This concert is still ringing in my ears, forty years on.

In the '70's I had a bootleg of what I thought was this concert, way before the ones purporting to be of the Free Trade Hall concert were making the rounds. Unfortunately, it got lost on the way, as so many things, so I can't verify it now. However, the important thing is, I was there. There was also professional recording equipment set up and being worked from the front at the side.

If you know the Albert Hall layout, you know there's seating at the sides of the stage and behind (below the organ). I was on the left side of the stage as you look at it, about half way up only a few yards from the band. We mostly saw Dylan and Robbie Robertson from the back.

Dylan did the first half of his set with acoustic versions of the electric songs. The second half was the direct provocation of full on electric versions of the acoustic repertoire. If I recall correctly, the band - apart from Robbie Robertson - was dressed in really old fashioned backing band type uniforms, red I think.

A lot of nonsense is talked on the epoch changing music making, but that was just loud, rough, and shrill. The event itself, however, was intensely exciting. Dylan was slight, even with his stacked boots, but dominated that giant concert hall like a ringmaster controls performing animals. They were thousands, but he was a centre of such massive magnetism that he was larger than them all. And when the cry of 'Judas' came down from somewhere high in the upper circle, he let his guitar hang loose, cupped his hands and screamed 'Why don't you, READ A BOOK'

I don't know who the girl was I was with, I can't recall her face, but I can picture that stage, I can almost smell it now, forty years on.