The Band At Nassau Coliseum 1974

Earlier this week Billy Joel held the final concert at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York where he welcomed Paul Simon to help close the 43-year-old arena. The venue that hosted over 40 Grateful Dead concerts and half of Phish’s famed 1998 Island Tour was also the site of a two-night stand made by Bob Dylan and The Band in January 1974.

Many audience recordings from the 1970s leave much to be desired, but that generalization doesn’t apply to all of them. As an example below is a wonderful audience recording of The Band’s Dylan-less performance at Nassau Coliseum on January 28, 1974. The Band was in the midst of one of the biggest tours ever assembled up until that point, featuring the group backing Bob Dylan.

In addition to all the time The Band spent on stage backing Dylan at each tour stop, they also played a number of songs without Bob. The audio-only recording below uploaded to YouTube by Arghdos puts you right in the arena on that memorable night as The Band works through blazing versions of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “King Harvest,” “The Weight” and seven more classic tracks. You could feel the energy pulsing through the venue. Unfortunately the details for the clip don’t mention the original taper, but we’d like to thank him (or her!) very much.

Take a listen:

Set 1:
01 Stage Fright 00:00
02 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down 04:52
03 King Harvest 09:40
04 When You Awake 13:25
05 I Shall Be Released 16:48
06 Cripple Creek 20:50

Set 2:
07 Rag Mama Rag 25:24
08 Wheel’s On Fire 29:31
09 The Shape I’m In 33:12
10 The Weight 37:17