This is not necessarily a bad version of the song, but like most of the album's arrangements it seems to be change simply for the sake of it or to accommodate the extra personnel.
The background 'oooh oooh's' don't help either. Tambourine Man' is speeded up and given orchestration that it neither wants nor needs. The first indication that all is not right comes with the opening track - 'Mr. Paul Williams says it best, 'I don't think it would be possible to put together a first-rate album from any of the early shows.' and the pity is that only a couple of months later Dylan was giving some of the best performances of his life. The album was recorded over two consecutive nights, February 28th and March 1st on the return to Tokyo from Osaka, and it is probably fair to say that it captures Dylan and his band as a work in progress.
