The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert
| The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert | |||||
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| Live album by Bob Dylan | |||||
| Released | October 13, 1998 | ||||
| Recorded | May 17, 1966 | ||||
| Genre | Rock, folk rock, blues rock | ||||
| Length | 95:18 | ||||
| Label | Columbia | ||||
| Producer | Jeff Rosen | ||||
| Bob Dylan chronology | |||||
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| Bob Dylan Bootleg Series chronology | |||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |  |
| Robert Christgau | B+ |
| Rolling Stone |  |
| Pitchfork Media | 10/10 |
Live 1966: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert is a two-disc live album by Bob Dylan, released in 1998. It was recorded at the Manchester Free Trade Hall during Dylan's world tour in 1966, hence the quotation marks around the false attribution to the Royal Albert Hall. Extensively bootlegged for decades, it is an important document in the development of popular music during the 1960s.
The setlist consisted of two parts, with the first half of the concert being Dylan alone on stage performing an entirely acoustic set of songs, while the second half of the concert has Dylan playing an "electric" set of songs alongside his band the Hawks. The first half of the concert was greeted warmly by the audience, while the second half was highly criticized, with heckling going on before and after each song.
After touring North America from the fall of 1965 through the winter of 1966, Dylan, accompanied by the Hawks (later renamed the Band), embarked on a six-week spring tour that began in Australia, wound through western Europe, Ireland and the United Kingdom, and wrapped up in London. Dylan's move to electric music, and his apparent disconnection from traditional folk music, continued to be controversial, and his UK audiences were particularly disruptive with some fans believing Dylan had "sold out".
The electric part of this concert first surfaced in late 1970 or early 1971 on bootleg LPs with various titles. On June 3, 1971, critic Dave Marsh reviewed one bootleg in Creem magazine, writing "It is the most supremely elegant piece of rock 'n' roll music I've ever heard...The extreme subtlety of the music is so closely interwoven with its majesty that they appear as one and the same."
The same month, critic Jon Landau reviewed another edition of the concert:
The early bootleg LPs attributed the recording to one of Dylan's tour-closing concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall that was also recorded, as was a show in Liverpool (May 14), supervised by Dylan producer Bob Johnston. However, Dylan's now-legendary confrontation with a heckler calling out "Judas" from the audience, clearly heard on the recording, was well documented as having occurred at Manchester's Free Trade Hall on May 17, 1966. After "Judas!", there is clapping, followed by more heckles. Dylan then says "I don't believe you", then after a pause, "You're a liar." Bob Dylan then said to his band, "play it fuckin' loud" as they begin "Like a Rolling Stone." At the end, the audience erupts into applause and Dylan says, "Thank you."
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