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Tuesday, August 27, 2024

RAY PADGETT’S NEWSLETTER : FLAGGIN' DOWN THE DOUBLE Es

Bob Dylan at Massey Hall, 1964-2023

"Tell 'em all they can meet me over at Massey Hall"

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Photo via @mkyeg

Our (very) occasional series Venue Spotlight returns today for its third instalment! After entries on Nashville’s Ryman AuditoriumSt. Louis’s Fabulous Fox, and then a year-plus break, today we tackle another historic room Dylan has played a number of times: Toronto’s Massey Hall.

As of 2005 at least (when Brady Leyser published Bob Dylan Live in Canada: A Concert History, which I’ve used a lot for research for this), Dylan had played Massey Hall more times than anywhere else in Canada. That may or may not still be true, but I’d wager the following definitely is: He’s played the venue over a wider time span than anywhere else in Canada. His first show there was 1964. His most recent was 2023. That’s almost sixty years of Massey Hall shows. I doubt many other rooms could compete with that (the Royal Albert Hall will also reach 59 years of Bob shows this fall).

I’ve never been to Massey Hall myself, so, to explain what seeing a show there is like, let me quote from Rob Bowman’s forward to the book That Night at Massey Hall:

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