Fifty years ago this week sees the anniversary of one of Manchester’s musical happenings, the evening of May 17, 1966 and the Free Trade hall.
It was the night that Keith Butler stood up at the venue and lambasted American folk hero Bob Dylan with a single word heard round the world: “Judas” only for Dylan’s contemptuous response “You’re a liar!”
The shout was Butler’s response to the one-time folk singer’s controversial foray into electric rock music which the folk purists had shunned that had flocked to see .
Beginning with Bringing It All Back Home the previous year, Dylan had released a trio of albums grounded heavily in electric instruments. When he first brought the sound to American audiences at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, he was booed. When he took the tour worldwide, his audiences went from being unhappy to labelling him a traitor to the folk movement.
Days earlier Dylan had released hsi seminal album Blonde on Blonde and was currently on the UK leg of a world tour, one that would become one of the most notorious music tours ever staged. The show in Manchester began with an acoustic set, but when he brought out the electric Hawks (soon to change their name to the Band) for the second set, the crowd turned on him. At several points, many of the 2,000 concert-goers clapped slowly and defiantly to show their displeasure and shake Dylan from his game.
Finally, during a period of silence after “Ballad of a Thin Man,” Butler shouted his invective.“Judas!” he cried. “I don’t believe you,” the singer spat back. “You’re a liar!”
Some critics argue it was the making of Dylan while according to the Guardian’s Alexis Patrides,
“The most lasting effect of the whole controversy was not on Dylan, but on folk revivalism itself, which, ever after, was doomed to be labelled a bit fusty, boring and uncool by onlookers: the price you pay for trying to stop progress.”
The tour marked the end of the first segment of the singer’s career. Dylan had had enough by the time the tour ended. In July, he was riding his motorcycle near Woodstock in New York when he crashed. His recovery provided an ample opportunity for him to bow out of the spotlight, and the following year, he and the Hawks, would quietly make the Basement Tapes.
As for the Free Trade Hall, it is now the site of the Luxury5* Radisson Blu Edwardian Manchester Hotel, encapsulating its musical heritage having named 24 of its luxurious suites after the numerous famous names that passed through the grand entrance of the Free Trade Hall, including the likes of Shirley Bassey, Bryan Ferry and the late David Bowie.
