Autumn” tour, heading through Luxembourg to Switzerland, Italy, and a sweep through Europe and long stretch of dates in England before the holidays. Recently his band has featured shifting guitar players, and more mixing in his set list than fans have been accustomed to – and it is delighting everyone.

In Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder film, Dylan, when asked what remains of the Rolling Thunder Revue, responds: “Ashes.” Critics didn’t get it at the time, but he was, I believe, actually thinking of that Fort Collins show at the end of the tour. Allen Ginsberg recited a verse on stage that newspapers reported as “a Bicentennial poem.” Since it was the Denver area, Ginsberg chose his elegy to hometown boy Neal Cassady.

As Ginsberg recalled, it, the audience cheered – "I couldn’t tell whether cheers of recognition, derision, or to just have somebody talking.” I leave you with the directive to go and listen to Dylan’s music that came out of that turbulent spring and summer in America, and to read Ginsberg’s 'On Neal Cassady’s Ashes', and see if you think it’s a Bicentennial poem.

– Anne Margaret Daniel 2026

TRACKLIST

THE ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: THE 1976 LIVE RECORDINGS
April 18, 1976 – Civic Center, Lakeland, FL

Disc 1
'Visions of Johanna'
'If You See Her, Say Hello Vincent van Gogh'
'Weary Blues from Waitin’'
'I'll Be Your Baby Tonight'
'Maggie’s Farm'
'One Too Many Morning's – Incomplete

April 20, 1976 – Bayfront Civic Center Auditorium, 
St. Petersburg, FL Disc 2/3
Disc 2
'Mr. Tambourine Man'
'It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)'
'Vincent van Gogh'
'I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight'
'Maggie’s Farm'
'One Too Many Mornings'
'Seven Days'

Disc 3
'Railroad Boy'
'Wild Mountain Thyme'
'Blowin’ in the Wind'
'Shelter from the Storm' – Incomplete
'I Threw It All Away'
'Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You'
'Just Like a Woman'
'It Take a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry'
Mozambique
'Lay, Lady, Lay'
'Idiot Wind' – Incomplete
'Gotta Travel On'
<em>April 21, 1976 – Curtis Hixon Hall, Tampa, FL

Disc 4
'Seven Days'
'Railroad Boy'
'Wild Mountain Thyme'
'Blowin’ in the Wind'
'Shelter from the Storm' – (IncompleteI
'Going, Going, Gone'
'Romance in Durango'
'Lay, Lady, Lay'
'Idiot Wind'
'Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door'
'Gotta Travel On'
ø Previously released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991

April 22, 1976 – Unaired TV Show (The Midnight Special), Starlight Ballroom, Belleview-Biltmore Hotel, Belleair, FL

Disc 5
Mr. Tambourine Man
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Blowin’ in the Wind
I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Like a Rolling Stone
Isis
Just Like a Woman
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Lay, Lady, Lay

April 23, 1976 – Sports Stadium, Orlando, FL

Disc 6
Mr. Tambourine Man
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
Vincent van Gogh
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Maggie’s Farm
One Too Many Mornings
Isis – Incomplete

Disc 7
Blowin’ in the Wind – Incomplete
Railroad Boy
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Romance in Durango
I Threw It All Away
Seven Days
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Lay, Lady, Lay
Mozambique
Idiot Wind – Incomplete
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On

April 25, 1976 – University of Florida Field, Gainesville, FL
Disc 8
Mr. Tambourine Man
Simple Twist of Fate
Vincent van Gogh
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Maggie’s Farm
One Too Many Mornings
Isis

Disc 9
Blowin’ in the Wind
Dink’s Song
Railroad Boy
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Shelter from the Storm
I Threw It All Away
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)
Going, Going, Gone
Mozambique – Incomplete
Lay, Lady, Lay
Idiot Wind
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On

April 27, 1976 – Tully Gymnasium, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Disc 10

Mr. Tambourine Man
If You See Her, Say Hello
Vincent van Gogh
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Maggie’s Farm
One Too Many Mornings
Isis

Disc 11
Blowin’ in the Wind
Wild Mountain Thyme
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Shelter from the Storm – Edit
I Threw It All Away
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Going, Going, Gone
Mozambique
Lay, Lady, Lay
Idiot Wind – Edit
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On

April 28, 1976 – University of West Florida Field House, Pensacola, FL
Disc 12
Mr. Tambourine Man
Just Like a Woman
Vincent van Gogh
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Maggie’s Farm
One Too Many Mornings
Isis

Disc 13
Blowin’ in the Wind
Railroad Boy
I Pity the Poor Immigrant – Incomplete
Shelter from the Storm
I Threw It All Away
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)
Going, Going, Gone
Lay, Lady, Lay
Idiot Wind
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On

April 29, 1976 (Early) – Expo Hall, Municipal Auditorium, Mobile, AL

Disc 14
Mr. Tambourine Man
Simple Twist of Fate
Vincent van Gogh
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Maggie’s Farm
Isis

Disc 15
Blowin’ in the Wind
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Shelter from the Storm
I Threw It All Away
Going, Going, Gone
Lay, Lady, Lay
Idiot Wind
Gotta Travel On

April 29, 1976 (Late) – Expo Hall, Municipal Auditorium, Mobile, AL
Disc 16
Mr. Tambourine Man
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
Vincent van Gogh
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Maggie’s Farm
One Too Many Mornings
Isis – Edit

Disc 17
Blowin’ in the Wind
Railroad Boy
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Shelter from the Storm
I Threw It All Away
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Going, Going, Gone
Lay, Lady, Lay – Incomplete
Gotta Travel On – Incomplete

May 1, 1976 – Reid Green Coliseum, Hattiesburg, MS
Disc 18
Mr. Tambourine Man
Simple Twist of Fate
Vincent van Gogh
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Maggie’s Farm
One Too Many Mornings
Isis

Disc 19
Blowin’ in the Wind
Railroad Boy
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Shelter from the Storm
I Threw It All Away
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
You’re a Big Girl Now – Edit
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Lay, Lady, Lay
Mozambique
Idiot Wind
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On

May 3, 1976 (Early) – The Warehouse, New Orleans, LA
Disc 20

Mr. Tambourine Man
Tangled Up in Blue
Vincent van Gogh
Maggie’s Farm
Mozambique
Isis

May 4, 1976 – Louisiana State University Assembly Center, Baton Rouge, LA

Disc 21
Mr. Tambourine Man
Simple Twist of Fate
Vincent van Gogh
Maggie’s Farm
Mozambique
Isis

Disc 22
Blowin’ in the Wind
Railroad Boy
Wild Mountain Thyme
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Shelter from the Storm
Oh, Sister
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
You’re a Big Girl Now
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Lay, Lady, Lay
Seven Days
Idiot Wind
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On

May 8, 1976 – Hofheinz Pavilion, Houston, TX
Disc 23

Mr. Tambourine Man
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
Vincent van Gogh
Maggie’s Farm
Mozambique
Isis – Incomplete

Disc 24
Blowin’ in the Wind
Railroad Boy
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Shelter from the Storm
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
You’re a Big Girl Now
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Lay, Lady, Lay
Idiot Wind
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On
Will the Circle Be Unbroken

May 10, 1976 – Memorial Coliseum, Corpus Christi, TX
Disc 25
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Mr. Tambourine Man
Vincent van Gogh
Maggie’s Farm
Mozambique
Isis

Disc 26
Blowin’ in the Wind
Railroad Boy
Wild Mountain Thyme
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Shelter from the Storm
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
You’re a Big Girl Now
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go – Incomplete
Oh, Sister – Incomplete
Lay, Lady, Lay
Idiot Wind
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On

May 11, 1976 – Municipal Auditorium, San Antonio, TX
Disc 27
Mr. Tambourine Man
Spanish Is the Loving Tongue
Vincent van Gogh
Maggie’s Farm
Mozambique
Isis – Incomplete

Disc 28
Blowin’ in the Wind
Railroad Boy
Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Shelter from the Storm
Romance in Durango
I Want You
You’re a Big Girl Now
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Oh, Sister
Lay, Lady, Lay
Going, Going, Gone
Idiot Wind
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On

May 12, 1976 – Municipal Auditorium, Austin, TX
Disc 29
Mr. Tambourine Man
It Ain’t Me, Babe
Vincent van Gogh
Maggie’s Farm
Mozambique
Isis – Incomplete
Blowin’ in the Wind
Railroad Boy
Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)
I Pity the Poor Immigrant

Disc 30
Shelter from the Storm
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
I Want You
You’re a Big Girl Now
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Oh, Sister
Lay, Lady, Lay
Going, Going, Gone
Idiot Wind
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On

May 15, 1976 – Gatesville State School for Boys, Gatesville, TX
Disc 31
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Maggie’s Farm
One Too Many Mornings
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
Oh, Sister
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You
Going, Going, Gone

May 16, 1976 – Tarrant County Convention Center Arena, Fort Worth, TX
Disc 32
Mr. Tambourine Man
It Ain’t Me, Babe
Vincent van Gogh
Maggie’s Farm
One Too Many Mornings
Mozambique
Isis
Blowin’ in the Wind
Railroad Boy
Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)
I Pity the Poor Immigrant

Disc 33
Shelter from the Storm
I Threw It All Away *
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again *
Oh, Sister *
You’re a Big Girl Now
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Lay, Lady, Lay *
Going, Going, Gone
Idiot Wind
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On
*Previously released on the 1976 Columbia Records album Hard Rain

May 18, 1976 – State Fair Arena, Oklahoma City, OK
Disc 34
Mr. Tambourine Man
Simple Twist of Fate
Vincent van Gogh
Maggie’s Farm
One Too Many Mornings
Mozambique
Isis

Disc 35
Blowin’ in the Wind – Incomplete
Railroad Boy
Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Shelter from the Storm
Oh, Sister
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
You’re a Big Girl Now
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Lay, Lady, Lay
I Want You
Going, Going, Gone
Idiot Wind
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On

May 19, 1976 – Henry Levitt Arena, Wichita, KS
Disc 36
Mr. Tambourine Man
It Ain’t Me, Babe
Vincent van Gogh
Maggie’s Farm
One Too Many Mornings
Mozambique
Isis
Blowin’ in the Wind
Railroad Boy
Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) – Incomplete
I Pity the Poor Immigrant

Disc 37
Shelter from the Storm
Oh, Sister
One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
You’re a Big Girl Now
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
It Take a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
Lay, Lady, Lay – Incomplete
Going, Going, Gone
Idiot Wind
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Gotta Travel On

May 23, 1976 – Hughes Stadium, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
Disc 38
Mr. Tambourine Man
It Ain’t Me, Babe
Vincent van Gogh
Maggie’s Farm *^
One Too Many Mornings *^
Mozambique ^
Isis
Blowin’ in the Wind ^
Railroad Boy ^
Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) ^
I Pity the Poor Immigrant ^
* Previously released on the 1976 Columbia Records album Hard Rain
^ Previously broadcast on the 1976 NBC-TV special Hard Rain

Disc 39
Shelter from the Storm *^
Oh, Sister
I Want You
Tangled Up in Blue
You’re a Big Girl *
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Lay, Lady, Lay
Going, Going, Gone
Idiot Wind *^
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door ^
Gotta Travel On
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall ^