It may lack the sheer incendiary impact of those 1966 Albert Hall concerts but this reclaimed Halloween set, recorded two years earlier, presents Bob the protest singer in all his young punk glory.
For the next three years Dylan would change musical history on a seemingly daily basis – blazing a trail that even now can seem impenetrable and extraordinary. Here he is on the cusp of that journey: post "Another Side Of…" but pre "Bringing It All Back Home". Before the dense amphetamine trip of "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde On Blonde".
Ardent folkies found his imminent electric direction abhorrent so god knows what they made of the shift from the narrative folk of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" to the surreal wordplay of "Gates Of Eden" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)".
But, if there were any dissenting voices, we don't hear them here. There are no cries of "Judas." Indeed, Dylan remains surprisingly playful throughout – bursting into giggles on more than one occasion and fluffing the first verse of "I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" until an audience member steps in to help out. It's a world away from the scowling enigma we think of today.
And, fascinating though it is to hear this theatre being played out, the songs themselves – even the topical ones - have barely aged. Rife with universal truths and concepts they resonate deeply. Substitute the word "communist" for "terrorist", for instance, and "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" is as relevant today as it was forty years ago.
Perhaps most astounding of all is that such thought-provoking and lyrically complex music could transcend so successfully and that one man and his harmonica (and Joan Baez, who accompanies on four tracks) could transfix a concert audience for nearly an hour and three-quarters. And, more pertinently, how that same music can transfix so powerfully now.
