Robyn Hitchcock - The Basement, Sydney, Australia, 5-23-2014 (The Basement Tapes) | Albums That Should Exist

 Robyn Hitchcock - The Basement, Sydney, Australia, 5-23-2014 (The Basement Tapes)

Paul notes : "The Basement Tapes" were a collaborative music project between Bob Dylan and the Band in the summer of 1967. Over 100 songs were written and performed, the vast majority of them by Dylan. When a double album of the best songs from these sessions were released in 1975, it became a classic. In 2014, Robyn Hitchcock was living in Australia for a few months, and performed a lot there. One place he played in Sydney is called the Basement. I'm guessing that gave him the idea to perform all the songs from "The Basement Tapes" there, since he's a massive Dylan fan.

Actually, I should clarify he didn't perform all the songs from that double album. For one thing, he skipped the eight songs that primarily featured the Band, and honed in on just the Dylan songs. He also skipped a couple of the Dylan ones: "Apple Suckling Tree" and "Odds and Ends." But on the plus side, he did play a couple of Dylan songs that were recorded at that time and arguably should have been released on the double album: "I Shall Be Released" and "Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)." He also ended the concert with a later Dylan classic, "Not Dark Yet."

Robyn was mostly in solo acoustic mode for this concert. However, he did have some backing on some of the songs in the second half of the concert, with Jenny Shimmin on banjo, Brendan Gallagher on acoustic guitar and backing vocals, and Emma Swift on acoustic guitar and vocals. (In addition to being a talented musician, Swift has been Hitchcock's romantic partner from some time prior to this concert through today in 2026.)

I've had this bootleg in my music collection for years, but I'd never considered posting it here due to sound quality issues. It was only an audience boot, with a lot of reverb/ echo. But audio editing technology has improved drastically in recent years, so I attempted to fix it. I ran every song through the MVSEP program, using their de-reverb filter. The banter between songs then got extra treatment. I ran all of those tracks through the Adobe speech enhancer. In my opinion, this recording now sounds much better. Almost as good as typical soundboard. Not quite, but close.  

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long. 

01 This Wheel's on Fire 

02 talk 

03 Lo and Behold

04 talk 

05 Quinn the Eskimo [The Mighty Quinn]

06 Million Dollar Bash

07 talk

08 Too Much of Nothing 

09 talk 

10 Tears of Rage

11 talk

12 Crash on the Levee [Down in the Flood] 

13 talk

14 Please, Mrs. Henry 

15 talk 

16 Nothing Was Delivered

17 talk

18 Yea, Heavy and a Bottle of Bread - Tiny Montgomery

19 I Shall Be Released

20 talk

21 Open the Door, Homer 

22 talk 

23 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

24 talk

25 Clothes Line Saga

26 talk 

27 Not Dark Yet 

(all tracks Robyn Hitchcock)