I’m going to see Bob Dylan in concert tomorrow night. He’s playing at Deer Valley in Park City. My wife surprised me with tickets, and I’m going with my buddy Ken. The Wife isn’t a fan, so it was mighty nice of her to stifle her gag reflex and get the tickets for me. I’ve been a Dylan fan since high school – nearly thirty years ago – and I’m as excited for this concert as any concert I’ve ever been to. The man is a living legend – Dylan, not Ken. Ken is still working on it, but I digress. Bob Dylan is pushing seventy years old, so I’m very happy to finally see him in person. I missed out on seeing Johnny Cash – another big favorite – before he died, and I’ve always regretted it. Not gonna happen with Dylan.
Because of my anticipation of tomorrow night’s concert, I listened to one of the most important (and best) concerts ever recorded – Dylan and the Hawks in Manchester, UK, May 1966 – while I was riding my bike this morning, and I’ve been wandering around the house today singing Dylan songs and extolling his virtues to The Wife. She doesn’t get it, so rather than continue to bore her with my pontifications, I’m going to blog about my man-crush on Bob Dylan. I can sum it up with one incident in the man’s life, and it happened at the concert I listened to this morning.
If this bores you, you don’t have to read it.
Okay, so you’re still with me. Good. Let me set the scene. It’s Tuesday, May 17, 1966, in Manchester, England. Bob Dylan is playing a concert at the Free Trade Hall. Dylan and his greatest backing band, The Hawks (later more famous as simply The Band) have been playing Australia and Europe for six weeks. They are wrapping up their tour in the UK. One of Dylan’s greatest albums, Blonde on Blonde, was just released the day before in the US.
Ever since the switch from being an earnest acoustic folk singer who played protest songs at places like the March on Washington in 1963, where Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech, to going electric at the Newport Folk Festival the summer of 1965 and nearly getting booed off stage, Dylan has been heckled by his former fans. Rock and roll music doesn’t fit in with their folkie, protest singer image of Dylan. The UK fans are especially belligerent. Dylan has taken to performing with a huge American flag as his backdrop, further alienating his already testy European fans.
Dylan’s 1966 concerts are divided between an acoustic set and an electric set. At the beginning of the concert Dylan comes out with just his acoustic guitar and his harmonica and plays acoustic music. Bob Dylan is twenty-five years old with a wild head of hair and some pretty hip clothes for the era. He formerly performed in work shirts and blue jeans, so his appearance has changed quite a bit.
Interestingly, during the acoustic part of the show, Dylan doesn’t play any of the “classic” stuff that the fans want to hear (“Blowin’ In The Wind” or “The Times They Are A-Changin’”). Instead he plays acoustic versions of songs off his last three albums, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde, which are essentially rock and roll albums with a smattering of acoustic material included. Despite the lack of protest music, Dylan’s acoustic set is fairly well received.
However, Dylan then brings out the Hawks and rips into a song called “Tell Me, Momma,” and the audience starts to get agitated. In fact, not realizing that rock and roll history is being made right before their eyes, some of the crowd boos and shouts out rude stuff. A few of his former fans start clapping rhythmically at an inappropriate time, trying to throw Dylan and the band off. Dylan starts to mumble something under his breath until the clapping clods eventually quit so that they can hear what he is saying. Dylan’s electric set continues like this, even though Dylan and the Hawks are playing definitive versions of some of his greatest songs.
The jeering gets worse. Dylan and the band finally come to the last song. While the musicians are tuning up, an idiot in the audience shouts out “Judas!” (that someone would compare him to Christ’s betrayer is a good example of the depth of feeling some fans had about Bob Dylan playing rock and roll instead of folk music). Another genius shouts “I’m never listening to you again!” Dylan turns to the hecklers and says, “I don’t believe you. You’re a liar!” Then Dylan turns his back to the crowd and says to Robbie Robertson, his lead guitarist, “Play it f*cking loud!” And Bob Dylan and the Hawks tear into the greatest version of “Like A Rolling Stone” ever recorded.
So that’s it. I admire the man’s tenacity and audacity. I love the fact that Dylan wouldn’t be daunted or dissuaded by his erstwhile fans. Rather than caving and going back to folk music, Dylan made some of the greatest music of his career, even though it wasn’t appreciated at the time. And, despite a motorcycle accident where he broke his neck a few months after the concert in Manchester, Dylan has continued to make great music. Bob Dylan’s last four albums, Time Out Of Mind, “Love And Theft”, Modern Times, and Together Through Life, are some of his best, most accessible work, and he was sixty plus years old when he recorded them.
And, thanks to my wife, I get to see him in concert tomorrow night.
