MEDIA COOL
This concert, filmed in February 1986 during Dylan’s tour of Australia with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, was probably ultimately as uneven as most other Dylan product of the past few years. But set into the video wasteland TV rock is rapidly becoming, Dylan’s unadorned concert was rather bracing stuff.
MEDIA COOL
This Month’s Media Cool was written by Richard Riegel, Bill Holdship, Karen Schlosberg and Richard C. Walls
BOB DYLAN IN CONCERT (HBO)
This concert, filmed in February 1986 during Dylan’s tour of Australia with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, was probably ultimately as uneven as most other Dylan product of the past few years. But set into the video wasteland TV rock is rapidly becoming, Dylan’s unadorned concert was rather bracing stuff. This show included both enough ’60s classics and enough ’80s would-be psalms that all Dylan factions but the testy author of these songs should’ve been happy. But old Zimrny glided through the show on the living ambience of his twin antique sources, old bluesmen and the Old Testament. Nothing less was revealed. Thanks to director Gillian Armstrong for not employing today’s fashionable quick cuts: you could stare at Dylan’s face for an hour and still not know if he was smiling or grimacing. R.R.
FARM AID II (VH-1)