Doom & Gloom From the Tomb

Bob Dylan & Rolling Thunder Revue - Fort Collins, May 23, 1976

The full “Hard Rain” television special — one of Dylan’s most intense filmed performances. Also one of the weirdest! Don’t know if those turbans were ever properly explained. This show came at the tail end of the Rolling Thunder era, as Bob and his band (looking pretty coked out) tear through malevolent reinventions of some classic tunes. Dig the wildly inappropriate, but winning calypso-boogie of “I Pity The Poor Immigrant,” which inspires some groovy shimmying from none other than Joan Baez. Or the proto-Clash stomp of “Shelter From The Storm,” led by Dylan’s helter-skelter slide guitar. And of course the terrifying closer, “Idiot Wind,” wherein Dylan summons up a lifetime’s worth of bitterness. Yikes!