Collaborative efforts in compiling the very best of a songwriter with thousands of hours of live performance is no small feat. Congratulations are in order for the Expecting Rain community, whose collective, sharp ear for Bob Dylan live performances continues onto a third volume. Expecting Rain: Volume Three plucks performances from the perceived return to form and wildly consistent stage shows Dylan provides in the 1990s. Time Out of Mind is the benchmark, a return to the qualities which detailed him as one of the strongest voices in folk, in Christian music, and popular culture. Those rekindled interests in music from his past, at a time when his contemporary material was on the same high level, is a fascinating experience. Expecting Rain: Volume Three covers the classics and deep cuts which made their way back into Dylan’s live set with real class.
Opener My Back Pages is a solid start – a song which feels overlooked even now. Rarities like this, the harmonica solo which feels like a spur of the moment addition rather than a planned experience, are the highlights of a set like Expecting Rain: Volume Three. Iconic performances like the Love Sick Soy Bomb incident are featured – but they do not lose anything as an audio-only performance. Ever the professional, Dylan carried on playing, and riffs on a cool solo all the while one of the more memorable moments from the Grammy Awards is unfolding. Follow that riot of an experience up with This Wheels on Fire, and the cool guitar grooves Dylan was administering around this time continue. Some of the very best guitar playing Dylan and his band ever managed can be heard here, an adaptation of The Band and Dylan’s work to a post-Time Out of Mind spot leads to an immaculate instrumental section.
Floaty yet firm in their approach to these instrumentals, Dylan and his on-stage repertoire goes from strength to strength. I and I is given new life, with the Infidels rip offering just the right instrumental range and continued lyrical meaning for Dylan at this time. He may have spent time on the stage retrofitting modern meanings to his lesser-known songs, but those tracks he chose still hold a contemporary edge to them. They are not all bluster, there is a purpose to their recall. Masters of War, while not featured here, did appear in some sets around the late 1990s. The Times They Are A-Changin’ makes for a sensible addition to this compilation, a striking performance which evolves the meaning of a legendary song.
Crucial these advances are, they only appear when listening to those live moments. Dedicated Dylan listeners will no doubt consider this live variation or that performance the high point. It is remarkable either way, a song like The Times They Are A-Changin’ or the similarly featured classic, Blowin’ in the Wind. It is a time where Dylan finds himself appreciating his skill, understanding the luck involved in being noticed, and accepting the second wind. Song to Woody may, on paper, feel like a strange choice considering the closeness of it to the folk origins he had avoided up to this point, but it becomes a tender moment and a tremendous closer. Expecting Rain: Volume Three is an ace compilation of late 1990s performances from Dylan, a time where he was finding his footing once more on the stage.
