Get your grubby hands on this collection at once, before the revisionist period begins for The 1974 Live Recordings. Whatever the case for ticket prices of the time, interest in the backlog or reasons Bob Dylan did not tour, this is an outstanding collection of finely-tuned live performances. Collaborations with The Band were frequent around this period but listeners likely cannot get enough. Before the Flood has whet the appetite and the marvellous Before the Flood II bootleg is an unexpected dessert. But leave room for The 1974 Live Recordings. Even its sampler pack, available on Spotify for those who did not fancy splashing out a small loan on the CD pack, is enough to enjoy. One performance of each song can be heard in the sampler, which makes sense. No room for repetition when just twenty tracks are offered.
For those wanting to experience the hundreds of tracks initially collected and now released, go and listen. It is well worth it and the financial division made per song, per CD, is value for money. But for those wanting a little taste, a toe in the waters of a fascinating tour, then The 1974 Live Recordings is best listened to through its all-too-brief sampler. Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues and the rest of the singles, It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue and Forever Young are brilliant examples of why purchasing the complete collection is necessary. Those who picked up MOJO Magazine last month may have already heard Something There Is About You, and the Madison Square Garden performance is featured most of all on this twenty-track pack. Rightly so. It sounds magnificent and any band that can hold their own on such a stage must be celebrated.
The Band and Dylan have a clear rush of quality to them, from performance to performance there is a refined consistency. Howling winds on Love Minus Zero are given room to breathe, a piece which feels more like an isolated Dylan performance than a song inclusive of The Band. There are spots where the return of Dylan to the stage is highlighted – bold and ambitious performances of classic tracks which members of the public had gone without for nearly a decade. His appearance on stage after so long away from it is certainly something to celebrate and the overhaul of his sound, where The Band can bring him on The 1974 Live Recordings, is remarkable. These are the bold sounds expected of Dylan, cemented here for the first time.
It is a massive change to his usual sound and a welcome one at that. A deeper range for the likes of She Belongs to Me set the songs apart from other recordings. It Ain’t Me, Babe lingers as one of the best recordings of the song available. The Forum, Inglewood holds firm in a sampler featuring Madison Square Garden, Seattle Center Coliseum and Chicago Stadium, to name but a few. Each holds a special portion of Dylan at his best. This is the fine electric line, walked by a man who was hungry for a stage experience once again. The 1974 Live Recordings is a perfect entry point for those who wonder whether a purchase of the full boxset is worth it, and for those who already made the jump, they can be confident their purchase was the right one. Consistent quality is found within, plentiful helpings of utterly brilliant live stage presence. A treat for the ears the whole way through.
