Musicians:
Continue reading June 29: Bob Dylan – Hyde Park, London, England 1996 (Videos)
On the 15th, Dylan plays his first London concert in 12 years, enough of an event to warrant TV coverage on both the ITN and BBC News. He plays a standard set, with “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” in the “variation slot.” The reviews, though, are anything but standard. The Daily lvlail headline says “The Greatest Concert I Have Ever Seen,” the London Times reviewer writes, “One of the best [concerts] to happen in London for years,” and even The Sun admits, “Dylan lives up to his legend.” In its next edition, Melody Maker includes an eight-page pull-out special comprising four reviews of the show.
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: A Life in Stolen Moments Day by Day 1941-1995)
The final show of the 1966 world tour. Thankfully the entire acoustic half has emerged on acetate. CBS in fact recorded both nights at the Royal Albert Hall for a possible live album. Before performing “Visions of Johanna,” Dylan launches into a verbal attack on those critics who accuse him of writing drug songs, informing them the next song, “is not a drurg [sic} song. It’s just vulgar to think so.” But the highlight of this, the final 1966 acoustic set is a six-and-a-half minute “Just Like a Woman,” Dylan veering in and out of control of his phrasing. During the electric set, tempers, both on and offrhe stage, become frayed. Before “I Don’t Believe You,” Dylan announces, “I get accused of dismissing my old songs. That’s not true. I luuurve my old songs.” At the time critics are divided as to the merits of the two London shows. Ray Coleman, in Disc and Music Echo, felt that Dylan, “insults his own talents … [with} a shamble of noise.” The London Times reviewer, writing up the first London show, much preferred the acoustic set, entitling his article, “The Better Half of Dylan.” After Dylan· s motorcycle accident, though, the shows will quickly achieve mythic status.
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: A Life in Stolen Moments Day by Day 1941-1995
Musicians:
The last three songs of the May 27 acoustic set at Royal Albert Hall are good enough to stand next to the best work of any twentieth century artist (performer, painter, poet, mathematician… )
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan Performing Artist I: The Early Years 1960-1973)
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
It’s now also released officially in The 1966 Live Recordings Box-set (disc 30).
Musicians:
Continue reading May 26: Bob Dylan & The Hawks in London 1966
–
Check out:
-Egil