Flashback: Bob Dylan plays the Isle Of Wight

It was on this date 37 years ago (August 31st, 1969) that Bob Dylan made his first full-length concert appearance in three years at the Isle Of Wight Festival. Dylan's hour long set with the Band closed the three day festival, which also featured the Who, Richie Havens, the Moody Blues, Joe Cocker, and a solo set by the Band.

Dylan has gone on record as saying that when he found out about the Woodstock festival taking place near his Saugerties, New York home earlier that month, he snapped up the offer to play the Isle Of Wight Festival and get as far away from the Woodstock crowds that would be looking for him at home.

After very little rehearsal, Dylan and the Band took the stage in front of a crowd of an estimated 200,000 people -- including John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. In front of a battery of microphones, a bearded Dylan, clad in a white suit and playing a large Gibson hollow-bodied acoustic guitar, gave an hour-long, spirited performance of 16 songs, spanning his then eight-year career.

Among the songs performed during Dylan and The Band's set were "She Belongs To Me," "I Threw It All Away," "Maggie's Farm," "It Ain't Me Babe," "Minstrel Boy," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Lay Lady Lay," "To Ramona," "Highway 61 Revisited," "Like A Rolling Stone," "Mighty Quinn," and "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35."

The Band's drummer Levon Helm recalled the show to author Clinton Heylin for his Dylan biography, Behind The Shades: "I would've like to have gotten carried away. Bob had an extra list of songs with eight or ten different titles with question marks by them... But it seemed like the festival was three days old by then; and so, if everybody else is ready to go home, let's all go."

Columbia Records recorded the shows on a portable 8-track machine, and four of the songs, "She Belongs To Me," "Minstrel Boy," "Like A Rolling Stone," and "The Mighty Quinn," were included on Dylan's 1970 Self Portrait album.

Over the years, the concert has been widely bootlegged from several sources, including the sound from local film crews, crude recordings from audience members, and even a low-generation dub from the Columbia master tape. The concert has long been rumored to be included in an upcoming edition of Dylan's ongoing Bootleg Series collections.
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