Bob Dylan 17: Before The Flood

The music industry reached the era of the arena tour, which was usually followed in turn by the double live album. And since Bob’s 1966 performances with the Band had become the stuff of legend (and bootleg), it only made sense to capitalize on the interest in his first major tour in eight years. And capitalize they did, with Before The Flood, a two-record set culled mostly from the last three shows of the run.

After nearly a minute of expectant crowd noise, “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)” gallops in, and we hear Bob’s new vocal technique of yelling the last syllable of each line in his songs. There are a few changes from the records we knew and loved, such as the new lyrics to “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” and the rockin’ “It Ain’t Me Babe”. “All Along The Watchtower” is still close to its John Wesley Harding tempo, but there’s more than a hint of Hendrix in the delivery. The Band still knows how to support him, and they do, but this wasn’t 1966. The acoustic songs are probably the highlight, and you get to hear the first of many audiences who have been cheering every harmonica blast to this day. (And the top-speed run through “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” is still exciting to those of us who don’t swoon at the Nixon connotations.)

Seeing as they got co-billing, there are also a side and a half of performances by just the Band, who’d released their own live album only two years before. The curious listener pulled in by their songs would be best advised to seek out their first two albums, as these renditions don’t add much to their oeuvre.

This was not the definitive live Dylan album—that was still a long way off after several attempts over the coming years. And even though the sequence doesn’t represent a typical night on Tour ’74, Before The Flood is a sharp snapshot in time, summed up well by the cover photo of an arena full of lighters held aloft. Oddly, the album included none of the songs from Planet Waves, the album it was promoting, nor any of the otherwise unreleased songs that turned up in setlists, which were tweaked every night. Perhaps his new label wanted to stick with the obvious tracks. (Originally released on Asylum, this too was reissued by Columbia in 1982.)

Undoubtedly, there were plenty of punters hoping that a future Bootleg Series volume would explore this period. By the time something happened, the scope had changed. Just in time for the tour’s 50th anniversary, The 1974 Live Recordings presented every available (professionally recorded) note played or sung by Bob from 26 of the shows on 27 discs, with none of the Band’s “solo” sections included. (Further audience recordings emerged briefly on Apple Music and Spotify as Live 1974 – The Copyright Collection.)

As insisted by those who’d cherished their bootlegs for decades, the players really were burnt out by the time they played the shows tapped for Before The Flood. We can now hear excellent renditions of songs from the new album, as well as its outtake “Nobody ‘Cept You”. His choices of solo acoustic songs are interesting (“Gates Of Eden”! “To Ramona”! “Mama, You Been On My Mind”!), as are the electric arrangements of “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “It Ain’t Me Babe”, and the obscure “Hero Blues”; there are also several examples of the Band helping him tear through “Ballad Of Hollis Brown”. Just as with similar boxes covering 1966 and 1975, there is a lot to ingest, but it’s further proof that Bob is best appreciated as a larger tapestry than a mere snapshot.

Bob Dylan/The Band Before The Flood (1974)—2½
Bob Dylan and The Band The 1974 Live Recordings (2024)—3