Dylan must have been aware of what some of his audience was expecting because he opened his Manchester gig in traditional style with a set of songs played on an acoustic guitar. It was during the second set when Dylan came on stage with the Hawks that the trouble started. In the pause between “Ballad of a Thin Man” and“Like a Rolling Stone” a member of the audience shouted out… ‘Judas!’ Dylan answered back, and told the man “I don’t believe you … you’re a liar!”, before he shouted to the members of the band to “Play it f—-ing’ loud!” before they finished off the set with “Like a Rolling Stone”…
“When Dylan came to the chorus and the line ‘How does it feel, to be on your own?’ he sang it as if his entire artistic existence hung on the answer.”
ROBERT SANTELLI – The Bob Dylan Scrapbook 1956-1966
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!”
excerpt of exchange). Then the band crashed into the set closing
“Like A Rolling Stone” (RealAudio
excerpt), with Dylan commanding them to “Play f—ing loud!”
Dylan’s venom sent the mortified Butler scampering out of the hall before “Like a Rolling Stone” got under way.
“Can you imagine what it’s like as a 20-year-old kid?” Butler asked. “You were just crushed. I was totally embarrassed when he shouted back. I was there with another guy, and that’s when we decided to leave.”
While Butler tried to forget about the incident, the exchange sent shockwaves through the world of music and came to symbolize the point at which rock entered a new era, opening the doors to a more artful form of musical expression.
Read more at : https://www.mtv.com/news/512709/fan-who-called-dylan-judas-breaks-33-years-of-silence/
Sources : https://stmgrts.org.uk/archives/2016/05/judas.html
Obviously “Judas” is a reference to the Biblical figure. People really felt that Dylan was *killing* the folk movement by selling it out. It wasn’t just a musical thing, but a self-righteous pseudo-religious political thing for people back then. Not to knock it at all, after having been through the McCarthy era etc. left-wing folkies had a reason to feel endangered I guess… But the guy who shouted “Judas” (IMHO) was just a closed-eared herd-follower. For one thing, the political ramifications of switching to personal/rock from political/folk just did not exist in England, not nearly to the same extent anyway. I take Bob’s response of “I don’t beLEIVE you… you’re a LIAR” to be not a song referece *at all* but just a literal “I can’t believe you would be so petty and misguided to equate my following my personal musical muse with a cosmic betrayal on the order of Judas!” Or maybe a pithier paraphrase would be “Get A Life!!” And how can one say that he was definitely responding to a front-row comment and not the shout that the whole audience heard?? Anyway the best part of Bob’s response is after those two phrases, when he turns to the Hawks and says “Play F*CKIN’ loud!!” THEN comes the godlike thunder of Like a Rolling Stone. In closing let me say how much it warms my heart to hear that one departing concertgoer in “Eat the Document” countering all the naysayers with conviction in his voice: “Bob Dylan is the best. Every time. EVERY TIME.” Wherever you are today, I take my hat off to you sir!!
Read more on : https://www.expectingrain.com/dok/who/j/judas.html
The polarised responses of Dylan’s fans were exacerbated by the structure of his concerts in late 1965 and 1966; the first half would be ‘folk,’ Dylan solo accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica; with the second half ‘rock,’ Dylan and the Hawks with electric guitars and a full rock and roll combo. The rock segment was often greeted with hostility, as seen in shows in Sheffield and Newcastle upon Tyne in No Direction Home. Footage from theManchester concert, at the end of that film, includes the infamous “Judas” heckling incident. During a quiet moment in between songs an audience member shouts loudly: “Judas!” Dylan replies: “I don’t believe you, you’re a liar” before telling his band to “Play it fucking loud!” as they launch into “Like a Rolling Stone“.[29] This incident was recorded, and the full concert was eventually released in 1998 as Live 1966: The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert in Dylan’s Bootleg Series. One fan who claimed to have shouted “Judas!” was John Cordwell; when interviewed by Andy Kershaw he explained:
- “I think most of all I was angry that Dylan… not that he’d played electric, but that he’d played electric with a really poor sound system. It was not like it is on the record [the official album]. It was a wall of mush. That, and it seemed like a cavalier performance, a throwaway performance compared with the intensity of the acoustic set earlier on. There were rumblings all around me and the people I was with were making noises and looking at each other. It was a build-up
soruce : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Dylan_controversy
