If you’re a Bob Dylan fan, you’ve bought this album by now. If you’re sick of him and his cult of Dylanologists -- compiling, archiving and memorizing everything the 61-year-old has ever uttered -- then you won’t bother reading this review. So let’s make it brief. Live 1975 is the fifth volume of Columbia’s Bootleg Series, an attempt to appeal to the completists by offering better pictures and sound than your typical copy-of-a-copy pirated import. But whereas the first three-volume edition offered a fascinating alternative history of Dylan’s entire career, and Live 1966 set the record straight on the infamous “Royal Albert Hall” show, this edition seems less necessary and therefore a little more superfluous.

Chronicling Bob’s Rolling Thunder performances, a carnival of special guests and weird white face-paint, Live 1975 finds Dylan awash in the wounded glory of Blood on the Tracks and anticipating Desire, its lackluster follow-up. In other words, one of Dylan’s most disastrous falloffs was just about to occur -- one that would last for almost 15 years. For this reason Live 1975 is a valuable document since it shows him in transition. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a masterpiece. There are great moments -- Blood’s “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Simple Twist of Fate” are absorbing; his tribute to his ex-wife “Sara” is a thing of beauty. In between, though, are the umpteenth versions of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” that even the scariest Bobhead won’t need.

Just like every Dylan show is an unpredictable mixed bag of inspiration and routine, so too is Live 1975 a garble of genius and ho-hum.

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