Like The Night (Revisited) : Bob Dylan and the Road to the Manchester Free Trade Hall

by C.P. Lee

Revised and updated edition of the hugely acclaimed document of Dylan’s pivotal 1966 Manchester Free Trade Hall show where fans called him Judas for turning his back on folk music in favour of rock ‘n’ roll. After years of notoriety as the most famous bootleg of them all, the concert recording finally received an official release at the same time as the book’s first outing. “For any fan of Dylan, this is quite simply essential.”— Time Out

Genres: Music

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1998

Reviews

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 5 out of 5]

So writes C. P. Lee, who was there the night Dylan painted an electric and electrifying masterpiece. He was speaking specifically of writing down snippets of lyrics as he and a friend who had been there remembered them after the Manchester Free Trade Hall concert of May 17, 1966. Without the Internet, the new songs Dylan sang that night might take months to arrive in northwestern England on vinyl, and even then, Lee reminds us, at the time in that working class city, record players were a luxury.

Indeed the world is different now, a fault line cracked that night that still reverberates today, and continues even in the decade since Lee wrote his book about that infamous night. The official "bootleg" (The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live, 1966: The "Royal Albert Hall Concert") of the complete concert is now available, as is DVD versions of Bob Dylan - Don't Look Back (1965 Tour Deluxe Edition), D. A. Pennepacker's groundbreaking documentary of the 1965 tour, and Scorsese's Bob Dylan - No Direction Home, which culminates with video footage of the event.

So today, the events of that night are readily documented, and finally correctly attributed to Manchester and not London (Lee himself played a key role in correcting the "Royal Albert Hall" mistake), but Lee's book is central to really understanding the night in context. His background first places the concert in context politically, at a time when folk versus popular music was the subject of municipal law and Communist Party dictates in Great Britain, a stunning reminder, kids, that music is more than just iTunes content; it matters.

He then places the concert in context

-musically: a context derived directly from the political,

-geographically: the Manchester Free Trade Hall was home to jazz orcestra concerts for which one sat and listened politely),

-chronologically: As vividly documented in the DVD documentaries now available, Manchester was near the end of a grueling tour that dates back to the famous Newport "plugged in" set where the negative reactions first became vocal, but after Dylan in studio had recorded several sides of electric music with various sets of musicians, and finally

-personally: here Lee relies not just on his own memories of the concert, but on interviews with many who were there that night, including "Lonnie", an anonymous representative of the Traditionalists who booed (and still in 1998 defends the reaction and dismisses Dylan's career as a "missed opportunity").

But to really place the concert in context, listen to it as Lee concludes by going through the setup for the concert in detail (expecting a solo acoustic folk singer, Hall management had sold seats on the stage that were displaced by the massive sound equipment, forcing last-minute arrangements so those legitimate ticket holders could still be accommodated) and then through the concert song by song. The CD is on my very short list of all time greatest albums, not just for the music, but for the setting and the performance. Even during the acoustic half, the tension is palpable, the silence so thick that the polite applause seems to intrude on Dylan's personal soundscape.

Then, the electric set explodes with the fury of a rolling thunder and the electricity that howled from the bones of Dylan's face. Lee documents the rising temperature of protest in the room, as today my pulse still quickens and blood pressure elevates with each song until that infamous catcall of "Judas" (surely goaded by Dylan's pointed and powerful "Thin Man" performance just ended) released the tension into the loudest roar of applause on the CD, Dylan turns to the band with instructions to "play fuckin' loud", and then the greatest live musical performance ever captured explodes into my head. Even from the distance of thousands of miles and 30-plus years my hair stands on end.

Lee's book is an indispensable aid to understanding and experiencing this piece of history as it happened.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 4 out of 5]

O.K. Korky, so lets get the rating stars out of the way first. 4 stars. Sure, if I put myself in some unbiased frame, I can see this book as a solid 3 star read. There's the rub. I have a bias here. Like the Night is Bob Dylan in Manchester. So where was I on the evening of 17th May 1966. I shudder to think. United had just won the league title. Likely I was out with the gang. Maybe I was hurling chockers at some chimney pot, or thudding my football into that stuck up cows leaded bay window. Up to no good is odds on favourite. Where I wasn't was Manchester's Free Trade Hall for Dylan's sonic blast of mercury rock. So CP Lee's book takes me off the streets and into the front stalls for this legendary performance. The book makes compelling reading for me. It's about a city and it's young people, both I knew, as well as a controversial Dylan gig. I'm at home in the city centre bars, pubs and clubs that Lee weaves into the story. They were all still there just a few years after 66 when these places became my playgrounds. In later years the I.R.A. bomb got rid of some locations and the city fathers did for others, including the Free Trade Hall itself. I did learn that my very favourite bootleg version of Mr Tambourine Man wasn't recorded at the Albert Hall, but at the Free Trade in 66. So there it is, 4 stars for the nostalgia.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick and interesting book about the events leading up to Dylan's legendary concert at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, May 17, 1966. This is the infamous show where the crowd's general displeasure was punctuated by the shout of "Judas" by a particularly unhappy Traditional Folk fan who felt betrayed (that fan finally came forward in 1999). On this entire tour Dylan thrust a dagger into the heart of the Folk Revival, setting his course for bigger and better things. Each show became a battleground, and this particular night is the pinnacle. The author was there, and he does a fine job of recreating the experience, enhanced by recollections of others who were also in the hall.

The book may only interest Dylan fanatics and students of rock music history, but the story is set against a cultural backdrop of what things were like in England for a young music fan in the 1960s, and its appeal should be broader. Of particular interest is the material on the Communist Party of Great Britain, who went to great lengths to quash the "American music invasion" that threatened to dilute English tradition. Music clubs developed around the country that mandated the performance of traditional English folk music and actually banned amplification. The stage was set......

[Tim Beck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure- I’ve been eternally fascinated by the Bob Dylan Manchester Free Trade Hall concert from May 17, 1966. This book only added to the allure. If only I could go back in time to hear, with fresh ears, Dylan go electric and to watch, with awe, the resistance to change.

[Robert Lawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading about what really happened that historic night!

[Aartjan ter Haar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The documentation of the extensive lead-up to the "Judas!" concert is remarkable. In fact, it is unfortunate that C.P. Lee ends after "Play it Fucking Loud". He paints an excellent representation of the ambiance, unity, and potential backdrops of the songs performed, even if the official recordings of the concerts and songs like "Tell Me Momma" were only known through bootlegs at the time of my edition. However, there isn't much fresh material in this 1998 book as of 2025.

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fannish, but for devotees of Dylan's confrontational 1966 tour, a useful account by one who was there, and who tracked down others who were too.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Casual, first hand account of one of rock's most famous concerts.