Bob Dylan's Performance
Thanks to rumours that one or all of The Beatles would be joining him on stage, Dylan's comeback show had now been, in the words of music journalist John Harris, "inflated into the gig of the decade". On 31 August, a nervous Bob Dylan arrived on stage in a cream suit recalling Hank Williams, with a haircut and a short beard. Backed by The Band, he performed recent pieces from his Nashville Skyline and John Wesley Harding albums as well as countryfied versions of earlier songs such as "Maggie's Farm", "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Like a Rolling Stone" − much to the surprise and consternation of the audience and the throng of journalists. Levon Helm later commented: "Bob had an extra list of songs with about eight or ten different titles ... that we would've gone ahead and done had it seemed like the right thing to do. But it seemed like everyone was a bit tired ... the festival was three days old by then."
John Lennon opined that Dylan's performance was reasonable, though slightly flat; and that the audience was "waiting for Godot or Jesus". Eric Clapton was mesmerized, however, having already been inspired back to blues and country post-Cream by Dylan's change of musical direction and by The Band's album Music From Big Pink. "Dylan was fantastic," Clapton later said. "He changed everything ... couldn't understand it. You had to be a musician to understand it." Another vocal champion of The Band and avowed Dylan fan, George Harrison wrote a country song inspired by the event and dedicated to Dylan, "Behind That Locked Door", later released on his All Things Must Pass triple album. Folk singer Tom Paxton has referred to the "negative reaction in the British press", including "downright fabrications: like saying he had run off stage half-way through. ... I went with him and The Beatles to the farmhouse where he was clearly in a merry mood because he had felt it had gone so well ... The Beatles had brought a test pressing of Abbey Road and we listened to it and had quite a party."
Dylan's setlist was as follows:
- She Belongs To Me*
- I Threw It All Away
- Maggie's Farm
- Wild Mountain Thyme
- It Ain't Me Babe
- To Ramona
- Mr. Tambourine Man
- I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
- Lay Lady Lay
- Highway 61 Revisited
- One Too Many Mornings
- I Pity The Poor Immigrant
- Like A Rolling Stone*
- I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
- The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo)*
- Minstrel Boy*
- Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35
- Live recordings of these performances were included on Dylan's 1970 album Self Portrait.
Read more about this topic: Isle Of Wight Festival 1969
Famous quotes containing the words bob dylan, bob, dylan and/or performance:
“They’ll stone you when you’re riding in your car.
They’ll stone you when you’re playing your guitar.
Yes, but I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“It was because of me. Rumors reached Inman that I had made a deal with Bob Dole whereby Dole would fill a paper sack full of doggie poo, set it on fire, put it on Inman’s porch, ring the doorbell, and then we would hide in the bushes and giggle when Inman came to stamp out the fire. I am not proud of this. But this is what we do in journalism.”
—Roger Simon, U.S. syndicated columnist. Quoted in Newsweek, p. 15 (January 31, 1990)
“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“The audience is the most revered member of the theater. Without an audience there is no theater. Every technique learned by the actor, every curtain, every flat on the stage, every careful analysis by the director, every coordinated scene, is for the enjoyment of the audience. They are our guests, our evaluators, and the last spoke in the wheel which can then begin to roll. They make the performance meaningful.”
—Viola Spolin (b. 1911)