Highly-strung: When Bob Dylan played tennis against The Beatles
Could you imagine putting together an all-star squad of rock stars for a football team, or rugby, or anything else? Regardless of the eventual scoreline, it certainly would make for interesting entertainment. Inevitably, tensions would flare, one rival would attempt a knockout tackle on another, and generally, it wouldn’t be pretty. You can’t picture Bob Dylan ever being much into team sports, but he did bizarrely once indulge in a game across the grass court with a star-studded opponent.
But although a game of tennis with The Beatles might have seemed all fun an frivolity on the surface, the reality of the match came with an undercurrent of tensions for both parties, firstly in the state of Dylan’s personal career and then in the future of the Fab Four as a whole, as they stared down the barrel of the end of their days as the biggest band to ever grace the world.
It was 1969 – certainly a year for unlikely sightings, between a man on the moon and two rock stars playing tennis. Dylan was only just emerging back into the public consciousness again after his mysterious motorcycle accident of three years prior had seen him retreat into reclusiveness for some time. Over in The Beatles’ camp, things weren’t much rosier, with the quartet realising the inevitability of the end of their days, and rounding out the last of their discography as a collective to boot.
But what exactly brought this group of troubled stars together on the tennis court, of all places? The answer was the second ever Isle of Wight Festival, which, despite its humble beginnings, evidently brought the brightest lights from all over the world to one remote island to perform of a lifetime.
Apart from the tennis match itself, the setting was perhaps the oddest thing about this entire affair, as no one was quite sure – the festival organisers included – how exactly they had managed to reel in such massive acts to the coastal island. Indeed, the set would mark an extremely significant moment for Dylan, signalling his first public performance since 1966. For what it’s worth, his comeback gig had been eyed for Woodstock, but following an argument with its organisers, he opted for the second choice on the Isle of Wight.
The Beatles, of course, were there in a purely spectatorial capacity, as they had given up the performing roadshow some years prior to that. But the fact they had decided to come along to watch the show among 150,000 punters – in which The Doors played a moody set following Jim Morrison’s release from prison, and Jimi Hendrix gave his final ever performance, as he died just 18 days later – spoke to the gravity of what this festival set out to achieve and what it would transform into.
Given the backdrop of all that was going on behind the scenes, you could say the game of tennis was symbolic of both The Beatles’ and Dylan’s highly-strung nature. Like a scene out of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, the most seemingly mundane circumstances for a few rallies could result in the most cataclysmic effects, but this time playing out on the world’s stage. Thankfully, it didn’t, but it certainly would have been fascinating to see who emerged victorious in that game, set, and match.
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