In Torontoโs Maple Leaf Stadium on January 9, 1974, Bob Dylan and The Band delivered a concert including a brutally ugly โLay Lady Layโ and a version of โLike A Rolling Stoneโ that didnโt so much end as collapse in a heap. Barely a week after making a solid and warmly received start to their reunion tour of 21 US cities, they had arrived in Canada, the birthplace of four members of The Band, and perhaps celebrated the homecoming not wisely but too well. At the next concert, in Montreal two nights later, Dylan was halfway through the first verse of โThe Times They Are A-Changinโโ when he forgot the words.
At that point the tourโs promoter, the legendary Bill Graham, may have had a quiet word. Those listening to the new 27-disc boxset of soundboard and multitrack recordings from the tour in strict sequence will notice that two nights later, during an afternoon show in Boston, discipline has been restored, particularly in a pin-sharp five-song solo acoustic set featuring exquisite harmonica solos, each number โ including โThe Timesโฆโ, โDonโt Think Twiceโฆโ and โGates Of Edenโ โ sung in a respectful approximation of the voice used on the original recording.
Thereโs also a wonderfully subtle โBallad Of A Thin Manโ, a song which, throughout the tour, will have each of its hidden facets turned towards the light. The many versions of that song sprinkled throughout the discs illustrate the fluctuations of interpretation, form and commitment that were a feature of Dylanโs first tour in eight years, unremarked at the time but now on full view.

He had been talked into the project by David Geffen, who had just lured him away from Columbia Records to sign with his Asylum label. Planet Waves gave Geffen something to promote as Dylan and The Band embarked on one of the first real arena tours, playing to 650,000 people at 40 concerts in 21 cities across five and a half weeks.
At the time, now the โ60s were over and a new decade had begun, it was hard to get a clear idea of exactly who Dylan currently was. The disconcerting kaleidoscope of Self Portrait, the enigmatic retrenchment of New Morning, guest spots in studios with Doug Sahm, Steve Goodman and Bette Midler and in charity concerts for Chile and Bangla Desh, a trip to Israel and domestic relocation to Malibu, a couple of random singles and his participation in Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid โ all of it had blurred his outline. After heโd stepped up to play harmonica with John Prine at the Bitter End in 1972, Prine remarked: โNo-one believed it. They thought Bob Dylan was either dead or on Mount Fuji.โ
So the tour amounted to a relaunch. With Planet Waves giving him his first ever No 1 album in the US, the setlist featured a handful of its new songs, including many versions of โSomething There Is About Youโ and โForever Youngโ (yet to become an anthem), and occasional airings of โWedding Songโ, โTough Mamaโ and โNobody โCept Youโ, a lightweight love song dropped from the albumโs final running order. But the bulk of each concert would consist of pre-loved material in recognisable versions, making it easy for commentators to proclaim his return to form.
The final shows at the LA Forum provided almost all the material for Before The Flood, the double album released four months after the end of the tour, in which equal weight was given to the three elements that made up the concerts โ Dylan with the Band, Dylan alone, the Band alone. The new boxset omits all the Bandโs numbers, allowing us to concentrate on how Dylan reconciled the decision to present older material with his restless search for new angles.
So we can hear how, on opening night in Chicago, he delivers โThe Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carrollโ in a way that shrinks a packed sports stadium to the dimensions of a Greenwich Village coffee house. In the first two shows at Madison Square Garden, he and The Band attack the set with a kind of wild exuberance, while staying within the songsโ guardrails. When waywardness threatens to return in the first half of the third show at the Garden, Dylan pulls it together with a magnificent โItโs Alright, Maโฆโ, although thereโs not much he can do when something similar happens in Seattle a week later.
This time around he was giving the people the songs they wanted, mostly played the way they wanted to hear them. When Sara, his then-wife, attended the LA show, she was rewarded with the tourโs sole rendering of โMr Tambourine Manโ, her own favourite, in a full-band arrangement with Garth Hudsonโs accordion (and a highlight throughout the box is the wonderful variety of the eight-bar organ solos Garth plays on the many versions of โAll Along the Watchtowerโ).
As a result, there was none of the hostility encountered around the world eight years earlier. Yet this tour, too, would achieve its own historical significance. Whereas 1966 was a journey into the unknown, 1974 was a voyage into well-charted territories that showed him a path he didnโt want to follow: the one that involved playing, as he reflected later, the role of Bob Dylan. Never again would an audienceโs expectations take precedence over his own instincts. Itโs worth the investment to hear him reaching that career-redefining conclusion, on which so much further controversy would hang.
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