Bob Dylan World Tour 1966

The Bob Dylan World Tour 1966 was a series of concerts that American musician Bob Dylan gave during the period of February through May 1966. The 1966 World Tour would become noted as Dylan's first using amplified instruments and an R&B-style backing band. It would also become Dylan's last tour until his 1974 reunion with The Band.

The tour

Dylan and his backing group, The Hawks (later renamed The Band) gave concerts sporadically all over USA and Canada while "Blonde on Blonde" was still in the process of being recorded.Fact|date=July 2008 In April Dylan hade finished the sessions in the studio and could embark on the tour outside of North America.Fact|date=July 2008 The Tour was heavily bootlegged. Crowds were extremely polarized with either their opposition or support of Dylan's new musical direction.

Dylan started these concerts with an acoustic set, in which he even played some of his "electric" songs acoustic. In the second part of the concert he could, on the other side, play some of his older material in electric versions. But the bulk of the set was centered around Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited. The song "Tell Me, Momma", which opened the second half of the concert, was never released in a studio version. Dylan gave two concerts in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) before he flew to Scandinavia, where he played in Stockholm and Copenhagen. During the whole tour, Dylan also gave press conferences of sometimes almost surrealistic character.

The many recordings of these shows that Dylan could be a tough case for journalists with his odd answers and grumpy behaviour. After Scandinavia, Dylan toured all over The UK (including Northern Ireland) in May. He made a short trip to Paris before he finished the tour in London. A live bootleg album exsisted for many years before it was officially released as "". The undertitle in quotes, "The Royal Albert Hall Concert", referred to the fact that the tapes had been incorrectly labeled as having been recorded in London and not Manchester. During this concert, Dylan had an exchange of words with a member of the audience, who called him "Judas!" between two songs. Dylan answered back and called the man a "liar" before he asked the members of the band to "play it fuckin' loud" when they finished off the set with "Like a Rolling Stone".

Aftermath

Dylan had a lot of bookings for the rest of the year, including concerts. According to many sources, he felt the pressure on him very hard at this time in his life. Touring wasn't exactly healthy either, with lot of drugs and a "loose" lifestyle in general. Two months after the tour on July 29, 1966, while leaving manager Albert Grossman's estate, Dylan had a motorcycle accident. The extent of the singer's resulting injuries have never been fully clarified, but the artist would later cite as one of his main reasons for "dropping out" from the life as a popstar and celebrity for some years to come. Possibly taking a cue from Dylan, The Beatles (in August 1966) and The Rolling Stones (no tours between April 1967 and November 1969) stopped touring at roughly the same period. The lack of touring done by Dylan, The Beatles and The Stones was also seen by some as a sign of the pressure on the huge stars of the period.

Dylan continued act as a recording artist in the following years, and would occasionally play one-off type shows (usually festivals or large charity concerts, like the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival and George Harrison's 1971 Concert For Bangladesh). However, Dylan would refrain from touring until a series of high-profile concerts that reunited him with The Band in January, 1974.

External links

* [http://www.bjorner.com/DSN01225%20(66).htm] tour dates and set lists

References

*Howard Sounes: "Down the Highway. The Life of Bob Dylan.". 2001.