UPDATE: More info on the "It's Alright Ma" streaker, from someone who knew him:
I’d known Harvey for a few years, maybe since '67 or whatever. Harvey was sitting in front of me in the first row. Harvey was not a stupid street hippie; he was really a bright guy. He was going through a really bad divorce and was doing some unusual drugs. Bad shit, I think, stuff he shouldn't have taken.
The concert hadn't started yet. Bill Graham came up and talked to Harvey. He said “Harvey, I want you to behave yourself.” Harvey said, “But I've got to tell Bob I'm running for president!” Bill said, “I’ll work on that, but you have to behave yourself tonight.” And of course, you know what happened.
Bob gets to the line “Even the President of the United States must sometimes have to stand naked.” Harvey is wearing a sweater and a pair of pants, no underwear, and he drops them. He stands on his chair, and he turns around and faces the crowd, forming his arms like he's on a cross.
Bill Graham came from the back of the stadium, almost as if he was shot from a gun. I mean, I saw him running up the aisle. He tackles him. Harvey's taken away to, I don't know, the police station. The police say, he didn't belong here, he belongs in a psych hospital. The long and short of it is, is he meets Dylan the next day for brunch. He told me that he sat there and talked to Bob about running for president. Bob looked at him and would occasionally nod, but that was it.
Really looking forward to this series. I saw an early show in Toronto. High energy but it still had a bucolic tinge. When I first heard Before The Flood I was sort of stunned at how different it all sounded from what I had remembered. You could almost hear the coke in the grooves. Looking forward to figuring out at what point in the tour they became a Peruvian Marching Band. I don’t hate BTFlood but i have over a thousand Bob recordings and don’t own it. A reevaluation of the tour will be fun. Thanks, Ray!
Had the exact same impression on first hearing BTF. I was at the Jan 10th Toronto show and BTF sounded like nothing I remembered from Jan 10th. Decades later after finding the bootleg for Jan 10th it confirmed my initial impressions. Compare Ballad Of a Thin Man from BTF with the Jan 10th version. The BTF version is done at such a pace it sounds like they just want to get through the song as quick as possible while Jan 10th sounds like were almost back in 1966 again.
Great kick off. My husband just reminded me that Rich Warren used to close off the Midnight Special with Fred Holstein’s version of Days of 49. We spent a LOT of time at the Earl of Old Town but alas, not that night.
I saw that tour in New York, Nassau Coliseum. Regular ticket prices at the time were around $8, but the ticket price for that show was $25, a fair bit of change back then. The Band played solo for half of the show and after playing “Stage Fright”, Bob came on.
Seems like I am in the minority, which is fine, but I LOVE Tour '74 and am so excited about your show-by-show analysis this month. And I hope it helps spur interest in an official Bootleg Series release.
UPDATE: More info on the "It's Alright Ma" streaker, from someone who knew him:
I’d known Harvey for a few years, maybe since '67 or whatever. Harvey was sitting in front of me in the first row. Harvey was not a stupid street hippie; he was really a bright guy. He was going through a really bad divorce and was doing some unusual drugs. Bad shit, I think, stuff he shouldn't have taken.
The concert hadn't started yet. Bill Graham came up and talked to Harvey. He said “Harvey, I want you to behave yourself.” Harvey said, “But I've got to tell Bob I'm running for president!” Bill said, “I’ll work on that, but you have to behave yourself tonight.” And of course, you know what happened.
Bob gets to the line “Even the President of the United States must sometimes have to stand naked.” Harvey is wearing a sweater and a pair of pants, no underwear, and he drops them. He stands on his chair, and he turns around and faces the crowd, forming his arms like he's on a cross.
Bill Graham came from the back of the stadium, almost as if he was shot from a gun. I mean, I saw him running up the aisle. He tackles him. Harvey's taken away to, I don't know, the police station. The police say, he didn't belong here, he belongs in a psych hospital. The long and short of it is, is he meets Dylan the next day for brunch. He told me that he sat there and talked to Bob about running for president. Bob looked at him and would occasionally nod, but that was it.
Service journalism
Really looking forward to this series. I saw an early show in Toronto. High energy but it still had a bucolic tinge. When I first heard Before The Flood I was sort of stunned at how different it all sounded from what I had remembered. You could almost hear the coke in the grooves. Looking forward to figuring out at what point in the tour they became a Peruvian Marching Band. I don’t hate BTFlood but i have over a thousand Bob recordings and don’t own it. A reevaluation of the tour will be fun. Thanks, Ray!
Had the exact same impression on first hearing BTF. I was at the Jan 10th Toronto show and BTF sounded like nothing I remembered from Jan 10th. Decades later after finding the bootleg for Jan 10th it confirmed my initial impressions. Compare Ballad Of a Thin Man from BTF with the Jan 10th version. The BTF version is done at such a pace it sounds like they just want to get through the song as quick as possible while Jan 10th sounds like were almost back in 1966 again.
Great kick off. My husband just reminded me that Rich Warren used to close off the Midnight Special with Fred Holstein’s version of Days of 49. We spent a LOT of time at the Earl of Old Town but alas, not that night.
I saw that tour in New York, Nassau Coliseum. Regular ticket prices at the time were around $8, but the ticket price for that show was $25, a fair bit of change back then. The Band played solo for half of the show and after playing “Stage Fright”, Bob came on.
Seems like I am in the minority, which is fine, but I LOVE Tour '74 and am so excited about your show-by-show analysis this month. And I hope it helps spur interest in an official Bootleg Series release.
Super excited for this series that you're doing. Happy to have become a paid subscriber for this upcoming year.
I've never really liked "Before the Flood" very much, so I'm looking forward to hearing the '74 tour more organically as it was.