Search - Bob Dylan :: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live, 1966: The "Royal Albert Hall Concert"

RAW, ELECTRIC, PASSIONATE PRE-PUNK

running_man | 08/13/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Like most young music fans who have explored Classic Rock by investigating the roots and influences of current stars, I finally arrived at the music of Bob Dylan. Wary of the stereotypes of his nasal voice and adequate, sometimes uninspired guitar playing, yet equally aware of his place in Pop-Culture, I decided to pick up this much publicized album. I was impressed, yet not mesmerized by the quiet acoustic set, and qickly popped in the electric disc 2....From the tinkling of noises that finally gather to form the first powerful chord of the little-known "tell Me, Mama", through the famous Judas chant until the hard-rocking, ragged and venemous version of "Like a rolling Stone"...this is the greatest 40-something minutes of rock music ever recorded...Dylan's vocals are as eccentric as ever yet have the same awkward power of Hendrix, Van Morrison, Springsteen...and a poetic knowingness that exceeds even the most intense work of Lou Reed/Velvet Underground. The band is equally powerful...especially on "pillbox hat", and "i dont believe you"....This album captures the strongest, most self-assured and hungry Dylan that ever existed...so important, so relevant, its almost criminal!! thank you Columbia records"

It used to be like that...

Erik Samson | San Fransisco, CA | 01/17/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"They couldn't understand it.

Before it all happened, before...this, Bob was a folk singer, just another guy with an acoustic guitar and some words he had to get off his chest. I say that because before all this, Dylan used to write protest songs and folksy epics. And his only weapons, his only method of delivering his messages to you were a harmonica, a gee-tar, and that voice of his. And then...everything changed.



In 1965, popular folk singer Bob Dylan put down his acoustic guitar, slid his topical antiwar and love songs into a drawer, and changed himself completely. He picked up an electric guitar, hired a five-piece rock band, and wrote introspective, funny, surreal, and downright brilliant songs, with lyrics built like Chinese puzzle-boxes, poetry which begged to be analyzed and examined. In essence, Bob transformed from a great artist into a genius. That fateful year of 1965, he released two Earth-shattering albums. The first was entitled Bringing it All Back Home, and the second, his masterpiece, was called Highway 61 Revisited. These two records were filled with the afformentioned electric rock and surrealist poetry. Both became popular in some form or another, and suddenly everyone knew it: Dylan had changed. Dylan had gone electric.



And boy, were the folk fans pissed.



This album was recorded in 1966 in Manchester, England, at one of the many shows of that era in which Bob would play an acoustic set, take a brief intermission, and return with a vengeance, backed by a kickass rock band, an electric guitar in his arms and that trusty harmonica worn 'round his neck. And come hell or high water, Bob and the boys would proceed to rock.

This particular show was neither the first nor the last Dylan concert of this sort, but it probably was the best, both musically and historically speaking.



Bob came out that night with only his acoustic guitar and harmonica, and the audience burst into applause. There he was, all alone, miles from the scourge of electricity! They became silent as ice, obedient, adoring, as he began the first song in his set, a soulful "She Belongs To Me," bursting into applause at the end and then falling back into adoring silence as a lovely rendition of "Fourth Time Around" begins. Dylan is, of course, spectacular throughout the acoustic set. His voice is passionate, his playing energetic. His harmonica wheezes, his guitar bounces, his voice shimmers and draws you in and doesn't let go. The fans were right to be so silent and adoring.



But in reality, its part two that makes this performance so unforgettable. The first signs we hear of the electricity are the gentle hums of amplifiers, the guitars being pulled into tune, and the shuffling of the band as they make last preparations for the night's onslaught. But what really has a lasting effect is the noise that is audible just behind the amps and performers: The audience, which was so ethereally quiet a short while ago, is positively vibrating with murmurs and whispered accusations. "What's he doing?" "What's going on?" the crowd seems to ask. Surely, at least a few members of the audience must have seen this coming (remember, this isn't the first time that Bob has done an electric set). But for the most part, it seems that the audience's collective jaw has hit the floor.

Then, without any sort of answer, Dylan launches into a hyperactive rocker, "Tell Me Momma," and boy does he let loose. Gone are the sublimities of the acoustic set, all replaced by his howls of the chorus, while the highs and lows of the verses are almost as electric as the music itself. All the while, the band is playing like their lives depend on it, and with an incredible force and passion that does nothing less than epitomize rock. And after all this onslaught of visceral perfection, the audience's reaction is, well, flabbergasted, but not in any sort of good way. "Something,' they are thinking, "Has gone horribly wrong." Bob introduces the next song in the set with a joke, a the scattered laughter is tense and heavy. No matter- the band launches into a superb rendition of "I Don't Believe You." After the song ends, the audience is really pissed. As the band gears up for the third number, members of the audience make their first major strike against their former idol: They begin clapping, loudly, rhythmically, vengefully, not as a form of applause, but as an attempt to drown out the sounds, to bury this new and scary music under the sounds of a thousand slapping palms. Well, guess what? Not only are Bob and the boys unfazed by the gesture, they seem to scoff at it. All they do is crank up the volume, and tear into a jaw dropping "Baby Let Me Follow You Down."

And when I say jaw-dropping, I mean absolutely, utterly, stunning. The guitar solos in between choruses and verses are so perfectly, heartbreakingly lovelorn, they seem to take on a voice all to themselves. And Bob's wails of "I'll do anything in this God-almighty world if you'll just once blow me out of my mind!" are nothing short of perfection.

In fact, the song seems to briefly quell even the audience, as they applaud joyfully at the tracks ending and allow him to transition into "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" quite smoothly.

But after that, they're back with a vengeance. The clapping brigade is louder than ever, this time interspersed with audible boos and jeers. The audience gets nasty, too. When Bob attempts to introduce the next song but falls into an exhausted mumble, the audience laughs and cheers. As the band gears up for the next number, one particularly aggravated audience members screams "Sellout!" and the audience voices their approval. To quote David Fricke of Rolling Stone magazine, "This isn't rock & roll; it's war."

Bob and the boys take it all calmly, and after a brief pause hurdle into a fantastic run of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat." The war wears on, through "One Too Many Mornings" and an excellent version of "Ballad of a Thin Man," with its accusatory piano lines, and lyrics that so closely parallel what that malicious audience must be feeling. Something is happening but you don't know what it is, indeed.

And then comes the greatest, most legendary moment that the concert has to offer. The band is preparing for the final song, the audience's onslaught continues, when suddenly, one enraged fan in the throes of betrayal screams out "Judas!" The rest of the spectators are much amused by the declaration and applaud the fan's audacity. But Dylan, cold as ice, simply waits out the applause, and then, his voice dripping with acid, proclaims "I don't believe you." A murmur rises from the crowd. And then Dylan bellows, "You're a Liar!" And then, he turns around to face his band and, seething with visceral rage, issues the immortal order: "Play f****ng loud!" This is, quite simply, the most perfect, transcendent, and spine tingling moment in the history of rock. Those three words, they echo and take on an almost biblical meaning, and suddenly everything has changed, and the fans know it. And then, "ghost of 'lectricity howls" in that room, as Bob, the band, and the unwilling audience are all dragged as one into an absolutely Homerian blast of white hot energy, an eight minute epic reading of "Like A Rolling Stone," an aural mountain range of dizzying peaks and gut-busting valleys, a journey that floats on the wings of some spectacular keyboard work, devastating guitar lines, and Bob's scathing velvet moans of "How does it feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel?" In the choruses. Every word is a sentence, a shout and a raspberry at his audience, a declaration of independence. And in the end, the audience is overcome with applause and it seems that Bob has won the war after all.

"