portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

BOB DYLAN

in SCOTLAND 1966

All this below from one of my favourite Facebook sites and publisher ROUTE (@Routebook) I have bought their book on Fairport Convention and they are just a brilliant publisher of music books
Route books stack up nicely. Route online . . .


On this day in 1966, Bob Dylan and the Hawks played the ABC Theatre, Edinburgh. A reviewer for the Daily Mail complained, ‘Throughout his performance Dylan repeatedly turned his back on the audience and posed for his personal cine photographers.’ On the tour, Dylan was making a documentary commissioned for Stage 66, an ABC TV series due to be broadcast that autumn. When Dylan crashed out, that deadline was missed, but the resulting footage saw the light of day in Eat The Document, a film Dylan edited with his friend Howard Alk after dismissing D.A. Pennebaker’s original edit as being too much like the previous year’s film, Don’t Look Back. It’s clear from Eat The Document that Bob was not interested in a straight concert film. Pennebaker was concerned Dylan was too focused on making a home movie and to his eternal credit, while Bob was on stage, Pennebaker did capture a lot of stunning concert footage. With the original rushes now safely archived at The Bob Dylan Centre at Tulsa, it’s only a matter of time before we get to see it in its glory. In the meantime, Swingin’ Pig has patiently pulled together the as-yet released footage (from Eat The Document, No Direction Home and other snippets) into a 48 minute film of concert footage, following the same set list that Bob performed each and every night. #Dylan66 #JUDAS
Read more about the whole tour in JUDAS! by Clinton Heylin: http://www.route-online.com/all-books/judas.html
You can see Eat the Document here: https://youtu.be/Ae-cXZYaKPs
And here’s the Swingin’ Pig concert film. 

The Best of Elston Gunn in 1966 from Swingin’ Pig on Vimeo.

On this day in 1966, Bob Dylan and the Hawks played the Odeon Theatre, Glasgow. The previous day had been concert free, so Bob did some filming for the documentary he’d promised ABC. They filmed a jam session in his room at the North British Station Hotel, on George Square, and went out to watch a police dog display and a marching band of pipers. The songs they played in the hotel room were new compositions, possibly for a new record that never saw the light of day. After the tour Bob went home and crashed, literally. 

At the Odeon on the 19th May, it was the usual confrontation with the audience. Before Like A Rolling Stone, the crowd were chanting for ‘the real Bob Dylan’. Bob replied, ‘He couldn’t make it through the second half. Bob Dylan got very sick backstage and I’m here to take his place.’ The animosity spilled over into the North British Station Hotel. A waiter arrived at the door bringing food and suddenly screamed at Dylan, accusing him of being ‘a traitor to folk music’. Dylan’s driver-bodyguard Tom Keylock – on loan from the Rolling Stones after Bob’s regular helper Victor Maymudes had left the tour – quickly bundled the man out of the room. He recalled: ‘He pulls a knife on me. I’ve still got the scar to prove it. So I gave him a good kicking.' The band’s tour bus was also attacked. Barry Feinstein recalled that a girl fan punched Bob in the face. Welcome to Glasgow! #Dylan66 #JUDAS

Here are the songs recorded at the North British Station Hotel






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