Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Chicago Tribune
Christgau's Record Guide	A
Creem	A+
MusicHound Rock	2/5
PopMatters	6/10
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Sputnikmusic	4.5/5

Before the Flood is a live album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and the Band, released on June 20, 1974 on Asylum Records in the United States and Island Records in the United Kingdom. While in later years earlier live recordings would be released, this was the first live album that Dylan released. It is the seventeenth album by Dylan and the seventh by the Band, and documents their joint 1974 American tour. It peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, reached number eight on the popular album chart in the United Kingdom, and has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Dylan and his new record label Asylum had planned professional recordings before the tour began, ten separate sessions in total: three in New York at Madison Square Garden on January 30 and 31; two in Seattle, at the Seattle Center Coliseum on February 9; two in Oakland, California, at the Alameda County Coliseum on February 11; and three in Los Angeles on February 13 and 14. To compile the album, recordings were taken from the final three shows at the Los Angeles Forum in Inglewood, California, with only "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" from New York.

The title of the album is thought to derive from the novel Farn Mabul by Yiddish writer Sholem Asch; Dylan had a personal relationship with Moses Asch, son of Sholem and founder of Folkways Records, a record label hugely influential in the folk music revival. Another theory is that the title refers to the album arriving before the inevitable flood of bootlegs could saturate the underground market.

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Wikipedia