Thread by @bob_notes

Today marks the 55th anniversary of an important #BobDylan gig at the Berkeley Community Theater in Berkeley, CA. The 22 February 1964 performance was a triumph and helped propel Dylan to stardom. No recording survives but here's some ephemera and notes to mark the occasion.

The performance came at the tail end of a road trip Dylan took with Paul Clayton, Victor Maimudes, and Pete Karmen that included stops to support striking miners, visit Carl Sandburg, party in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, see Dealey Plaza, and perform a small number of shows.

Billed as Dylan's first show in the San Francisco Bay Area, Berkeley was not his first performance on the west coast. Nine months earlier, on 18 May 1963, Dylan (from Gallup, NM!) appeared at the Monterey Folk Festival. He played four songs, including one with Joan Baez.

The Berkeley show was promoted by the fascinating Mary Ann Pollar. You can catch a glimpse of Pollar in Dylan's hilarious San Francisco press conference of 1965, ahead of the electric Dylan shows she also promoted. Here's an obituary that's far too short:
sfgate.com/news/article/F…

Here's an advertisement for the Berkeley show that ran in Oakland on 20 February and claimed Dylan's primary concerns were "loneliness, fear, war, freedom, and despair." The Pete Seeger idea that Dylan would be America's greatest troubadour would circle around for the reviews.

That same day - 20 February - Dylan was in San Francisco looking for Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Larry wasn't home so Dylan left a note on his door, promising him tickets if he came to Berkeley for the show.

The Berkeley show is lost with no recordings known to exist. The nearest performance we have is Dylan's appearance on The Steve Allen Show three days later, on 25 February. It's close enough to get a sense of how Dylan looked and sounded at Berkeley:

We also lack a definitive setlist of what Dylan played on 22 February 1964. We can piece together highlights from the reviews: One Too Many Mornings, Restless Farewell, Walls of Red Wing, and Eternal Circle. Joan Baez joined for With God on Our Side and Blowin' in the Wind.

The reviews were something brighter than glowing. Ralph Gleason in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Genius makes its own rules and Dylan is a genius, a singing conscience and moral referee as well as a preacher."

Here's another review, by Russ Wilson in the Oakland Tribune. Despite problems with the PA, Wilson left impressed by the performance. (Note the coincidental reference to Who Killed Davey Moore? adjacent to an advertisement for the first Muhammad Ali / Sonny Liston fight).

But the review that probably got Dylan the most traction was written by Richard Farina and published in the August 1964 issue of Mademoiselle. Frequently reprinted, the article is titled "Baez and Dylan: A Generation Singing Out." It includes this haunting paragraph: