10 Most Iconic Moments At Live Rock Shows
2. Play It F*cking Loud! (When Bob Dylan Was Judas)
On the 20 July 1965 Bob Dylan famously performed at the Newport Folk Festival with an electric backing band, receiving boos, and jeers from the crowd. There was even rumours that Pete Seeger - a well known folk singer, who had been a huge advocate of Dylan - threatened to cut the electrics with an axe, so opposed was he to Dylan's new sound.
But an even more iconic event occurred during a UK tour roughly a year later. By this time, Dylan had experienced an extensive amount of abuse at his shows, with people buying tickets merely to bombard him with ridicule for (in their eyes) turning his back on folk music.
The moment is immortalised in Martin Scorsese masterful film No Direction Home, which documents Dylan's rise to near god-like status as a folk singer and his biblical betrayal of the folk scene upon his adoption electric equipment.
At a live show one fan shouted "Judas" to which, a somewhat tired and disingenuous looking Dylan replied "I don't believe you" He then proved he really was a protest singer after all, as he turned to his backing band and exclaimed "Play it f*cking loud" before turning back to the audience and saluting them as he broke into a defiant and unapologetic rendition of Like A Rolling Stone.
This was punk rock before punk rock was even a thing.