Bob Dylan – The Complete Budokan 1978

Bob Dylan At Budokan (1979) is a seminal album in my Dylan fandom. When it came out in early 1979 I was a newly minted Dylan fan (a 20-year-old college sophomore). I had just a few Dylan albums under my belt and was drawn to this album as it looked like the greatest hits live. As a venue, Budokan was known to me from Cheap Trick’s ubiquitous radio hits from their live at Budokan LP.

Bob Dylan At Budokan was love at first sight. I was familiar with about half the songs and I was fascinated by the radical rearrangements. For the songs I was not familiar with, this was my introduction. It served a similar role as Joni Mitchell’s Miles Of Aisles (also a live greatest hits). This was my primary early Dylan education, I played it incessantly.

I was too ignorant to have the conventional critical opinion of the time: this album sucked and Dylan must have lost his mind. The main criticism was the arrangements: it sounded like Bob fronting a Vegas show band (it didn’t help that Dylan was dressed in white like a Vegas Elvis). The performance undermined his legacy – he was washed up and lost in the wilderness. I was too dumb to be scandalized, so I dug the arrangements.

But time has mellowed the hate of Budokon. The revisionist history is that, this is the foundation for the second half of Dylan’s career. From this point forward, Dylan’s live performances would mean radical reinterpretations of his songs – a feature and not a bug. The specific arrangements here foreshadow his Christian born-again gospel chapter. Dylan would make major stylistic changes with each subsequent album. Today, we expect Dylan to trick us. It would be unimaginable in 1979 that Budokan would warrant a box set of the two complete concerts at Nippon Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan, February 28 and March 1, 1978 – but like most of Dylan’s left-hand turns into oncoming traffic, time as cured.

Given, how important this album was to my development as a Dylan fan, I am overjoyed to have this set and grateful that it is available on streaming (including in high resolution – I am using Tidal which is streaming MQA 24/96). Yet, as big of a fan as I am of this album, and due to my existential crisis regarding collecting physical music (CDs and LPs), I am not up for shelling out $160 for a 4-CD version (plus I have stopped buying CDs in favor of vinyl and the vinyl version which is nearly $500). A reasonable $40 compromise, assuming you have the original Budokon, is the 16-song vinyl double LP: Another Budokon 1978. It includes the eleven additional songs above plus a few of the songs from the original album, but from the alternate night.

The Complete Budokan is 58 songs (the original was 22 songs). Most of the 36 new songs are repeats as this set documents two back-to-back concerts. However several songs are unique to this set. The audio is remixed from the original 24-channel analog tapes – it sounds great on my high-resolution stream. Since I am streaming, I can’t speak to the packaging, but it looks great (see below) – as is typically the case with Dylan box sets.

I think the most important question is how are the 36 additional songs? The original album pulled songs from both nights. Most of the songs on the original album are repeated on both nights but are not significant in their differences. Eleven songs did not appear on the original album, but some of those are repeated on both nights. The songs that never appeared on the original album are:

• REPOSSESSION BLUES – blues cover
• I THREW IT ALL AWAY (both nights)
• GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY (both nights)
• TO RAMONA
• ONE OF US MUST KNOW (SOONER OR LATER) (both nights)
• YOU’RE A BIG GIRL NOW (both nights)
• TOMORROW IS A LONG TIME
• A HARD RAIN’S A-GONNA FALL (both nights – instrumental)
• LOVE HER WITH A FEELING – blues cover
•  DON’T BELIEVE YOU (SHE ACTS LIKE WE NEVER HAVE MET)
• THE MAN IN ME

The additions of these songs are great. Plus the sequencing of The Complete Budokan 1978 feels more like an actual concert. The songs that are repeated each night are not significantly different, but it is nice to have two complete concerts. The Complete Budokan 1978 is not essential for the casual fan – the original Budokon is good enough. But if the original Budokon is important to you, then The Complete is a wonderful addition to your obsession.