Bob Dylan, The Band – Before The Flood (1974/2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Bob Dylan, The Band – Before The Flood (1974/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:33:40 minutes | 4,56 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia – Legacy

The 1974 tour by Bob Dylan and the Band brought together two of the most-respected acts in rock history for what was one of the biggest concert events of the decade. Recorded at several different venues over the course of the two-month tour, „Before The Flood“ captures Dylan and The Band in fine form. Having backed Dylan on and off since 1966, The Band were very comfortable with his music, and on this album they provide Dylan with some of the finest accompaniment of his career.

Dylan opens the show with spirited versions of hits like “It Ain’t Me Babe” and “Lay Lady Lay,” as well as the acidic “Ballad of a Thin Man.” Having fired up the crowd, Dylan steps away from the mike to let the Band perform barnstorming versions of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and other classics from their repertoire. After The Band nearly brings down the house with their intense rendition of “The Weight,” Dylan returns to bring it all back home with powerful performances of “Like A Rolling Stone” and “Blowin’ In The Wind,” providing a spectacular finale to one of the finest live rock albums of the ’70s.

Bob Dylan and the Band both needed the celebrated reunion tour of 1974, since Dylan’s fortunes had been floundering since Self Portrait and the Band stumbled with 1971’s Cahoots. The tour, with its attendant publicity, definitely returned both artists to center stage, and it definitely succeeded, breaking box office records and earning great reviews. Before the Flood, a double-album souvenir of the tour, suggests that these were generally dynamic shows, but not because they were reveling in the past, but because Dylan was fighting the nostalgia of his audience — nostalgia, it must be noted, that was promoted as the very reason behind these shows. Yet that’s what gives this music such kick — Dylan reworks, rearranges, reinterprets these songs in ways that are still disarming, years after its initial release. He could only have performed interpretations this radical with a group as sympathetic, knowing of his traits as the band, whose own recordings here are respites from the storm. And this is a storm — the sound of a great rocker, surprising his band and audience by tearing through his greatest songs in a manner that might not be comforting, but it guarantees it to be one of the best live albums of its time. Ever, maybe. –AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Tracklist:

01. Bob Dylan & The Band – Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine) (04:16)
02. Bob Dylan & The Band – Lay, Lady, Lay (03:17)
03. Bob Dylan & The Band – Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (03:24)
04. Bob Dylan & The Band – Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (03:52)
05. Bob Dylan & The Band – It Ain’t Me, Babe (03:41)
06. Bob Dylan & The Band – Ballad of a Thin Man (04:05)
07. Bob Dylan & The Band – Up on Cripple Creek (05:29)
08. Bob Dylan & The Band – I Shall Be Released (03:51)
09. Bob Dylan & The Band – Endless Highway (05:10)
10. Bob Dylan & The Band – The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (04:25)
11. Bob Dylan & The Band – Stage Fright (04:46)
12. Bob Dylan & The Band – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (04:36)
13. Bob Dylan & The Band – Just Like a Woman (05:05)
14. Bob Dylan & The Band – It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (05:47)
15. Bob Dylan & The Band – The Shape I’m In (04:02)
16. Bob Dylan & The Band – When You Awake (03:13)
17. Bob Dylan & The Band – The Weight (04:55)
18. Bob Dylan & The Band – All Along the Watchtower (03:23)
19. Bob Dylan & The Band – Highway 61 Revisited (04:27)
20. Bob Dylan & The Band – Like a Rolling Stone (07:09)
21. Bob Dylan & The Band – Blowin’ in the Wind (04:37)

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