Flashback Friday...40 Years Ago Today. Bob Dylan and the Band at the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, February 14, 1974. The evening show. One thing that the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison impressed upon me was that whenever you had a chance to see a singer/band that you liked, you did everything you could to go. For you never knew in those days when someone was going to die or break up the band. By 1974, I had seen most of the biggies...I had seen the Stones, Zeppelin, Elvis Presley, Bowie, Elton John, Iggy and the Stooges, Mott the Hoople, Curtis Mayfield, Alice Cooper, Stevie Wonder, Who, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Yes, Joni Mitchell, and a few others. Jimi, Janis, and the Doors were dead...and so, for all intents and purposes, were the Beatles and the Velvet Underground. Lou Reed, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan were the last remaining legends from the '60s that I had not been able to see in concert. So, when after 8 long years of haitus after his near-fatal motorcycle crash Bob Dylan announced his 1974 tour with The Band, all manner of hysteria promptly broke out. By now, Bob Dylan seemed more like a ghost to me than a real person. So mysterious...so elusive. Even his voice was hard to pin down, it kept changing. I definitely preferred his '60s albums to what I had heard lately from him: "Self Portrait", "Dylan", "Planet Waves". Only "Forever Young" and some of the Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid soundtrack stuff registered with me as being on a par with his earlier songs. Still, it was BOB DYLAN...and with The Band! I cannot remember exactly how or when tickets went on sale...I think it might have been that infernal lottery system, where you send in your ticket application in the mail and hope you get tickets mailed back. All I know is that somehow my 6th grade teacher (who I was living with at the time, my stepmom having kicked me out) surprised me with tickets to the February 14 evening show at the Forum. Either he was lucky or he got them through a ticket broker/scalper. Dylan played the Forum on February 13, and two shows (afternoon and evening) on February 14...Wednesday and Thursday nights...and since the Forum was the last stop of the tour, we would be seeing the very last concert, so my expectations were that much higher. Surely, Dylan would pull out all the stops for the last show. Going by all the previous concerts I had seen, I presumed that The Band would open the show with a set of their songs, then there would be a break and then Bob Dylan would play his headlining set, with The Band backing him of course. There was no internet where you could find out about setlists ahead of time back then, and I don't recall reading the Los Angeles Times Robert Hilburn's take on the tour until after the Forum concert. So I was a little unprepared for the actual format of the concert. Bob and the Band would come out and play a bunch of Dylan songs...around 6 or 7, I think. Then, the Band would play a few of their songs and Bob would come back out and join them for a few more Dylan songs. Intermission would follow. After intermission, Bob would come out solo with his acoustic guitar and do 4 or 5 songs...this might have been my favourite part of the night, and judging by the reaction of the Forum crowd that night, I wasn't alone. The Watergate scandal was still going full-steam in February 1974, and when Bob sang the lines in "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" that go "But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked", I heard one of the loudest roars I have ever heard in a concert. Obviously, this acoustic segment carried more than a little whiff of nostalgia for many people...nostalgia for the folk-singing troubadour Bob of old. In fact, most of Bob's setlist were songs from the '60s. Only "Forever Young" and "Knocking on Heaven's Door" were from any of his more recent albums. After the acoustic bit, the Band would come out and sing more of their songs, ending their final segment with "The Weight". Finally, the more than two-hour concert would close with Dylan and the Band on the warhorses: "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Like a Rolling Stone". The encore was "Maggie's Farm" and after bringing Bill Graham on stage and thanking him, the show ended after midnight with a rock arrangement of "Blowin' in the Wind". Over 30 songs total were played that night. This was my first Bob Dylan concert (and my first and only The Band show), and the first thing I noticed was how different Bob's voice was...not only different from his classic '60s albums, but also different from the post-motorcycle crash albums. It was like three degrees of Bob Dylan. He was barking, shouting, emphasizing at odd words in the lyrics...it was kind of disorienting at first, until I adjusted and got used to the intensity. To be honest, some songs suffered from this type of attack. "Lay Lady Lay" and "Just Like a Woman" are two songs that I remember not liking that much at the concert. Some of the arrangements and tempos seemed a bit rushed to me, as well, as if they couldn't wait to get through with the song and/or the concert. I was also sort of bummed that he didn't do "Positively 4th St.", "Visions of Johanna", or "Desolation Row", which were particular favourites of mine. Of course, a lifetime of going to Bob Dylan concerts has proven that frustration and confusion are often emotions that come with going to a Bob Dylan show. He is never going to meet the audience's expectations, whatever they are...he always manages to throw a wrinkle or two to keep the audience guessing. Still, whatever disappointments I felt at the time were still outweighed by the sheer thrill of seeing THE Bob Dylan in person, on stage, singing so many of my favourite songs of his. I didn't realize until many years later that he sang some songs at the Forum that night that he didn't do at other nights of the tour..."Mr. Tambourine Man", "Gates of Eden", "Maggie's Farm". The crowd at the Forum that night also made the concert a memorable one. It's one of the most geeked-up, excited concert crowds I have ever been a part of...the tension and anticipation was so thick, as thick as the periodic clouds of marijuana smoke wafting over the crowd. The concert gave me a new appreciation for The Band, too. Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, and especially, the stinging guitar of Robbie Robertson. I never saw The Band again, and while I did see Dylan many times over the years, each show was progressively worse than this one. Only in the mid-90's did he somewhat right the ship and start playing some memorable(for the right reasons) shows again. FYI, some of this Forum concert ended up on the official "Before the Flood" release. If you look at the center spread booklet photo that comes with the remastered cd release, my seat was right around where Bob Dylan's left hand is, back in the farthest reaches of the Forum.

Sorry, been busy with work and getting a Philip Seymour Hoffman tribute together...and now with Shirley Temple passing away, that's another on the docket. Getting a Groupie Night together too. Plus, the Olympics and screenings for the Oscars are taking any free time left over. But, in brief, I was thinking that since Led Zep II was recorded while the band was on tour and the band would pop into whatever studio was at hand in whatever town they were in, Peter wasn't really needed for that album. Led Zep III was the Snowdonia cottage in Wales, which Jimmy and Robert found on their own, so again no Peter credit. By Presence, I think Peter was going thru his marital and drug problems so he was probably not around or particularly useful during those sessions either. But that's purely idle conjecture on my part, and without doing any research, I could be way off on various timelines, etc. That's where Steve A Jones comes in handy...he's got all that info down in black-and-white.

It seems that way, doesn't it? But time waits for no one. I'm 51, which means most of the icons of my youth are in their 70s, 80s and beyond. It's the natural laws of science.

Look who's Mr. Sensitive all of a sudden. Get a grip. Tell you what...you're the expert, why don't you try out for the Curling team? Help Team USA out.

Well, now that Cleveland Browns have napalmed their staff, QB Brandon Weedon wants out. Which, since his QBR is the lowest in the League, I'm sure Cleveland will be happy to accommodate a trade.

Derek Jeter>Cal Ripkin.

No shit sherlock. It's not that different...curling is basically bowling/shuffleboard on ice with brooms.

The Grim Reaper has been busy lately. First Shirley Temple, then Sid Caesar, now Maggie Estep, only 50 yrs old. http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2014/02/poet_and_perfor.html

Well, the US is getting slaughtered in Curling. Great Britain hammered the US women so hard that they had to invoke the mercy rule, like they were a bunch of Little Leaguers, haha. GB 12, US 3. The men are faring no better, winless in their Olympics so far, too. How can a nation filled with millions of bowlers and skaters not be able to field a competitive curling team?

Ummm, I think you're confusing Richard Simmons with Richard Seymour? Which is a major reason the Cleveland Browns just canned their front office after firing their coach. After the success of the Seattle Seahawks, the pressure is on front offices around the League to do a better job identifying and picking talent and stop wasting picks.

LUGE LUGE LUGE! Deutschland Über Alles! The Flying Tomato was grounded. Poor Shaun White. I guess he shouldn't have cut his hair.

Let the Farewell Tour begin. Love or hate the Yankees, there's no denying Derek Jeter was a great player and worthy of respect. First Mariano Rivera, now Derek Jeter...the last links to the Joe Torre championship era are disappearing. At least Ass-Rod won't be around to spoil Jeter's last season.

^^^ I hope you're joking. You don't seriously believe that? He was summoning the father of the four winds to blow the sound in whatever direction he pointed his bow towards.

I admire you taking the time to do this, although there may already be a thread that deals with this subject. Most of us long-time fans have learnt how to deal with the plagiarism accusations that still wind their way across the internet. As you have discovered, some have merit, some are bogus. Plus, when you get into where a particular blues song comes from, it's as thick and thorny as a briar patch. You're wrong about a couple things regarding "The Lemon Song" though. Jimmy's riff comes from Albert King's "Cross-Cut Saw" and Plant's "Squeeze my lemon" is from Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues". There is no pedal steel on "Hats Off to (Roy) Harper"...it's bottleneck guitar.

Doesn't matter to me. If Richard Simmons could play defensive end, I'd want the Raiders to get him if he could help the team.

What kind of country asks you to throw your stinky, shitty toilet paper in a trash can instead of flushing it down the toilet where it belongs? Good old Mother Russia! http://m.eonline.com/news/508161/let-s-talk-about-the-toilets-in-sochi-and-other-hilarious-complaints-about-hotels-at-the-olympics

Play nice, boys. Deutschland Über Alles!

I'm a glass half full kind of guy usually, so I would like to think he'll be accepted. But if you've ever gone to a baseball or football game, you know the stands are still filled with racist, sexist, and violent invective. And soccer games in Europe and South America can be even worse. There are some pig-headed macho countries down there. I actually think the actual players in the NFL will be more accepting than the fans at first. It'll be a gradual thing...it always is when a barrier is broken. The first one takes the heat that paves the way for the rest who follow. It happened to Jackie Robinson when he became the first black in MLB, Curt Flood when he broke the reserve clause chains and created free agency, and Sally Jenkins when she became the first woman reporter in the locker room. I wish the guy luck...it's 2014 and well past time for gay athletes not to be afraid to compete openly.

One door closes...another door opens. Sad news, and I hope she didn't abscond with your Led Zeppelin records on the way out.

^^^ Thanks Pagey! I missed the first hour...I started watching just as the Eurythmics were doing "Fool on the Hill". So CBS must have shown "Hey Bulldog" out of sequence earlier in the program, because I did see "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". Which was good...but nowhere near as great as the version Tom Petty and Prince laid down at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction.

Well, that was certainly...um...something? As usual with these things, the quality was all over the place and it makes you wonder how one of these confabs would be if they did one for Led Zeppelin. Disaster? Since the Beatles tribute was taped the same time as the Grammys, we get Pharrell Williams and his goofy Dudley Do-Right/Smokey the Bear hat and those damned infernal Cirque de Soleil acrobats...which unnecessarily distracted from "Here Comes the Sun". Which points to a major flaw in just about all show productions these days: An inability to trust in a song to communicate to the audience without cluttering it up with gizmos and histrionics. Also, must every director overuse that annoying ploy of showing celebrity audience members singing and swaying along to the song? Usually badly and offbeat, at that. Ringo singing "With a Little Help From My Friends" was one of the highlights for me. I don't know about the rest of the country, but the LA broadcast was definitely edited and missing songs, like "Hey Bulldog" and "Magical Mystery Tour". Biggest mystery is why Paul chose to end with "Hey Jude" instead of his concert showstopper "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End"? That would have brought down the house. Oh well, at least they didn't end it with that snooze-fest "Let It Be". For those keeping score, here was the setlist for the actual concert before CBS got their grubby little hands on it. Thank god I missed Maroon 5. All My Loving (partial) Maroon 5 Ticket to Ride Maroon 5 Dont Let Me Down John Mayer and Keith Urban In My Life Ed Sheeran Let It Be - Alicia Keys and John Legend Revolution Imagine Dragons Yesterday Katy Perry Fool on the Hill Eurythmics Here Comes the Sun - Brad Paisley and Pharrell Williams Hey Bulldog - Dave Grohl and Jeff Lynne Something Lynne, Joe Walsh, and Dhani Harrison While My Guitar Gently Weeps Joe Walsh and Gary Clark Jr. (with Grohl on drums) We Can Work It Out Stevie Wonder Matchbox Ringo Starr Boys Ringo Yellow Submarine Ringo Magical Mystery Tour Paul McCartney Birthday McCartney Get Back McCartney "I Saw Her Standing There" -- McCartney Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band/ With a Little Help From My Friends McCartney and Ringo Hey Jude McCartney (with Ringo on drums)

I have a theory but it will require more research before I put it in black and white.

^^^ Watching it now. Sunday afternoon. Congregation of Beatles fans outside Capitol Records on Vine St. celebrating 50th anniversary of Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Birthday cake was served. I have no memories of watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan...for two reasons. 1. I was too young; being only 1 1/2 years old. 2. We didn't even get our first TV until 1966.

Get your brooms ready!

It is not just a ceremonial title. Believe me, in show business, there are clear reasons for every title and credit bestowed. The Executive Producer (Peter Grant) is distinct and separate from the Music Producer (Jimmy Page). The Executive Producer handles the budget and accounting, deals with copyright and legal issues, hires and pays the sound engineers and technicians that work on the record, and arranges for the studio time. The Producer concerns himself with the actual recording and making of the music for the album. Reat assured, Peter Grant earned that Executive Producer credit.