Another exciting first today. No, it’s not a new song added or any major show changes. It’s this: The first 1974 tour soundboard!
There are five soundboards from this tour. Today’s Boston Jan 14 (early show), then Madison Square Garden Jan 31 (late), Oakland Feb 11 (late), and the final two shows in LA on Feb 14 (both early and late). Those last two maybe slightly less exciting, just because most of Before the Flood comes from those shows anyway. It’s a shame we don’t have soundboards from some of the wilder early shows, where deep cuts like “Hero Blues” and more new Planet Waves songs were making appearances, but apparently some of that exists in the Tulsa archives. Future Bootleg Series perhaps?
Still, after sitting through some muddy tapes in the early going, it’s a treat to hear something this pristine. Listen to Richard Manuel’s honkytonk piano on “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.” Levon Helm’s drum fills on “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” Dylan’s crazed harmonica on “Don’t Think Twice.” Robbie Robertson’s slicing lead guitar pretty much everywhere.
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The tape also delivers pristine versions of the four songs that, at this early stage, are emerging as the nightly knockouts. Two of them are acoustic-to-electric reinventions, like they did on the ’66 tour, but with different folk-era songs: “It Ain’t Me Babe” and “Ballad of Hollis Brown.” Another is a reprise of a ’66 standout that has traded in its feral bite for show-stopping theatrics: “Ballad of a Thin Man.” And the fourth is a new song that he’d dump soon, both from this tour and, with one exception in 1978, forever: “Something There Is About You.”
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