Dylan '66 : Bob Dylan & The Hawks, Royal Albert Hall, London (GB) - May 27, 1966

This was at the end of Dylan’s controversial ‘Judas’ tour, so-named because someone in the audience at Manchester accused him of the great betrayal of genuine, non-commercial, acoustic folk music. And, here, in London, quite a few people walked out in the second half of the concert. This is difficult to understand for the rigid distinctions that were maintained between genres at that time, with their subcultural underpinnings, substantially disappeared in later years. The first half was Dylan, guitar and harmonica, in the main singing numbers from his Bringing It All Back Home album. Then, after the interval, the band that came on to accompany him seemed almost an old-style American rock ‘n’ roll band and they played stuff from the Blonde on Blonde album. Raucous and loud, the antithesis of the folk aesthetic. Of course, The Hawks went on to be The Band, one of the greatest rock bands ever, but we didn’t perceive this then. They were: Jaime Robbie Robertson guitar, Richard Mañuel piano, Garth Hudson organ/keyboards, Rick Danko bass guitar and Mickey Jones drums (Levon Helm not making the trip).