Lou Reed's cover of “Foot of Pride” from the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert film is my favorite Dylan cover. It’s a driving romp of a tune and Reed’s delivery of the lyric is so effective it doesn’t matter what the song is about. And that’s a good thing because I have no idea what the song is about.
I listened recently to Reed’s album Magic and Loss from 1992, same year as the Dylan concert, and what a surprise to discover track 12 features the same guitar groove as his cover of “Foot of Pride.” It makes me like the cover even more.
Largely because of this song, I re-watched the concert - the 2014 Blu-ray edition - for the first time since it originally aired on TV in 1992. I was 15 at the time and a 90s grunge-head and most excited about seeing Eddie Vedder perform “Masters of War” with Mike McCready.
The Lou Reed performance is as good as I remembered it and even more remarkable in that it appears he was reading most of the lyrics from the TV screens at the base of the stage, which usually weakens a performance.
George Harrison’s take on “Absolutely Sweet Marie” is another stand out. He clearly relishes the opportunity to cover one of Dylan’s best songs from Blonde on Blonde. According to the liner notes it would be Harrison’s last major public performance before his death in 2001.
Tom Petty puts on David Crosby for the harmony with Roger McGuinn on The Byrd’s version of “Tambourine Man.” Petty’s reverence for McGuinn can be heard all over his early Heartbreakers albums.
And then there’s beautiful Sinead. A few weeks before the concert Sinead O’Conner had ripped in half a picture of Pope John Paul II live on SNL in protest of abuses caused by the Catholic Church. The backlash against Sinead was still strong the night of Bobfest, and as soon as she appeared on stage, the audience erupted in boos.
Sinead’s targeting of a much beloved pope without a clear explanation may have been misguided (she shared her reasons in a later interview), but the Bobfest audience's reaction to her was cruel and unnecessary. To be fair, it sounded as if there were as many people cheering her as booing.
Either way, the din was too much for Sinead, and instead of performing a Dylan song she started shouting the words to Bob Marley’s “War” before storming off the stage. We are the losers from the whole affair - a brief clip of rehearsal from the Blu-ray’s bonus content shows her cover of Dylan's "I Believe In You" would have been extraordinary.
Also found on the Blu-ray’s special features: Eddie Vedder watches Neil Young bang out “Forever Young” on piano during rehearsal. Neil has to keep from cracking up as he reaches the chorus, “forever young….” The camera pans to the left as the song ends and for a quick second you can see Eddie sitting in the background looking like a starstruck teenager.
And is that Sheryl Crow singing backup vocals on Booker T and the MGs performance of “Gotta Serve Somebody”? I looked it up, and sure enough it’s her. She was unknown at the time, two years before she broke big with “All I Wanna Do.”
Bob Dylan closes out the night with a solo rendition of “Girl from the North Country.” And if you look closely, you can see Sinead O’Connor’s silhouette standing behind the scrim watching intently. She is the only performer watching. In a behind the scenes interview a bright-eyed Sinead speaks of the influence Dylan had on her growing up: “His music was the only thing that kept me from thinking I was crazy.”
I haven’t even mentioned Richie Havens, Johnny Winter, Chrissie Hynde, Eric Clapton, or the incredible backing musicians. So much good stuff in this concert, I don’t know where to begin.