If not the best sounding recording, Liverpool is as good a performance of the electric set as you will find on the tour. Perhaps inspired by playing the hometown of the Fab Four, the band is tight and powerful. Dylan’s vocals, Robbie’s lead guitar playing and Garth’s erie B-3 all seem truly inspired.A great “documentary” - Bob Dylan in Liverpool – 1966:
~bobsboots.com
…… that they could go on stage in Liverpool in May 1966—the city that had so recently been the centre of the musical universe— and hurl at their audience rock music a thousand times more sublime, challenging, multi-layered and exciting than anything Liverpudlians had ever heard before? Impossible to say, but easy to prove. Play that night’s ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues’. By this point Dylan’s cawing voice and searing harmonica were both perfectly integrated instruments in amongst those of the Hawks, whose hardwon knowledge of each other’s playing freed them all to ride each moment in a ceaseless interchange of fiery, creative levitation.One of the best concerts I’ve heard from the 66-tour..
~Michael Gray (BD Encyclopedia)
Odeon Theatre
Liverpool, England
14 May 1966
- Tell Me, Momma
- I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
- Baby Let Me Follow You Down (Eric von Schmidt)
- Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
A truly demonic “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” … is issued (in mono) as the B-side of “I Wan’t You”. For many years this would be the only official evidence of the power of Dylan & The Hawks in performance.
~Clinton Heylin (A Life In stolen Moments) - Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
- One Too Many Mornings
- Ballad Of A Thin Man
- Like A Rolling Stone
- Bob Dylan (vocal & electric guitar)
- Robbie Robertson (electric guitar)
- Garth Hudson (organ)
- Rick Danko (bass)
- Richard Manuel (piano)
- Mickey Jones (drums)
Check out:
-Egil
One big reason that Dylan and the band were so fired up was the audience reaction (bear in mind this was a small enclosed area, actually an old-style cinema).
They were well into the stormingly controversial electric tour, and although the Judas show in Manchester was a couple of nights ahead, a sizeable section of the Liverpool crowd was angry and hostile.
Folksy beatniks were striding down the aisles to the stage, to heckle and throw their programmes at him (hence the rarity of the 66 edition), they were booing and walking out, after what he did to Baby Let Me Follow You Down.
And when it came to Tom Thumbs Blues, Dylan was yelling right back at them, so fiercely that his voice was straining…”I’m going back to New York City? I do believe I’ve had enough…!”
And he sounded like he meant it.