The day a gang of rockers tried to break up The Band’s first UK tour with Bob Dylan
Not everyone is going to go along with everything an artist does. For every great artist who is beloved the world over, there are always going to be a few people who would rather stick clothespins through their years than listen to one of their songs again. Although Bob Dylan practically fed off of going against the norm, his biggest change caused a few people to resort to violence when working with The Band.
But Dylan was no stranger to controversy during his prime, either. Even though the US was going through one of its most turbulent periods at the beginning of the civil rights movement, Dylan’s attempt to become a modern-day Woody Guthrie and sing about the horrors of the world was already earning him some dirty looks from those who thought he was promoting unpatriotic propaganda.
Then again, there was still a beauty to what he was doing. There were still a lot of people who were willing to jump on the rock and roll train, but what made Dylan work was that he didn’t have a set gimmick, usually saying what was on his mind and letting the audience make sense of it themselves.
When he did decide to pick up an electric guitar, fans were absolutely pissed off. This was supposed to be the person speaking for their generation, and yet here he was, playing the kind of teenybopper music that The Rolling Stones were used to playing. Even though ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ was still a classic, the fans were going to make Dylan pay for the treason that he committed on that stage.
And no one paid for it more than The Band when they first started. Despite being known as The Hawks when jamming with Dylan, their first official album, Music From Big Pink, was the moment they started to get treated more seriously by the masses. Since Dylan still refused to put down his electric guitar, though, some people were still looking to kick his ass when both acts reached England.
According to Robbie Robertson, though, rock and roll fans were coming in from the other direction, thinking Dylan was co-opting their sound, recalling, “When we came over here the first time, with Bob, a bunch of people came by the hotel – a bunch of rough-looking characters – and I don’t know what you call them but they were into pure rock ‘n’ roll. They didn’t like Bob’s music at all – they were giving me this whole story about giving up this Bob Dylan shit.”
Even if they didn’t realise what was happening at the time, Dylan had a firm idea of what he wanted to do. After all, the biggest names in rock and roll were mixing and matching different styles together, so what made it any different from him throwing in some electric guitars in between his blaring harmonica and songs about the horrors of the world?
Then again, this kind of encounter is more about the lessons that come from going against the system at play. Anyone can try their best to make songs that will satisfy the audience, but the whole point behind Dylan’s music was to stir people up, and if that meant having to rebel against the audience that he cultivated for himself, then so be it.
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