Bob Dylan’s 1974 return was a watershed moment for music fans – I watched from the third row

On the morning of 2 December 1973, nearly 10 million letters started pouring through the US postal system for the same urgent purpose. open image in gallery Bob Dylan and The Band on the 1974 ‘Before the Flood’ tour For me and my friends, the excitement began well before the music started. Thanks to the obsessiveness of the box set, we can now hear exactly how the tour progressed, beginning with the first show in Chicago, which kicked off with “Hero Blues”, an outtake from his 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. From there, the blitz never let up – not only in rockers like “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” where Robertson’s sharp-tongued leads answered and elaborated each note Dylan’s sneered, but in acoustic pieces like “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” where the tune’s tender beauty took on a tone of special longing. Such generational resonance also electrified every performance of “Like a Rolling Stone”, which Dylan played with the lights of the arena in full blaze, as if to highlight the song’s stark power.