Just Like Tom Thumb's Boots

Bob Dylan, Oakland Flood

Two shows, early and late, taken from the same date during the 1974 tour with The Band. Great sound and performance, nice that there are no repeats in the setlists for either Bob or The Band. Great sound and performance. Taken from the same tour as the Before the Flood album. For whatever reason, that live album never really caught my interest. Great songs and performances, but something is missing. Seems like the setlist from that album is kind of a greatest hits thing cobbled together from multiple shows. Regardless, this is an essential bootleg for fans of both Dylan and The Band. 

In reading Levon's autobiography, I recall him discussing this tour as being excellent but strange. There was a feeling that they were all playing past versions of themselves, that the audience was coming to see something that they loved/hated and/or missed out on during Dylan's previous tour with The Band. During their first tour together, Dylan went electric and turned on the world. During their second tour, they created nostalgia. I know I woulda been there, with my lighter in the air, smokin a doobie. Wouldn't you?

 
Bob Dylan & The Band
Feb. 11, 1974
Oakland Flood
Oakland, CA.

Disc one

Early Show::

01. Most Likely You Go Your Way
02. Lay Lady Lay
03. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
04. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
05. It Ain't Me Babe
06. Ballad Of A Thin Man
07. Stage Fright *
08. Night They Drove Old Dixie Down *
09. King Harvest *
10. When You Awake *
11. Up On Cripple Creek *
12. All Along The Watchtower
13. Ballad Of Hollis Brown
14. Knockin' On Heaven's Door

Disc two

01. The Times
02. Just Like A Woman
03. Gates Of Eden
04. Don't Think Twice
 

Late Show:

05. It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
06. Rag Mama Rag *
07. This Wheel's On Fire *
08. The Shape I'm In *
09. The Weight *
10. Forever Young
11. Highway 61 Revisited
12. Like A Rolling Stone
13. Maggie's Farm
14. Blowin' In The Wind

* = Performed by The Band

Bonus tunes, here's a recent Dylan show for streaming, no download. He's finally got tunes from his most recent excellent album, Tempest, heavy in rotation this tour. Of note, there has been very little variation in the stelists during the first few shows of the tour, playing the same Tempest tunes, as well as select others from throughout his career. If not necessarily darker, the focus seems to be on heavier tunes, not sure how else to put that. But Dylan certainly seems to be going for something with the setlist he's come up with.  Whatever the case may be, we can all be happy that Blind Willie McTell and Visions of Johanna are in heavy rotation. 

Wilbury Mullins Center, Amherst, MA, 4/6/13

1. Things Have Changed
2. Love Sick
3. High Water
4. Soon After Midnight
5. Early Roman Kings
6. Tangled Up in Blue
7. Pay in Blood
8. Visions of Johanna
9. Spirit on the Water
10. Beyond Here Lies Nothing
11. Blind Willie McTell
12. What Good Am I?
13. Thunder on a Mountain
14. Scarlet Town
15. All Along the Watchtower

16. (Encore Applause)

17. Ballad of a Thin Man