46 LIFE BOB DYLAN
been gigging with—the guitarist Robbie Robertson and the
drummer Levon Helm. He warned his associates before tak-
ing the stage at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium on August 28
that the reaction might be less than friendly. Daniel Kramer,
who was there, later remembered: “Dylan held a conference
with the musicians who were going to accompany him in
the second half of the concert. He told them they should
expect anything to happen—he probably was remembering
what occurred at Newport. He told them that the audience
might yell and boo, and that they should not be bothered by
it. Their job was to make the best music they were capable of,
and let whatever happened happen.”
It happened, pretty much as it had at Newport. A con-
temporaneous report from Variety: “Bob Dylan split 15,000
of his fans down the middle at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium
Sunday night... The most influential writer-performer
on the pop music scene during the past decade, Dylan has
apparently evolved too fast for some of his young followers,
who are ready for radical changes in practically everything
else... repeating the same scene that occurred during his
performance at the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan deliv-
ered a round of folk-rock songs but had to pound his mate-
rial against a hostile wall of anti-claquers, some of whom
berated him for betraying the cause of folk music.”
Six days after the New York show, the reception was
somewhat warmer out in laid back La La Land during a con-
cert at the Hollywood Bowl, but the next year in England,
now playing with four-fifths of what would become the
Band (Levon Helm stayed home), hostility raised its headTWO MORE PHOTOS FROM 1965. IN THE
one below, Dylan displays cards with lyrics
from “Subterranean Homesick Blues” for the
camera of D.A. Pennebaker, who is filming
what will become the opening sequence of
his documentary Dont Look Back. Opposite:
Peter Yarrow, Dylan and John Hammond Jr.
hail a cab in New York City.night after night. It was almost as if Dylan were courting
complaint and controversy. Rather than just play an electric
tour, where presumably the fans would know what they were
paying for and could either show up or not, he repeated this
format of opening the show with a folk guitar and harmon-
ica, then switching to the rock-band numbers just as soon
as he had the older fans swaying and smiling blissfully. Was
he trying to upset them? Well, this was Bob Dylan, wasn’t it?
This push and pull—this teasing and taunting, this pleasing
the audience and then pissing it off—would reach a legend-
ary (not to say, biblical) climax on May 17, 1966, late during a
concert at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England.
A man in the audience shouts to the stage, “Judas!”TONY FRANK/SYGMA/GETTY
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