The last in a series of exceptional compilation bootlegs, or at the very least, the last in the download folder. Thank you, Midnight Café, live on through rips and FLAC files in the layby of the internet superhighway. For those wanting Expecting Rain: Volume Six, it isn’t too hard to find. Bob Dylan bootlegs, should every release be given a physical copy, are enough to suffocate someone. The sheer weight and volume of material Dylan has put out on stage, and captured by dedicated fans, is astonishing. So too is this compilation, a collection of performances given this century. Classics performed during a time far from the period of their contemporary value. Now, they are of legendary status. But there was a time when each of these songs echoed with the emotion of the times, the spirit of a new decade. Expecting Rain: Volume Six goes to great lengths in its attempt to capture this.
What this compilation offers, above all, is another example of how we can still learn from adapting the classics. Not in remaking them, but in restructuring them, as Dylan often does for the lengthy list of hits in his setlist. A superb collection of songs from the stage, across a half decade where Dylan was refining his classics in the lights of contemporary relevance. That is a place Dylan needed to be, and thanks to Time Out of Mind, and Love and Theft, too, it is where he found himself. Modern Times also leaves its mark on these performances. A blur of easy-listening experiences but with the heartfelt courage, the entertaining expectation, of live performance. Boots of Spanish Leather and Visions of Johanna hear out those softer touches, the slower scope of the stage elements Dylan was now bringing in. A slightly floaty appeal, a lighter flourish to some of his very best works. It sets Expecting Rain: Volume Six apart from the rest of the compilation entries.
There is scope for contemporary material, too, the lesser-known flourishes of Ain’t Talkin’ are right there for the taking. An outstanding moment in a collection of brilliant pieces. Just ten songs, this one, but a masterful listen with some brilliant renditions of all those hits. Shelter from the Storm sounds unlike any other performance given to the Blood on the Tracks hit here. Love Sick, too, sounds recognisable yet changed in that ever-brilliant Dylan stage experience. It would be hard to lose the steady guitar piece which forms the core of the Time Out of Mind track, but a few additional instruments and an energised Dylan performance certainly makes the difference. Expecting Rain: Volume Six is an understanding of what Dylan does, or at least tries to do, in every performance.
It is not enough to play the hits, especially not for the decades Dylan has spent on stage. Adapting the hits to the stage is an easy course through touring. Everyone wants to hear those classics. But it is not enough, for the instrumentally active, to play those hits, untouched by time. Few songs keep their shape, maintain the same style over decades, and if they do it is either because changing them would mean changing the perception of the artist, or that the musician is fearful of what may happen if they shift arrangements and meaning. Dylan has never feared that, and Expecting Rain: Volume Six, is an essential understanding of those desires to chop up and counter the usual pieces. It works brilliantly, and it still does to this day.
