July 21: Bob Dylan – East Rutherford, New Jersey 1986 (video)

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

Dylan gets downright talkative at this show, joking about New Jersey being ‘The land of The Boss’. He ends ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ with what sounds like a parody of the stop-start ending of Springsteen’s ‘Born In The USA’. .. Before the encore a guitar-shaped birthday cake is carted onstage for Howard Epstein, while everyone sings ‘Happy Birthday’, including Al Kooper, sitting in on piano during the latter part of the show.
~Clinton Heylin (A Life In Stolen Moments)

  • Howie Epstein birthday – and he gets a cake
  • Al Kooper joining in for the last 5 songs (including “Like A Rolling Stone”)

Meadowlands Brendan T. Byrne Sports Arena
East Rutherford, New Jersey
21 July 1986

 Musicians:

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
  • Tom Petty (guitar)
  • Mike Campbell (guitar)
  • Benmont Tench (keyboards)
  • Howie Epstein (bass)
  • Stan Lynch (drums)
  • and with The Queens Of Rhythm: Carolyn Dennis, Queen Esther Marrow, Madelyn Quebec, Louise Bethune (backing vocals)
    –
  • Al Kooper (organ)

Tracks

Acoustic:

  • The times they are a-changin’
  • One too many mornings
  • A hard rain’s a-gonna fall
  • I forgot more than you’ll ever know

Electric: (with Al Kooper)

  • Happy Birthday
  • Like a rolling stone
  • In the garden
  • Blowin’ in the wind

–

Is it past anybody’s bed time? Ha-ha, it’s past mine. I should have been in bed hours ago. Ha-ha-ha. OK it’s Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers right here. Benmont Tench playing the keyboards. Come on right up against that, … right up against that, fence whatever it is. Yeah, you can come on right up on stage now if you want to. Lead guitar player, Michael Campbell. One of the best guitar players around. Stan Lynch, one of the finest drummers in all the USA. I know, born in the USA. Well were we all born in the USA, anybody here who wasn’t born in the USA? I’d like to meet them. OK, we’re gonna sing Happy Birthday right now. We’re gonna sing Happy Birthday to the bass guitar player in this band. His name is Howie Epstein. Now you sing all those words what you want, but you sing it. What key we gonna sing it in? He’s gonna chose the key himself, it’s his birthday.
OK, we’re gonna go on with some serious business. Also you know I have my own Heartbreakers now. I can’t …, I wanna introduce them to you now. That’s Louise Bethune and Madelyn Quebec. Carolyn Dennis and Queen Esther Marrow. All right, now anybody else out there wanna be introduced? What’s your name? I’ll introduce you! Ha-ha-ha-ha. All right now, we’re gonna play this song. I recorded this song over 25, 30 years ago. I can’t remember when. Anyway, I don’t know where that band is now, that recorded that song with me. But one of the guys is here, he played the keyboards on that particular song, that night. His name is Al Kooper, I want you to give him a big hand now. Ha-ha ha. Anything you wanna say Al? I like this place I really do, I been here before and I hope I’ll be here again.
~Bob Dylan – (before Like A Rolling Stone)


–

Alldylan / Borntolisten @ Facebook

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-Egil

3 thoughts on “July 21: Bob Dylan – East Rutherford, New Jersey 1986 (video)”

  1. I was at the Meadowlands that night, third row dead center. It was a fantastic show, the best of the 5 I saw that year. During A Hard Rain I happened to turn around. The woman behind me had tears streaming down her face. It was that kind of performance. Dylan was super animated, interacting with the band, joking, speaking to the crowd. Great night

  2. Good to see the long-loved website All Dylan will still be around, in some sort of continuance. This was a terrific posting of the Jersey show: Bob was in excellent voice and it’s always a joy to see him having fun on stage. I have a bootleg from one of his shows with TP that doesn’t quite match the quality of this, so this abbreviated video is mostly a real delight! Thanks.

  3. Gentlemen, Great to hear that Don Henley is still flying high. I like the inclusiveness of the new blog. As an elder purveyor of the Troubadour tradition (I’m now 86) I’m still writing and singing. Here’s my video version of a Leonard Cohen song that he co=wrote in 1988 with Sharon Robinson. It had great portent back then and we’ve added a “Coda” to link it to what’s happening now in the 21st century https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLgxbeBZQkw

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