FLAGGIN’ DOWN THE DOUBLE Es : RAY PADGETT NEWSLETTER LOOKS AT THE DYLAN 1974 RECORDINGS

A Show-By-Show Listening Guide to Bob Dylan's Massive '1974 Live Recordings' Box Set

I listened to all 27 discs and pulled out the highlights

RAY PADGETT SEP 20

Today, Bob Dylan releases The 1974 Live Recordings box set, celebrating his comeback tour with The Band. 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.

I’ve had an advance for a couple months now and have listened to all 27 discs. Moreover, I already listened to all these shows once earlier this year too—the audience tapes, mostly—for my series tracking every single show on what was simply called Tour ’74 on its actual anniversar

So, to help guide you through this behemoth, I’ve gone deeper than a typical review. I’ve put together a disc-by-disc, show-by-show guide to the whole thing. What shows are the best, where you should you start, what’s missing, best performances of key songs, etc. I’ve written a paragraph or two about each show, then also noted things like: 

Notable inclusions: What songs are surprising setlist inclusions (live debuts, last-time-evers, etc)
Missing songs/shows: What from the tour isn’t on this set
Most importantly, which I consider the Must-Hear Shows, just suggestions where to start if you’re overwhelmed which disc to put in first

At the end, there’s a (much) shorter playlist version too.

But before we get there, here are some big-picture thoughts I had listening to all 29 hours and 24 seconds of this thing. If you haven’t yet decided whether to pull the trigger on the set—which, credit where it’s due, is very reasonably priced for 27 discs!—this might help guide you. Then you can move onto the show-by-show guide when it’s actually in your hands.

Read Ray’s show by show Top Takeaways . . . . . . here