Many people panned the short Dylan/Dead tour of summer 1987, particularly this performance, but for one brief glorious hour, we got a total summation of Dylan’s career, including old classics and rarely played songs, all with the good ole’ Grateful Dead as his backing band.
The show was billed as Dylan & The Dead, Alone and Together, so I thought the Dead would play, Dylan would play solo, and then they would all play together. That wasn’t quite how it worked out.
On an overcast day in the middle of a typically hot, humid summer at Philadelphia’s dilapidated JFK Stadium, the Dead took the stage by themselves in the early evening, and put on a two-hour, 18 song set, opening with “Iko Iko,” a great version of “Terrapin Station” and concluding with “Another Saturday Night” (even though it was a Friday).
I kind of expected Dylan to come out next by himself, based on the advertising, but after a lengthy intermission, both artists returned together and launched into “Tangled Up In Blue.”
Dylan proceeded to visit various eras of his career up, including the then-recent “Man of Peace” and the country-blues of “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” with Jerry Garcia on peddle steel guitar.
Since the Dead often performed Dylan songs in their sets, it didn’t seem like either side rehearsed much, and you often saw the Dead playing Dylan songs the way they usually played them and Dylan playing the song the way he often played it.
Bordering along a train-wreck and sheer brilliance, the show was a fascinating live performance of two American musical icons. One side note: John Hammond, who took a chance with Dylan in 1962 when others passed, and signed him to Columbia Records, died earlier in the day. A rumor has it that Dylan had to be coaxed onstage to even do the show.
One of the more interesting twists of the night was “John Brown,” an early anti-war song by Dylan that was never officially released,which was preceded by the first live version of “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” from the John Wesley Harding album.
Another surprise was “Joey,” one of my favorite songs from the classic Desire album about New York gangster Joe Gallo. Even though the song has about 10 different verses, culminating in Gallo’s murder, Dylan sang the verses out of order and had Joey killed off in the second verse, then continued along as if nothing happened.
After finishing up with “All Along the Watchtower” with Garcia taking the Hendrix solos, the ensemble left the stage after about an hour or so, and I thought maybe this was where Dylan would perform “alone.”
But only the Dead returned, did “Touch of Grey,” lights went up, and that was it! A somewhat curious ending. But after my initial disappointment, I began to realize what I had just seen, and it was a uniquely crazy, sloppy, incredible performance. A live album taken from different spots along the tour — but not this one — was later released, Dylan and the Dead, but it didn’t really capture the essence of the show I saw.
Below you’ll find the setlists, some treats from YouTube, including a good audio-only recording, a poor video recording, and a high-quality video recording of the Dead’s set.
I’ve also included a fairly lame review of the show from the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Audio-only recording of the Dylan/Dead set.
Poor quality video of the the Dylan/Dead set.
Setlist for Dylan/Dead:
Tangled Up in Blue
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Man of Peace
The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
John Brown
Simple Twist of Fate
Ballad of a Thin Man
Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again
Chimes of Freedom
Queen Jane Approximately
Gotta Serve Somebody
Joey
All Along the Watchtower
High-Quality video of the Dead’s set
Grateful Dead-only Setlist:
Iko Iko
Jack Straw
Sugaree
Minglewood Blues
Althea
My Brother Esau
When Push Comes to Shove
Cassidy
China Cat Sunflower(>)I Know You Rider
Looks Like Rain
Terrapin Station
Drums
Space
I Need a Miracle
Black Peter
Around and Around
One More Saturday Night
Encore:
Touch of Grey
(performed after the Dylan set)
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s review of the show.