Expecting Rain

I'd rather see Bob in 2012, because he'd have more songs to select from for the show and better skills at playing with a group than he did in 1966. I'm satisfied experiencing 1966 in recorded form.

With all due respect, HA, Bob in 2012 is unlistenable compared to 1966, without even mentioning the historical significance of his going electric. I'm sure you'd agree. I'd take one song over a complete 2012 performance. You're telling me you'd rather attend a current show than witness an acoustic Visions of Johanna from 1966? Ah, I don't believe you! You're a liar!

I would think so. And Levon could also have regaled them with tales of his stint working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, after he quit the tour, depressed at the continually hostile US audience reaction, in October 1965.

Most fans at the '66 shows were probably wishing they were at a '64 or '65 show. Dylan fans haven't changed much over the years.

If this poll proves anything, it's that more Dylan fans are fantasists than realists. They'd rather have something they can never have than something they might have. (They eat, but are not satisfied.) As I said elsewhere, most Dylan fans are twats; this poll does nothing to alter that view.

If this thread has shown any one poster to be a twat, it's you mate.

It seems odd to want to witness an event where you will know exactly what is going to happen. I simply can't see the appeal. As Albert said, we have the recordings from '66: why aren't we satisfied with that?

If I was to be sent back in time to a Dylan show, I'd like it to be one I've not heard before. But even then my experience of it would be affected by my knowledge of Dylan's career.

Bring on 2012, I say. The future is much more exciting than the past!

Past, present and future all co-exist. You cannot stay at the front rail of now. Chasing that thrill is attempting to catch water in a net. Or NET.

Rather, why not realise that 46 years is but the wing beat of an insect in amber?

To remove any unfair prejudice against attending a 1966 concert on the grounds that you have seen the footage, heard the recordings and know chapter and verse on them, you'd be going into your concert with no knowledge of what was about to unfold. You'd be in the present, just as you would in 2012, with only 1966's past as a pointer. So you've never heard Visions of Johanna, Just Like a Woman, Fourth Time Around, Leopard Skin-Pillbox Hat, Tell Me Momma until this very night, got it?

That's a quotable phrase, right there. Bb!

I guess I just don't care enough about Dylan or his music to jump through the mental hoops conditioning this question. I vividly recall the first time I heard the Manchester 1966 bootleg on the radio (WBCN-FM) around 1970, the first time I heard Like A Rolling Stone the day it was released in 1965, the day I bought Blonde on Blonde with paper route money in 1966. I know that music very well. I was 12 years old in 1966, so my parents won't let me go to a rock concert anyway and I don't get to do drugs even if I go. On the other hand, there is an accumulated grandeur in Dylan's work by 2012 that must inform any contemporary experience of his performance, no matter how badly he might sing, and that interests me more than the false naivete of time-travel. I like being old, don't want to return to my youth or anyone else's youth. I would learn more today out of being surprised and pleased with even one song by Bob in 2012 than I would by having my bias, and almost everyone else's bias, about Dylan's legendary peak confirmed by revisiting 1966.

One person yells 'Judas' at an opportune moment where it gets recorded and becomes historical. Some people yell 'boo'. Some people leave the show early. Somehow the entire crowd, and perhaps the entire generation, gets associated with and becomes responsible for the negativity.

Distantly similar is the same reaction(s) by some who cried about a few Mark Knopfler fans exiting the show early this past Fall. Funny how some folks choose to lump others together indiscriminately forming their own biased conclusions or attack others because they feel a certain way about something.

People continue to have a right to their own opinions. Seems pretty basic.

Nice post. WBCN? A Boston boy!

This is exactly right.

It is worth pointing out that those who dislike Dylan now and want to go back in time to see old shows as if they were new to them would in fact be exactly the type of audience members who would boo because Dylan wasn't playing like he was the last time they saw him.

When Dylan is dead and all his music is out of copyright his legacy will be preserved in aspic or as benny says in amber. Until then, time is a jet plane that moves too fast. If Dylan is playing near your town next year, I suggest you go see him. he ain't a museum piece yet, however much as benny and the troll would like him to be.

When Dylan is dead they'll remember 1966 ahead of 2012, and around 40 other years. If you're a Dylan fan that would really rather see him now than in 1966, you 'want shooting'. And for those that don't 'care enough about Dylan', that's all we need to know, thanks.

In 1966 my parents haven't been met yet, and, besides, it was the Iron Curtain Soviet Union, so they hardly could understand who that Dylan was.
But by other hand, what can i see and hear if i go to a show in 2012? I've already seen and heard it four years ago. An old gentleman behind the keybord reciting his lyrics by music. Yes, he still have that thing inside called charisma.
So i prefer the 3-th option: I don't go anywhere. I don't go to the 2012 show because i don't want to be disappointed again, and i don't go to the 1966 show because i just can't.
But, of course if i could and besides if i was younger than now, 22 o 23 y.o. ... so i voted for the first option.

this... well said

You can go, Sonia. We make up the rules here. If you want '66 it's yours. You won't be embarrassed listening to Visions and Just Like a Woman performed by a young man, within weeks of his having written those immortal songs, either. See, back then, he had a voice.

So which is it?

Why start a topic asking for people's opinions & then act like there's a "right" answer?

Is that all you got, when you should be talking up Levon's first-hand experience of the 1966 World Tour, from the intimate, close-up and personal perspective of an oil rig in the Gulf if Mexico?

Is that all you got??? I decided to be a nice guy & drop the subject of Levon so you could stop looking like a fool in front of 23,000 ER members & other assorted lurkers. The notion that the other members of the Band would never have discussed the 1966 tour with Levon is one of the most absurd premises I've ever seen put forth here.

Learn to read what's been written, as opposed to what you wish had been written, in an effort to prop up a flaky argument. Levon copped out, he wasn't there, not because the acoustics were bad but because the audiences were as hostile to those performances in the US as they would be when the tour hit the UK. Your argument that the UK audiences were somehow out of step with their US equivalent is therefore tosh. His UK fanbase has generally been more savvy, anyway, and let's face it, the signal performing moments of his career happened here. Remind me where Don't Look Back, Eat the Document were filmed, and what Scorsese relied on, for the spine of No Direction Home. Clearly, Dylan knew where he wanted to be enshrined on film, at the peak of his career, too.

And when Dylan dies, let's see if the news channels lead with footage from an ER era, 1991-2012 concert, too demonstrate his greatness, shall we guys?

So, it looks like you had your mind made up before you started this thread. You're responses have turned a bit...... hostile. Going forward, don't bother.

I can read just fine. I question your reading comprehension skills. First of all, I voted for 1966. Second, my point was that the US audiences were booing bad sound, while the UK audiences were booing the fact that he went electric. Your premise is that Levon Helm could not have formed an opinion on the latter coz he wasn't there & never woulda discussed it with the other members of the Band over the next 10 years they were together. That's preposterous. Especially with one of those guys being Robbie, who loved to embellish his role in rock-n-roll history. Robbie probably couldn't even go take a crap in a hotel without telling the towel valet all about being part of one of the most historic concert tours in the history of pop music.

Of course I favour 1966. As for hostiity, did you have to delete a post of mine wherein I invited another poster to swallow cyanide and a hand grenade?

It depends on country. If some Russian mass media will decide to mention it, it would be a few pictures from the St-Petersbourg show. People of my age and older people mostly prefer the music that we can understand with our poor English or without any English. And younger people prefer younger musicians. There are some Dylan fans, there are some Cohen fans (maybe much more than us), but normally they prefer The Beatles and The Led Zeppelin... and some strange bands like The Nasareth, do you ever heard about them?
So when i was 17, i only seen the young Bob Dylan in the "Imagine. John Lennon" movie, and when I was reading about the Beatles meeting Dylan, i imagined the picture from "Oh Mercy!" period pinned up above my bed.