Bob Dylan's 1960s Concert Posters

This, Dylan’s first-ever UK concert, was recorded by Pye for Columbia, and still languishes, gathering dust in Columbia’s vaults, in apparently stunning quality- in terms of both performance and sound. It’s also rumoured that it was mastered for possible release in 2006 as a bonus freebie with ‘Modern Times’, but then scrapped. Another first was that this was the live (concert) debut of Tambourine Man. Both this and Eternal Circle have emerged on bootlegs. This one-off concert took place on a sunny Sunday afternoon, 2 years to the day before the incendiary Manchester Free Trade Hall ‘Judas!’ concert. This seems to be the forgotten, or largely unknown, UK visit. We know much more about the 1962-63 Madhouse on Castle Street trip from various biographies. However, Sounes does record, in Down the Highway, that at the Royal Festival Hall concert, old Hibbing high school friend, John Bucklen, then stationed in East Anglia with the USAF, travelled down to London to see the concert, met Dylan backstage and was there when he received a telegram from John Lennon, during the interval. Dylan and The Beatles had not yet met, but Lennon wanted to wish him luck and apologise for touring commitments preventing The Fabs from attending. Bucklen was struck by how famous Dylan had become: ‘”One of the songs was ‘With God on Our Side’ and after every verse people cheered. What the hell? This is Bob . I remember this guy sitting next to me, a big guy, he started to weep.” After the show, Albert Grossman had to rescue his artist from a crush of fans. “Bob, I could tell, was enjoying it,” says Bucklen, who got into a black cab with Dylan, Grossman and three girls. They spent the evning visiting parties, meeting old friends like folksinger Martin Carthy, and getting stoned. “Here. This is good stuff. You want some?” asked Bob, offering John Bucklen a joint. It was the first time Bucklen had ever smoked marijuana.’

Long Beach, CA Wilson High School Golden Bear Presents

Bob Dylan perform at Ann Arbor High School.

Ed Reynolds has mixed recollections of the summer of 1964. It was in September that the 20-year-old once-and-future student at the University of Michigan got married to a girl he hardly knew. It was also in September that he went to see Bob Dylan perform at Ann Arbor High School. The tickets were a wedding gift from a friend who had connections in advertising. “They were great tickets,” Reynolds says, “right in the middle of the front row. You couldn’t get any closer.” The marriage didn’t last, but Reynolds’ memories of the concert have. He recently retired as an attorney for the University of Michigan Health System. As a parting gift he received a set of Dylan’s 40-odd albums on compact disc. “Most of the time, when I listen to them now,” he says, “sooner or later, into my consciousness comes that concert. “I made an unwise decision to get married in ’64, and the tickets were a wedding present, so it was worth the two-year marriage to get those tickets,” he continues. “That’s the way I look at it.”

Scarce original broadside promoting a concert by Bob Dylan at the Masonic Scottish Rite Cathedral in Detroit on October 17, 1964. This broadside was issued by folk coffee house The Retreat, and also promotes shows by Booker Bradshaw, Ellen Stekert and The Dalton Boys at that venue. It measures 8.5 by 13 inches and is printed in orange ink on fairly heavy uncoated stock. Conditoin is vg with some crasing and tanning mostly visible on the bak Dalton Boys side and on the upper right side of the front. From the archive of Ellen Stekert who wrote the year, 1964, in small print at the top of the front side. Unfolded and not mailed. No pinholes. Combine wins to save on shipping charges. Winners are welcome to pick up their items at our store in San Francisco to save all shipping charges.

The Times They Are A-Changin’ Play Video Girl From the North Country Play Video Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues Play Video To Ramona Play Video Who Killed Davey Moore? Play Video Gates of Eden Play Video If You Gotta Go, Go Now Play Video It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) Play Video Mr. Tambourine Man Play Video I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) Play Video A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall Play Video Talkin’ World War III Blues Play Video Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right Play Video With God on Our Side Play Video It Ain’t Me, Babe Play Video The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

This is an interesting Bob Dylan concert poster for two reasons. The concert was held at Yale during Princeton Weekend. Many people at first glance believe the concert was at Princeton. The concert was held at Woolsey Hall. Yalies would have gone to see the Yale-Princeton football game then take in Bob Dylan at Indian Neck Folk Festival later that night in November, 1964. The line on the poster – “yes it is I who is poundin’ at your door if it is you inside who hears the noise” comes from a poem called 11 Outlined Epitaphs by Bob Dylan. The poster was produced by Yale University. This was the first and last time Bob Dylan played at Yale in the 1960s

An original Bob Dylan & Joan Baez 1965 concert flyer and pair of unused tickets for the duo’s show at the Convention Hall in Philadelphia on March 5, 1965. This Dylan-Baez handbill was designed by folk musician & artist Eric Von Schmidt, and the exact same image was also used for larger concert posters for the same event (and others). It’s interesting to note that both the flier and the ticket state “Joan Baez & Bob Dylan,” giving her somewhat top billing, although Dylan would surely become the more famous of the two within just months of this event — if he wasn’t already. Original Dylan concert leaflets like this were more commonly saved than the larger posters, because they easily fit into books for safe storage, often to be newly discovered decades later. This particular Von Schmidt design was used for about 4-5 different Dylan-Baez concerts in March of 1965. I have seen the larger broadsides for a couple of those gigs, but I have not seen the full-sized window card yet for this Dylan-Baez Philadelphia show on March 5.

On Saturday, July 24, 1965, Dylan performed three acoustic numbers, “All I Really Want to Do”, “If You Gotta Go, Go Now”, and “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” at a Newport workshop.[4] According to Jonathan Taplin, a roadie at Newport (and later a road manager for the acts of Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman) Dylan made a spontaneous decision on the Saturday that he would challenge the Festival by performing with a fully amplified band. Taplin said that Dylan had been irritated by what he considered condescending remarks which festival organiser Alan Lomax had made about the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, when Lomax introduced them for an earlier set at a festival workshop

On Saturday, July 24, 1965, Dylan performed three acoustic numbers, “All I Really Want to Do”, “If You Gotta Go, Go Now”, and “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” at a Newport workshop.[4] According to Jonathan Taplin, a roadie at Newport (and later a road manager for the acts of Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman) Dylan made a spontaneous decision on the Saturday that he would challenge the Festival by performing with a fully amplified band. Taplin said that Dylan had been irritated by what he considered condescending remarks which festival organiser Alan Lomax had made about the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, when Lomax introduced them for an earlier set at a festival workshop. Dylan’s attitude, according to Taplin, was, “Well, fuck them if they think they can keep electricity out of here, I’ll do it. On a whim he said he wanted to play electric.”[5] Dylan then assembled a band and rehearsed that night at a mansion being used by festival organiser George Wein.

Bob Dylan and the Band. Allusive, majestic, snarling lyrics run through the organic groove grinder. The most important, influential songwriter in pop music history backed by four Canadians and a Southerner whose musical instincts and depth earned them the right to call themselves the Band. Forever entwined in rock music mythology, Bob Dylan and the Band were a magical combination that debuted right here in Austin 40 years ago. Tickets were $4. Later they would make enduring music together in the basement of a big pink house near Woodstock, but in 1965, 24-year-old Dylan and his mostly younger backing group were rock ‘n’ roll guerrillas on an artistic upheaval mission, slinging evil electric guitars in front of audiences who’d felt betrayed by the sound-over-message, trend-over-tradition shift. On Sept. 24, 1965, Dylan opened his first Texas concert, a sold-out show at Austin’s Municipal Auditorium (later renamed Palmer Auditorium), with a solo acoustic set including “Gates Of Eden,” “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” “Desolation Row” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” After a short break, he returned with Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm — then called the Hawks — and launched into a loud, biting “Tombstone Blues,” followed by “Baby Let Me Follow You Down,” “It Ain’t Me Babe,” “Ballad Of a Thin Man” and the big hit at the time, “Like a Rolling Stone.” Dylan played the piano during “Maggie’s Farm,” the song that was practically drowned out in boos when Dylan and the earsplitting Butterfield Blues Band opened with it at the Newport Folk Festival just two months earlier.

A Bob Dylan concert poster from the University of Vermont’s Patrick Gym in Burlington, Vermont on October 23, 1965. This Bob Dylan window card from his 1965 tour with The Hawks features a large acoustic-guitar photo of Dylan taken by Daniel Kramer. This Bob Dylan tour-blank concert poster was printed by the Murray Poster Printing Company of New York, is made of cardboard, and measures roughly 14 x 22 inches. The venue information down below was usually printed later in either black or red ink, making the blue printing on this poster unusual. Despite this window card showing only a folkie, acoustic setting, this Bob Dylan concert broadside / billboard / placard / display (take your pick!) advertised a folk-rock concert because Dylan would play the first half of his show on solo acoustic guitar, and then return with The Hawks for a loud, raucous rock ‘n’ roll second half. Collectors consider this 1960s Bob Dylan window placard to be an excellent boxing-style concert poster from early in Dylan’s career, from one of his best years ever. The poster, however, is easily susceptible to damage due to the large amount of black in the photo of Dylan, which can show creases, tack holes, fingerprints, etc. very easily. This particular Bob Dylan broadside is known as a “tour blank,” used city-to-city with each show’s venue information — date, city, venue name, ticket price and instructions — stripped in down below after the main body of the poster (the photo), which was printed ahead of time.