"Go on [or possibly "go home"] you useless pillock..."

The most interesting thing about Scorsese's (Pennebaker's) film of this episode to me is that, upon finally seeing the exchange and not just listening to it, it looked as if it wasn't Dylan that ordered the band to "play it fuckin' loud". In Scorsese's film, Dylan seems far less rattled by the whole tour than popular myth thus far would have us believe. It always struck me that "play it fuckin' loud" was the sort of thing that Robbie Robertson would have said. Mickey Jones has always maintained that the voice sounds like a British roadie, but I don't agree with that. Anyway, I look forward to giving this a listen.

I'd wondered that myself after hearing the Bootleg Series Vol 4. I thought after the applause following Judas the only word I could half make out was "bollocks". Which may be utter bollocks. But it had struck me that the gap was too long to be a response to the Judas heckler.

...was the incongruity of Dylan's 'response' to the heckle.

What I mean is - if someone called me 'Judas', my response would likely be 'That's not my name' or 'No, not me'. I wouldn't say 'I don't believe you'.

What I'm trying to say is that calling someone 'Judas' - either literally or figuratively - is a statement of fact, not of belief. So to say 'I don't believe you' always - to me - sounded like an answer to a different question.

Well it made sense to me anyway. Anyone else know what I'm blathering on about - who can explain it better?

Sorry, just listened to the 'enhanced' version. Still can't make it out.

still can't pick anything out as English with my ears either

Maybe he was answering the voices in his own drug fuelled brain - 'oi, Bob, wouldn't a Christmas album be a good idea?'

I hear "Everyone... this is Bob Dylan... he's not that good" - I imagine he is gesturing at the stage.
Honestly, that's what I get.

I never believed the Judas story, and especially not after hearing the gap on the bootleg series recording.

a bespectacled and bearded man wearing a roll neck jumper, corduroy trousers and sandals.

... on the grassy knoll.

Oliver Stone needs to do a film about this.

never thought 'I don't believe you' made sense as a response to that particular heckle. He's responding to someone else off mic.

Great story though. I'll stick with the legend.

Always thought the hotel that now occupies the site (and facade) of the Free Trade Hall missed a trick by not calling it's bar 'Judas!' or 'Liars Bar' or something.

Having listened to the exchange a number of times on the Bootleg Series, I came to the conclusion that the emphasis of Dylan’s “I don’t believe you,” was on the “believe” rather than the “don’t” (shades of Victor Meldrew), thus making the meaning along the lines of “you’ve got to be joking – you really said that?” rather than “you’re talking bollocks”. I assumed he was letting the "Judas" sink in a bit. "Play f***ing loud" then seems a natural follow up, even given the pause.

Then again, it is Saturday and I'm stuck at work rather than doing something sensible like relaxing. It's possible that I (like many others) am thinking way to much about this...

Is definitely NOT Dylan in my opinion, and I wrote a letter to Mojo saying this when the "Albert Hall" bootleg series volume came out. Sounds like Robbie Robertson to me.

...the "Albert Hall" recording (particularly the oft-overlooked acoustic half, which is just as fantastic), the whole "Judas" thing has surely become ludicruously overblown.

By the time he did those concerts in the UK, there couldn't have been anyone who'd want to go and see Bob who could have in anyway been shocked by his "new direction". The electric "trilogy" had all being released by May '66 , and it was well over a year after his appearance at Newport.

It's clear from listening to this and other recordings that the vast majority of attendants were more than happy with the racket he was making, and that the handful of luddites that had the time, money and inclination to waste enough of their life booing at him probably didn't number enough to fill a washroom.

Dylan was clearly no pushover. He arrived in New York from the boondocks friendless in one of the coldest winters on record, and he had the gumption, the resolve and the cunning to stone-step his way on to the folk circuit at a time it was madly over-subscribed, so to speculate that he got upset over some overfed Stalinist student throwing his dummy at him is just plain stupid.

Martin Scorsese's film even makes matters worse. At a time when Dylan's sanity was probably being stretched by drug abuse, overwork, and the lunacy of celebrity, we're somehow supposed to believe that he was either sentient or soft enough to let some commie heckler alone force him into a retreat.

I suspect neither Dylan - nor anyone for that matter - even gave that "Judas" rubbish a second thought until the bootleg surfaced some three years after the concert, at which point buffoonish mythologists like Greil Marcus started to spin the words of a moaning folkie heckler into the symbol of Dylan "going electric" as the most insecurrectionary cultural sine qua non since the first performance of "The Rites Of Spring" or The Armoury Show exhibition some fifty years earlier.

I was born the year before The Free Trade Hall concert, so I can hardly claim to be a primary source, but please, can anyone who was musically aware during this period please tell us whether this incident had any significance at all before people like Marcus started telling us that it did?

who said what to who. Five Star goy called a bunch of wankers on Saturday Superstore once. Or was it winkers. Someone should write a book about it.

Bed.

Someone asked 'was it a big deal at the time' Yes and no yes as in so much as the venue at that time did not have hecklers. Plus Dylan up till then could do no wrong. No in that by today's standards the outbursts would seem tame. As someone who was there (sat on stage because they gave our seats away and had to put us somewhere) It made the night all the more interesting. Folk) keep saying the stage hands there were none only a few rougharse fans. We got involved in shouting back now and again at hecklers. As a result I've been asked many times was the fucking loud bit me. My answer is always the same at the time we were steamed up and very much for Dylan and the Hawks. Did I ? no bloody idea anyway just adding to the chat as one that was there.