What may feel like an endless supply of live performances is, in truth, finite. We may never hear every performance from Bob Dylan, to do so would be a wild use of free time. Nevertheless, lending an ear to the moments worth hearing, those pieces curated by the Expecting Rain forum, is a stamp of approval from the long-serving listeners. They were there when others were not. When Knocked Out Loaded needed defending, or a distinction between two recordings of the same song was needed. Not all heroes wear capes, some of them assemble Expecting Rain: Volume Four. The turn of the century offered a reinvigorated Dylan, and a new album. Love and Theft was overshadowed by horrific moments in modern history, but the presentation it is given on stage, along with some New Morning and John Wesley Harding deep cuts, is delightful.
Any compilation featuring If Dogs Run Free is asking for trouble. But Expecting Rain: Volume Four navigates that bold choice well with a few honest and exciting selections preceding it. Opener Highlands shines a little light on a lesser-played track from Time Out of Mind. Even the tour supporting the release of his Grammy Award-winning album usually featured just Not Dark Yet and Love Sick. But the screech heard on Highlands, a hilarious moment the first time around, shows the genuine love for Time Out of Mind three years on from its release. A ten-minute titan of a track, and a bold opener for any compilation. A mention of Neil Young gets a pop from the crowd, and deservedly so. Expecting Rain: Volume Four is not so much about capturing the deep cuts themselves, but the energy a crowd displays for them. It makes sense, then, to include contentious tracks like If Dogs Run Free. In the mix too are covers Dylan would swap in and out over the decades to come.
A nod to Warren Zevon can be heard with a cover of the singer-songwriter’s Accidentally Like a Martyr. Romantic loss heard on the Zevon classic fits the bill of Dylan at the time, the post-Love and Theft performances continuing a swagger for the stage backed by a cheering, interactive audience. Twenty-five years on from his performance of Delia, and the sombre tone, the sobering attitude to long-lost friends, is still overwhelming. More now, than ever, given the passing of everyone from Bob Newhart to The Band. Those layers are somewhat foreseeable given the reflection of singers in their twilight years, but also given the tone taken on modern-day efforts. Other well-loved songs like Cold Iron Bounds and Sugar Baby from Love and Theft feature, too.
This is a compilation not about celebrating the hits and how they are adapted to a time where stock in Dylan’s contemporary material was at an all-time high, but how his deep cuts were affected by this new interest. He is an artist who will play what he wants until he wants to play no longer. Summer Days is a fitting show closer. Those Love and Theft songs, every one of them, feels sorely overlooked. It is the effect of following up the shining star of Time Out of Mind. These live performances highlight a real joy for contemporary material, for the thrill of finding new routes through material which had been around, in some cases, for decades. The blur of it with fresh material is mighty, as are all the Expecting Rain compilation tapes.
