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  3. Note that none of The Band’s material is included, unlike on the original Before The Flood album.
    As with all these huge box sets, they seem a good idea on paper but who has the time or inclination to listen to 27 CDs worth more than once, if that. Decent price though which makes a pleasant change.

  4. I have the 1966 set. Think I have listened to about 3 of the shows. Not a huge fan of the 74 shows, prefer 75 myself. Have that bootleg set but not the one with about 5 gigs plus rehearsals etc

  5. The price is tempting (as opposed to the usual £147 for 3 CDs, a DVD in an unplayable format and a vinyl 7″ which will lose all value if you play it even once)…
    But no, I don’t see my self listening to all 27CDs. I could maybe listen to Before the Flood a dozen times instead

  7. Oh, for pity’s sake! Where are the gnomes, the huge perspex box, the remixes, the element mixes, the pointless tat and the huge price tag? What is wrong with these people? Just loads of music in a nice box with decent liner notes! These people have no idea.

  10. The delicious irony is that when such product could have reaped major rewards, the record companies didn’t release it, and now they have, no one wants it.

    After keeping the various Beatles, their families, their close friends, and their close friends’ close friends, in spare cash/nice holidays/considerable comfort in my teens, the first option I had of new material by the group was about twelve years later.

    Now, I’m no more likely to buy any of this stuff than buy two Tottenham season tickets.

    However, I might buy one Tottenham season ticket, on account of the fact I fancy them for a trophy… no, really, history shows us that’s a distinct possibility.

    • There is no big pot of money to be made on this stuff, currently. And there certainly never was in the past. There was only ever so much of any artist’s material you could hope to release and make money on.
      Flooding the ’70s market with live vinyl concert releases would have adversely affected sales of Bob’s other albums, without coming near to covering the cost of doing so.

      Having now asserted their legal rights to it all, before it would have expired, they’ll hope to cover the cost of the current boxset release, with an eye to it adding to the trickle of online Bob income over the coming years at almost negligible cost.
      I imagine digital catalogue-mining has never been so cost-effective as it is currently.

  11. The reason why they didn’t release it before is they were too busy reaping major rewards by strip-mining the rest of Dylan’s career.

    As LG says up the page, the only reason they are releasing it now is for copyright purposes

  13. Music fans need only visit sugarmegs.org for all the rare recordings they like. I really don’t get the completist urge once you have all the decent albums and salient live ones *(and maybe a recording of a gig you saw, for nostalgia’s sake). My life is not diminished by the lack of a copy of “Love Beach” or the third show on a tour of an act that doesn’t improvise or change setlists, even if some tribal obsessive may decide I am obviously only a fair-weather fan. I blame the Deadhead gene.

  14. Others whose lives were not enhanced by fewer people possessing copies of ELP’s Love Beach were the small band of dedicated professionals who once made the UK’s Persian carpet roadie sector the envy of the global live music industry

    • @Jaygee ELP were bloody awful when they were supposedly good. There is no-one who could persuade me to listen to Love Beach. Truly awful band.
      I had the misfortune to see them at Wembley Empire because my mates were so convinced that seeing them live would persuade me that they were really good. They paid for my ticket.
      Sorry but the sight of Keith Emerson wanking fireballs out of his moog plank put me off for life.

      • @SteveT

        No fan of ELP’s pompous twaddle myself.

        Having had to grind my teeth to drown out the sound of Yes and the differently (but equally) dismal Seals and Crofts at Loftus Road football stadium in – I think – May 75 at the behest of a mate of my own, I feel at least a little of your pain

      • Was that the tour with Back Door as support, @stevet ? Yet another early shared gig, in that case. I had been tremendously excited to be going, as I was a fan of the first 3 to 4 records, Trilogy beginning to show the falter. I was fairly and disappointingly bored for much of it. Anything with the Hammond organ was good, but the piano became ultimately dull and the Moog mainly self-indulgent twaddle, as each piece doubled and trebled in length, strung out with unnecessary noodle.

        • Almost certainly was the same gig @retropath2 – bloody awful. Almost scarred for life but Hatfield and the North around the same time did that to me and then later Michelle Shocked who I love managed to perform the worst gig I ever did see.
          I think she was off her tits on something – she rambling all over the place. There were two sets – she managed 3 songs before the interval – I watched the start of the second set and promptly left.
          Shame because the first time I saw her (supporting Billy Bragg) she was excellent.

          • “Scarred for life”? By ELP and the Hatfields?
            If you don’t like them, then fair enough! But scarred for life?

            Edith: apologies – just spotted the judicious use of “almost”…

  18. Ray Padgett wrote the excellent book of interviews with band members ,promoters, friends etc of Dylan. I reviewed it for the blog. He also has an excellent Dylan based website ( he is also a Tom Waits tragic) which I heartily recommend. He has had the mega 74 release for a few months and has just done a review of every one of the 27 CDs having previously reviewed every concert via circulating tapes of the shows.

    Interesting what he says. The best show was the first one in Chicago. Any of the massive want to send me a copy I’d be delighted. And the best shows were the earlier ones, varied set lists, Planet Waves stuff and Dylan enjoying it. By the end he is tired,playing a greatest hits and,you know how he gets into a vocal trope ( upper inflection anyone? ) well for the last shows he was shouting all the songs – and that is what we got on Before the Flood.

    Here is an edited summary of his findings, but if you are a fan – subscribe.

    “…..At 27 discs, 431 tracks, it’s a monster. Soundboards of every song and every show they had in the vaults, in time for the 50th anniversary year.

    Before the Flood did Tour ’74 dirty. That live album is fine, but the recordings were almost entirely taken from the tour’s last few shows. And the end was, as is clear when you listen to this set, the least interesting part of the tour. Tour ’74 peaked early. The first few weeks saw passionate performances and bold setlist choices. By the end, the sets got rote, and Bob’s singing got shouty. He also gradually abandoned the new Planet Waves material, veering as close to please-the-masses greatest hits as he ever has. But some of the early discs on this set showcase something very different, and really special.

    Before this, we had soundboard recordings of just five shows from this tour (listed here). Now we suddenly have soundboards of 26 shows. Not all the dates, but most of ‘em. That is huge, and worth taking a second to acknowledge. Moreover, most of the already-circulating soundboards were from the (worse) later part of the tour. Having all these amazing recordings of the first couple weeks especially is really special.

    This is a set to savor, not to binge. There are 34 different versions of “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine),” 23 versions of “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” 22 versions of “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” And, unlike in the Never Ending Tour era where he might sing “Tangled Up in Blue” five nights in a row and bring something different each time, many of the performances are the same.

    Not all; some oft-played songs—“Forever Young,” “Rainy Day Women,” “Gates of Eden”—vary a fair bit. Those are the ones you don’t get sick of no matter how many times you hear them in a row. Nevertheless, take your time. Powering through the entire thing, like I did, is probably not the best way to take it in. Beware burnout.

    The surprise star of the set for me: the harmonica playing. I say “surprise” because I’ve never been one of those fans who hoots and hollers whenever Bob whips out the harp. I’ve seen way too many perfunctory three-note solos for that. But he plays like a man possessed throughout this set. And not just on the slower acoustic songs (the closing solos on “Don’t Think Twice” are a nightly highlight). He wails at high-velocity on many of the full-band songs too. Even when other parts of the shows go through the motions, his harmonica playing never does.

    Dylan’s solo-acoustic songs are another highpoint, particularly in the first half of the tour. When I listened to so many audience tapes earlier this year, the quiet songs often got muffled. The sound quality does wonders for them here. “Gates of Eden,” “Just Like a Woman,” and “She Belongs to Me” especially steal the show whenever they get played, as do the early versions of the then-new “Wedding Song” and “Nobody ‘Cept You.”

    The biggest criticism I saw when this set was announced was: No Band songs. Unlike in 1966, The Band were huge stars in their own right by 1974, and appropriately got two short sets every night while Bob left the stage. I was critical of this omission myself. But, after hearing all this set, I get it. I did some rough math and including all the Band sets would have added something like 14 additional CDs to this set. Moreover, The Band mixed up their setlists even less than Bob did. Would this box really benefit from 26 different versions of “The Shape I’m In”? I wish instead the label had compiled a bonus disc highlighting their sets, the best version of each song maybe. The narrative is incomplete without representing their own material. Alas.

    MVP Song of the Set (Oft-Played Edition): Tie between “Ballad of Hollis Brown” and “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.” The wild electric “Hollis Brown” is a clear tour standout, maybe the single defining song of the tour. “Tom Thumb” is less obvious—it’s not that different than the already-electric studio version—but sounds killer every single outing.

    MVP Song of the Set (Rarely-Played Edition): “Tough Mama.” The single best new song live, sharp and biting, so figures he dumps it after just three shows. Luckily “Forever Young” is almost as good, and you’ve got 25 different versions to choose from here.

    LVP Song of the Set (that is, least valuable): “Lay Lady Lay.” His most annoying, insufferable yelping each and every time. Tour ‘74 at its worst. Again, many of the greatest hits are among the highlights this time out. Aforementioned “Rainy Day Women” and “Forever Young,” and I’d throw “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and “Ballad of a Thin Man” in there too. “Lay Lady Lay” is not among them.”

  20. I got mine at the weekend, it’s a beauty. Completely pointless to most people, but who cares what they think? Incredible value for money and I love the way it’s packaged.

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