Music Arcades: Bob Dylan: Live 1966 - the "Royal Albert Hall" Concert

Happy New Year, and all that!

But excuse me if I seem distracted, because I've got a couple of things to get off my chest.

First, hindsight. Forty something years on, everyone knows that Dylan going electric was a Good Thing, and that the people who were booing and slow-handclapping were a bunch of old fuddy-duddies. No one seems to imagine that they might have been one of those tweed-clad pipe-smoking communists who sought to defy the March of Progress. Well, I have a strong suspicion that I might have been one of them. That would be just like me. In fact, I think I still prefer the acoustic CD out of these two. The songs are better, apart from Just Like a Woman, and even that is the best version I've heard of a shit song (Bob's worst ever? I think it may be, unless you're going to tell me there's something worse on Empire Burlesque or Down in the Groove, which I guess there may be).

Second, mythology. For just a year or two in the mid-'80s I subscribed to The Telegraph, and way back then I'm sure there was a story by someone who'd slowed down and cranked up the volume on the infamous "Judas" incident. And he argued that Bob's response, "I don't believe you… you're a liar", was not directed at the guy who shouted "Judas" but at one of the slightly quieter yells that follows: specifically something like, "Bob Dylan the greatest living poet since Dylan Thomas". It's difficult to make out the exact words, but if you listen to the CD (or even to the old cassette bootleg I got 20 years ago) you can clearly hear something along those lines. Now I don't know for sure who Bob thought he was replying (I know he won't tell, because he knows the value of myth and mystery better than anyone), but that theory always kind of made sense to me. I mean, "you're a liar" isn't a very coherent or smart answer to someone calling you a name. And obviously this has occurred to many people. But no one seems to want to question the Authorised Version, because I guess it's more dramatic. Maybe it doesn't matter. Clearly, it doesn't matter that much. But it still annoys me, especially when Andy Kershaw makes a radio programme based around tracking down the guy who shouted "Judas" (it turned out there were at least two who claimed to be the denouncer in question).

One evening at the RSA I bumped into Paul Gerhardt, who was then (and may still be, if it's still alive) leading the BBC's contribution to the Creative Archive, and said that he thought that the way that Bob and His People were managing the bootleg releases — drip-feeding them to an audience kept forever eager, and wrapping them with contextual material like Scorsese's film or the radio panel discussion — set the benchmark that others should aim for when exploiting archives in the 21st century. Judging by the way Neil Young seems to have been backing off a big band 32-CD release for his archives in favour of a trickle of one-off releases, perhaps he agrees.