Bob Dylan’s “Royal Albert Hall” concert (which actually took place at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall) is one of those seminal moments in music history that has gone down as legend. Think The Beatles’ or Elvis’ first appearances on Ed Sullivan’s stage, or Dylan’s own electric coming out at the Newport Folk Festival.
The “Royal Albert Hall” show was just one stop on that year’s tour, but the shout of “Judas!” by a fan toward the end of the show turned this particular show into an encapsulation of the atmosphere that surrounded Dylan as he embarked on this new leg of his career.
That Dylan had gone electric was certainly not a surprise at this point, so you have to wonder if fans were turning out at his shows in part to register their disapproval. And, perhaps with that in mind, Dylan structured the concert in a way that deliberately played with people’s expectations.
The first half of the show featured just Dylan himself on guitar and harmonica, gracefully exploring seven of his most enduring classics. What’s remarkable about those performances is how respectfully silent the audience is… it’s as intimate a setting as you can imagine.
Then he emerged for the concert’s second half, backed by The Hawks (who later became The Band), and tore through blistering renditions of eight more songs. And just as suddenly, that reverential audience is clapping over his words, booing and screaming out taunts. It’s as if performer and audience are both playing parts in a bizarre portrait of dual personality.
‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ is the track that closes the first half of the show and it contains some of the most sublime work of the night. Todd Haynes chose the closing harmonica solo of this performance to finish his excellent Dylan movie I’m Not There. It’s the only footage of the real Dylan in that whole film, and it’s a powerful moment.
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
Though I know that evenin’s empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping
My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip
My toes too numb to step
Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
Though you might hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun
It’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin’
And if you hear vague traces of skippin’ reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it’s just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn’t pay it any mind
It’s just a shadow you’re seein’ that he’s chasing
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
Meet Me In Montauk 
As much as the story of this concert has been spun by Dylan fans as a portrait of rude and disrespectful fans who just “didn’t get” or appreciate Dylan’s hardened electric sound, I can’t really say that, if I had gone to see this concert tour and was hoping to have the majority of the show be the acoustic Dylan I had come to adore, I too wouldn’t have been booing, or, more likely, would just walked out.
Indeed, we had a very similar experience seeing Harry Connick,,Jr. years ago. With Connick, we had taken my mom to the show and we were expecting wonderfully performed standards and jazz numbers. Instead, what we got was a steady diet of Connick sounding more like AC/DC as he tried to flex his rock muscles. We tried to suffer through the first few songs, waiting for the real Connick to kick in, but it didn’t seem that it was going to happen. So, feeling the clear uncomfortableness of my mother, and, frankly, not enjoying it ourselves, we left. I don’t recall the audience booing or being disrespectful, but the stunned faces of those roaming the halls suggested that we were not alone in our dismay. We later learned that, at some point, Connick mellowed out and played the kind of stuff we would have wanted to hear. Oh, well. Maybe we pulled the plug to soon.
So I guess my point is that sometimes you just want to hear the sound of the artist you fell in love with, not the “new” sound he is trying to shove down your throat (or eardrums). I suspect that, as will Connick, had Dylan been willing to pepper this concert with his “new” sound in between the acoustics, the audience would have stayed with him. What he did instead was far more selfish and self serving, far more in your face, which may align with the image of rock as revolution and pushing the extremes, but it makes for an uncomfortable event.
Ironically, one of my other worst concert experiences occurred when I went to see Dylan himself in Gainesville in the late 80’s or maybe early 90’s. He was backed by GE Smith. His voice was fairly awful and the sound was heavy, cluttered and just plain bad. I didn’t walk out, nor did I boo, but all I could think about was how much I wished I had been able to see Dylan in the mid 70’s.
Anyway, as for today’s song–this is a lovely version, and at least Dylan had the decency to warm the crowd up with the acoustic set before slamming them with the electric sound:)
You weren’t expecting Connick to imitate AC/DC, though, were you? I suspect you wouldn’t have gone if you were.
I have to believe many of the fans at this concert knew exactly what they were going to get (he’d gone electric well before this tour). I’m guessing many went in wanting to voice their protest, as opposed to being unpleasantly surprised.
I don’t know, perhaps you have read something to lead you to believe this? I suspect that, particularly in the 60’s, English fans of Dylan may not have been so keyed into the whole “going electric” controversy. Perhaps there were a handful in the audience who went in with some agenda to protest the new sound, but I suspect the vast majority of those who booed just didn’t like what they were hearing. I’ve only heard parts of the electric portion of the concert featured in the documentary, but, quite frankly, it didn’t sound that great to me either. And I may be getting this wrong, but wasn’t Dylan himself not thrilled with the sound mix? I thought that was referenced in the documentary. I’m going to assume that tomorrow’s SOTD will feature an electric number? I’m curious if you find the electric set to be good, particularly since, at least until now, you have really only featured the acoustic set.
And again, I think that most of those in the crowd would have reacted far better if Dylan had mixed in the electric with the acoustic, rather than diving into a full electric set. I know I, for one, would have sat through more of Connick if he had given me a “little bit of this and a whole lot of that” rather than front loading the heavy and less familiar material upfront.
Well, I just did a little bit of reading and it seems to support your argument. While Dylan had released a string of electric hits, audiences in Britain were a bit behind and still focusing on his earlier material. Also, as you mentioned, the sound system wasn’t good in the performance hall, so the audience was hearing a much more muddled version than we hear on record, and were in part objecting to that.
I do prefer the acoustic half of the concert to the electric one. I find the former practically transcendent while the latter is brash and exciting but not as special. The second half does have some great performances, though, including ‘Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat’ (one of my favorite Dylan songs), ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues’ and tomorrow’s song.
I happened to have been talking to Ned after writing my last post, so I asked him what he thought. He recalled the Pete Seger pulling the wires at Newport because the sound was so terrible. Ned’s view was that the audience objection was because the mix was just so awful. He also pointed out that most of these venues on that tour were simply not equipped to handle a full band sound mix, which was still relatively new at the time, not just for Dylan, but for nearly every stage act. He also mentioned that, in addition to the amplification to the audience issues, there was also a real issue with the monitors for the musicians’ benefits. Basically, they had trouble hearing each other and what they were playing in those days.
Of course none of this explains the garbage I heard in the O’Dome in the 80’s:)
The song that sent Jason home 😦
Miss me? 😉