FOMM: Route 66 Revisited

Wednesday was Bob Dylan's 66th birthday, so I'm going back into my archives for the final four songs he performed with the Hawks (l.k.a. The Band) at London's Royal Albert Hall on May 26th, 1966.

As most Dylanologists know, the heavily bootlegged "Royal Albert Hall" Concert released as the Live 1966 album was actually the Manchester show on May 17th. These tracks are from the actual Royal Albert Hall show on May 26th, from the "Genuine Royal Albert Hall Concert" bootleg, part of the 8-CD Genuine Live '66 box set that I have on a single mp3 CD. And if you can't trust a bootleg, who can you trust?

The major difference between the real Royal Albert Hall show and the Manchester "Royal Albert Hall" show is that nobody yells "Judas" after "Ballad of a Thin Man". Eight hours of live Bob Dylan is a lot to plow through, especially since they didn't change the setlists during the tour, so you get multiple versions of the same 8-10 songs . Even listening to this on shuffle play gets to be a chore after listening to "4th Time Around" for the fourth time around. But I could hear Bob play these four songs with the Hawks four hundred times without getting tired of them!

Bob Dylan & the Hawks
(from The Royal Albert Hall, London, 05/26/66)
Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat
One Too Many Mornings
Ballad of a Thin Man
Like a Rolling Stone

Note about the songs: Since some people expressed concerns about eSnips (the clunky interface, inability to play or download on a Mac, etc.), I'm going to follow Jeff's lead and start sharing songs via divshare. This has a similar interface to eSnips (you can to play songs online before downloading, but can't link directly to mp3s), but not so much of the downsides. You don't need to register to upload files, but anonymous uploads are only available for one week before they're deleted. Which is ideal for me. Let me know, via comments or email, how the service works for you, and don't forget to download files promptly before they disappear.

This concert was 41 years ago, and I'm 41 years old, so I was less than one year old when it happened. And Bob Dylan was born in 1941, so he was 25 when he played this show. 25 is also the sum of the digits in the date of the concert (05/26/66) . There's probably something happening here but I don't know what it is, so I'll take my milk and go home.