The Great Music Experience
Monday, April 25, 2016 by Ron Chester ★

Here we have a legendary performance by Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan - May 1994

Hard Rain | I Shall Be Released | Ring Them Bells | Finale - I Shall Be Released
The Great Music Experience with the Tokyo New Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen.

The Great Music Experience was a concert starring Japanese and international musicians staged at the eighth century Buddhist temple of Tōdai-ji, in Nara, Japan in May 1994.

The star of the show turned out to be Dylan who said as soon as he came off-stage that he had not sung so well for 15 years. Dylan opened with A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall which Q magazine said was "no ordinary version...[he] really opens his lungs and heart and sings, like he's not done for many a year...The only word for it: majestic."

When interviewed about working with Dylan, the conductor gave one of the most eloquent descriptions of Dylan's art I've ever heard:

His chords are beautifully simple. His words are deliciously complicated and heartrendingly pure.