one of the most copied bootlegs in music history is the legendary royal albert hall concert from dylan’s legendary 1966 spring tour of australia and europe. there was only one small problem – the show that was so widely disseminated is actually a show a few days earlier at the manchester free trade hall – the show that is documented in dylan’s bootleg series volume 4.

as part of his ever evolving project of releasing his vast archives, he recently put out a 36 disk set of the entire tour, but also added this release of probably the most famous concert of all of them – the tour finale at royal albert hall from may 1966.

one of the more compelling features of this tour was bob’s decision to hire a bunch of relative unknowns to accompany him on the second set of each night, the ‘electric’ portion. known then as ‘the hawks’, they eventually become known to the world as ‘the band’. most of the world was not ready for the electric dylan, and he was summarily booed in every show on that tour. for the most part the musicians handled it well, but it did wear on them (in fact, levon helm quit right before they left for australia). if you have ever seen d.a. pennebaker’s documentary of this tour – ‘don’t look back’ – you will also be aware that bob’s health was steadily deteriorating throughout. robbie robertson and his manager albert grossman found him in his hotel room after the final show nearly unconscious and delirious from exhaustion. two months later he would be critically injured on his motorcycle, forcing the cancellation of the next leg of the tour. in fact he would not tour again till 1974. essentially this was the demarcation point for the next direction he would take in his career, holing up in woodstock with the band and creating ‘the basement tapes’ and the songs that would show up on ‘john wesley harding’.

this release is two discs of unreleased material (except for ‘visions of johanna’ which appears on ‘biograph’). the first is the acoustic set, and the second is the electric set with the hawks. considering the technical issues they were having with equipment, the cumulative effects of a world wide tour, the animosity of the crowd, and the fact that many of britain’s musical royalty were in attendance (including the beatles), the performance here is just stunning. having released three of the most important albums in rock history in the previous 18 months (‘bringing it all back home’, highway 61 revisited’. and ‘blonde on blonde’), this is a fitting capstone to one of the most productive bursts of creativity in modern musical history.