Voting Station

Keith Butler

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The Resume

    (circa 1946-October 25, 2002)
    Shouted ‘Judas!’ at Bob Dylan during a concert at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall (May 17, 1966)
    Dylan responded, ‘I don’t believe you. You’re a liar’
    Exchange featured on a heavily bootlegged album (with the concert usually misidentified as having been at the Royal Albert Hall in London)
    Officially released on ‘The Bootleg Series Vol 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The ‘Royal Albert Hall’ Concert’ (1998)
    Film of the incident included in the Martin Scorsese TV documentary ‘Bob Dylan: No Direction Home’ (2005)

Why he might be annoying:

    He explained his disappointment with Dylan’s ‘electric’ performance by noting, ‘That wasn’t the Bob Dylan we’d been used to listening to.’
    However, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ had been a #4 hit in Britain a year earlier, so Dylan’s move from folk to rock should hardly have been a surprise.
    He left the concert hall after Dylan’s rejoinder. (‘I was totally embarrassed when he shouted back.’)
    After leaving, he was interviewed in the lobby by a TV crew and declared, ‘Any bloody pop group could do this rubbish.’
    He was unaware of the incident’s notoriety for over 30 years, until he read a newspaper article about the concert’s official release on CD.
    Dylan later said about being called ‘Judas,’ ‘If you think you’ve been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. And for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified.’

Why he might not be annoying:

    Although he was the most notable heckler, he was hardly alone as catcalls and booing had disrupted the electric half of Dylan’s sets throughout his concert tour of Britain.
    At least some of the audience anger was directed more at a lousy PA system than the performance: while the concert sounds great remixed for a record release, plenty of people who were there at the time said Dylan’s vocals were impossible to hear over the sound of his band.
    He said he had not considered the implications calling a Jewish performer ‘Judas’: ‘I just want people to know I wasn’t an anti-semite.’
    He said he regretted heckling Dylan.
    He remained a fan, attending several other Dylan concerts over the years.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 10 Votes: 90.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 16 Votes: 87.50% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying