"That boy is really destructive"

1965-07-25, Newport Folk Festival, Newport, RI

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"Bobby Dillon came on stage all in motorcycle black, in front of a very bad, very loud, electric r-r band. 16,000 people had come to hear him. He walked off stage after four numbers, no word of which could be understood, to one single hand-clap of applause. The audience sat there terrified and silent. He walked off slumped like a dead man… George Wein shooed him back on stage with an acoustic guitar, then he spent ten horrifying minutes changing guitars, hunting for his old harmonica, tuning up, while 16,000 people watched in horrified fascination… He more or less killed the festival. Pete resigned from the board. That boy is really destructive." - Alan Lomax

"I ran to hide my eyes and ears because I could not bear either the screaming of the crowd nor some of the most destructive music this side of Hell." - Pete Seeger

Has any five-song performance been analyzed as much as Dylan '65? It’s like the musical Zapruder film. There are multiple books about it, and several documentaries too. I don't have anything to say that hasn't been said many times before.

But I do have a question: Why did they boo?

I don't mean, why did people get upset? The various reasons have been endlessly debated. People hated rock and roll and/or it was too loud and/or they couldn't make out the lyrics and/or they could and they weren’t political enough and/or he didn't talk to the audience and/or they were mad he didn't play for longer. Etc.

However, no matter how much I've read about it or listened to the recording, the booing itself remains hard to understated. 

If I hated someone's music at a festival, I'd leave the show, go grab a beer, wander elsewhere, or maybe just make snide remarks to my friends (these days "look at my phone" would be a strong contender too). Plenty of ways to ignore unpleasant music. I just can't imagine literally booing. Sure, if someone was actually saying something offensive - spouting neo-Nazi slogans from the stage - but just because I didn't like the music? Why?

And make no mistake, people booed. There is, again, debate about how widespread it was, and the reasons behind it, but no one disputes that some people in the audience, for some reason, sat there booing as loud as they could.

So rather than analyzing Dylan's three electric songs for the ten millionth time, I thought it might be interesting to zoom out. What else had Newport '65 attendees been hearing that day? What earlier sounds might have set the context for this level of outrage? 

So I wanted to listen to every other set that occurred Sunday, July 25, 1965. I found recordings scattered across compilation LPs and CDs. Where I couldn't find any trace of someone’s actual Newport set, I researched who they were and what they likely sounded like on stage that summer. 

One caveat: Scheduling at Newport was subject to last-minute changes. I did my best to figure out who actually played when (aided in part by Elijah Wald's essential book Dylan Goes Electric), but records differ and memories have grown fuzzy with time.

Perhaps this will help me, and anyone else who remains a little mystified by the sheer level of the crowd reaction, understand how Bob's performance might have struck folk fans there that day.

*** First Show: Gospel in the Morning ***

The day started with a gospel concert at 10am, which I'm largely skipping here because A) it mostly featured performers from elsewhere in the festival, B) there are few recordings, and C) attendance was reportedly small, so it doesn't further my goal of getting into the mindset of the Newport masses later in the day. That said, gospel performances from Son House and the Rev. Gary Davis sound like they would have been great! More folkies should have gotten up early. 

There also aren’t many recordings from this morning show. The Chambers Brothers I know for sure comes from this; the other three below might be from their other sets that weekend:

*** Second Show: "New Folks" Showcase in the Afternoon ***

The second of the three big shows on Sunday - and the first with a sizeable crowd - came in the afternoon, with the so-called "New Folks" showcase. This was Peter Yarrow's baby, and he pops up throughout. A grumpy Village Voice reviewer wrote that, of the five official concerts throughout the weekend, this was the only good one. Seven thousand fans were here by then - it was reported as the biggest afternoon-show crowd ever - so let's see what they saw that whetted their appetites - or sharpened their knives - before the evening's events.

Listening to the opening set by father and son fiddle duo Lue & Byrone Berline, you get an immediate taste of why someone who had come to Newport for this might not want electric-Bob. New performers in the “New Folk” showcase, maybe, but some very old sounds. That's no slight to them - they're excellent, and the four songs I found make me wish I had the whole set - but old-timey fiddle music doesn't exactly scream "the future." At this festival, Bill Monroe invited Byron to join his band, and Byron would later record "Turkey Chase" with Dylan for the Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid soundtrack.

* Blue Ridge Mountain Dancers were a square dancing troupe formed in 1962. They had been a hit at Newport '64, performing to live music from Pete and Mike Seeger (this video comes from that '64 set), so they returned for a few appearances this year. The paper called them the "personification of vigorous youth." I'd call them an extremely square dancing troupe, if you catch my drift.