In circulation from this show are three acoustic songs and three electric songs, part of the widely bootlegged Gelston acetates. Before “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” someone shouts something at Dylan, and he threatens, “Come up here and say that”” The offer is not taken up. Before a nine-minute “Like a Rolling Stone,” which Dylan dedicates to the Taj Mahal, he introduces the Hawks for the first and only time on the tour.
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: A Life in Stolen Moments Day by Day 1941-1995)
May 21: Bob Dylan Like A Rolling Stone, Newcastle, England 1966 (video)
And the gobsmacking footage of his performance in Newcastle a couple of days later, included entire on the No Direction Home DVD, proves no less maelstromic. Here we can see he is visibly speeding out of his brains and probably more than a little miffed that the Mr. Jones puffing on his pipe in the front row thinks he’s attending a poetry recital.
~Clinton Heylin (Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1973)
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Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
If not the best sounding recording, Liverpool is as good a performance of the electric set as you will find on the tour. Perhaps inspired by playing the hometown of the Fab Four, the band is tight and powerful. Dylan’s vocals, Robbie’s lead guitar playing and Garth’s erie B-3 all seem truly inspired.
~bobsboots.com
…… that they could go on stage in Liverpool in May 1966—the city that had so recently been the centre of the musical universe— and hurl at their audience rock music a thousand times more sublime, challenging, multi-layered and exciting than anything Liverpudlians had ever heard before? Impossible to say, but easy to prove. Play that night’s ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues’. By this point Dylan’s cawing voice and searing harmonica were both perfectly integrated instruments in amongst those of the Hawks, whose hardwon knowledge of each other’s playing freed them all to ride each moment in a ceaseless interchange of fiery, creative levitation.
~Michael Gray (BD Encyclopedia)
One of the best concerts I’ve heard from the 66-tour..
Dylan’s voice is extremely rough, but the performance, if anything, even more intense than the English shows
~Clinton Heylin (A Life In Stolen Moments)
Great 66 Show where Dylan sounds very stoned, and still brilliant.
For this show he uses a borrowed guitar, as his had been broken. When compared to the Sydney show, this performance is more laid back.
~bobsboots.com
“twice as good and four times as startling as Rubber Soul, with sound effects, Oriental drones, jazz bands, transcendentalist lyrics, all kinds of rhythmic and harmonic surprises, and a filter that made John Lennon sound like God singing through a foghorn.”
~Robert Christgau
….. Either way, its daring sonic adventures and consistently stunning songcraft set the standard for what pop/rock could achieve. Even after Sgt. Pepper, Revolver stands as the ultimate modern pop album and it’s still as emulated as it was upon its original release.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)
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