Judas and company play it fucking loud, half of it at least

The Royal Albert Hall in London was the last stop of Bob Dylan and The Hawks’ (The Band minus Levon Helm) infamous 1966 world tour. A little more than a month later, back home in Woodstock, the back wheel of Dylan's Triumph motorcycle would lock, sending its rider hurtling towards the hospital with a broken neck. The next time anybody would hear from him musically, it would be with the quiet acousticsim of John Wesley Harding. So that May 27th night in England would be the last time in a long time anybody would hear Dylan play that "wild mercury" music of which he was so fond of; on some level Dylan seemed to know this and he had decided to go out with a bang.

When Columbia finally released this album in 1998 it was greeted by musicologists with a resounding "it’s about time!" This is unquestionably the most bootlegged record of all time and when you hear it, you can see why.

The modus operandi for the tour was for Dylan to walk on stage accompanied by only his acoustic guitar, harmonica and frazzled mop of hair. He plays some acoustic numbers then he goes backstage, trades his acoustic guitar for a pitch black Fender and when he walks back onstage he's joined by a rock and roll band and the rest of the show
is electric.

What made the '66 tour so special wasn't the music but rather the audience’s reaction to it, for them to see the savior of the folk movement play rock and roll? It must've been jarring, even insulting. And they did not let this go unnoticed by Dylan. For the first half of the show the audience is gracious and receptive, but the electric tunes of the second half are met with catcalls, jeering and slow hand-clapping.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Dylan walks on stage, doesn't say a word and immediately launches into She Belongs To Me but the giddiness from the song is gone. We get the sneaking suspicion that something has happened to the song’s "She" because Dylan sings the song like he's delivering a eulogy and the harmonica breaks turn into a widower’s lovelorn cries to the moon. Dylan's good friends the Beatles were in attendance that night and when Dylan sings Fourth Time Around you can tell his eyes are roving the crowd for Norwegian Wood writer John Lennon, and when he delivers the line "everyone must give something back, for something they get." You get the feeling he's found him.

If you have ever doubted that Visions Of Johanna is about unrequited love, let Dylan’s sorrowful performance that night be all the evidence you need. It boggles my mind how Dylan (who was obviously chemically altered that night) can remember all 659 words to Desolation Row but seems to forget the title of Leopard-Skin-Pill-Box Hat.

He closes the acoustic half with a dutiful performance of Mr. Tambourine Man but at this stage you can tell he's really mocking himself; he delivers the lines like a particularly hammy actor performing Shakespeare.

There is forty seconds of Dylan and the Hawks warming up before they launch into the never released Tell Me, Momma. Dylan claimed to be unaffected by the reaction from his audiences but the song selection says different; on Tell Me, Momma he delivers the line "What's wrong with you this time?" like he's asking all those British hipsters what exactly, their problem is. And there’s more acid in his voice than what’s inside a gross of D batteries when he shrieks “everyone can see you up on your window ledge, how long is it gonna take for you to get off the edge?”

All the acoustic songs are from Dylan's electric albums, undoubtedly on purpose. And nearly half of the electric songs are from acoustic albums, including Baby, Let Me Follow You Down from his debut, but on here he makes it sound almost like punk rock.

The most telling of Dylan's mental state is one line in Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues, his voice warbles as he shouts "I don't have the strength to get up and take another shot!" He makes the word "shot" last about seven seconds. The man is goddamned exhausted.

The only thing my father ever said that I listened to, let alone heeded, was when he said to me "when Robbie Robertson plays guitar, you know it's him playing". Nowhere is this more true than on the barnstorming version of I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Met). (which Dylan jokingly(?) refers to as "I don't believe you, it used to be like that and now it goes like this") Ballad Of A Thin Man is a song about a man who is just not cool; reporters have hounded Dylan for years about the real identity of the song’s subject "Mr. Jones," – well, look no further than his audience: he sings the song with more concentrated malice than anyone has ever sung a song.

As that song ends, the band is preparing for Like A Rolling Stone and a heckler can be clearly heard shouting "Judas!" towards Dylan; it's greeted by a round of applause. The band begins to play and Dylan - as if speaking directly to the shouter - says "I don't believe you" and "you're a liar" before turning to the band and saying "Play it fucking loud!"

And they do.

That version of Like A Rolling Stone might be the greatest live performance or any song to ever be recorded. Dylan shouts each put-down with such sheer ferocity you can practically see the words leaving his mouth like venom; he knows who he's singing to. It's the people who paid to see him that night.

Release date: 09/12/02
Artist website: www.bobdylan.com
Label: Columbia

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