Just when Bob Dylan fans thinks they’ve seen and heard it all, something like “Bob Dylan World Tours 1966-1974” comes out of the woodwork.
Obsessive fans will savor the dozens of previously unseen photos brought to light from Dylan’s infamous 1966 world tour — when he shocked audiences by playing with an electric band — and his 1974 North America jaunt with The Band.
But those same fans will also likely grimace at the antics of the narrator and “star” of the documentary, Dylan cover band lead singer Joel Gilbert. Gilbert dresses like Dylan, uses his own band’s music as the soundtrack, and even takes to re-enacting Dylan’s motorcycle accident on the back roads of Woodstock, N.Y.
Michael Moore he’s not.
When Gilbert makes himself the center of the story, the DVD becomes uncomfortable to watch. If Gilbert would have let the photos and those who worked with and knew Dylan be the stars of the show, the DVD would have been all the better.
But because he is such a Dylan fan, Gilbert is able to ferret out good information from his interview subjects.
The main one is photographer Barry Feinstein, who took some of the most famous shots of Dylan already in circulation, and was the official tour photographer in both 1966 and 1974.
Feinstein opens his Woodstock home, and photo archives, to Gilbert. Not only do we get to see some exquisite shots — like Dylan trying on clothes in a London boutique in 1966 and a shot of him smiling broadly on stage in 1974 — we also hear the photographer’s memories.
Also interviewed are documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, journalist Al Aronowitz and self-proclaimed Dylanologist A.J. Weberman, who scrounged through Dylan’s garbage searching for a clue to his cryptic lyrics and later got punched out by Dylan for the intrusion.
Essential? For most, certainly not. But for Dylan completists, it deserves a spot on the shelf.