Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert

LIVE 1966... includes a 56-page booklet filled with rare photographs.
Personnel: Bob Dylan (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, harmonica, piano); Robbie Roberston (guitar); Richard Manuel (piano); Garth Hudson (organ); Rick Danko (bass, background vocals); Mickey Jones (drums).
Recorded live at the Manchester Free Hall, Manchester, England on May 17, 1966.
Includes liner notes by Tony Glover.
A bootleg so legendary its incorrect origin graces the title of the official release, the Manchester-recorded "ROYAL ALBERT HALL" CONCERT documents one of rock and roll's watershed moments. The folk prophet's embrace of electricity in the face of his audience's dissatisfaction with such a decision is among the finest rock myths. This performance, recorded in the last days of Dylan's epochal 1965-66 world tour, proves the music he was creating at the time every bit as extraordinary and complex as the greatest art of the 20th century; Picasso, Joyce, and Kurosawa spring to mind much faster than any popular musicians.
The show's first half consists of folkie-friendly acoustic tunes--though one wonders what stringent folkies made of the hallucinatory wordplay of "Desolation Row." When the Hawks join him onstage, the calm atmosphere becomes a deafening din, as coffeehouse introspection dresses up in garage amps turned to eleven, treating the stale traditionalists to a post-modern hootenanny. Robbie Robertson and Dylan trade electric guitar catcalls, like gunslingers grazing each other with bullets just for fun. Garth Hudson's organ rolls out a juke-joint groove. And the bard delivers a batch of songs bursting with ideas of self-identity and social existence that are, even today, standard-bearers.