The story of Bob Dylan’s appearance at The Concert for Bangladesh on 1 August 1971 is part of rock and roll lore. Organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, The Concert for Bangladesh consisted of two performances at Madison Square Gardens, one at 2.30pm, the other at 8pm. Other artists included Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and Leon Russell.
Even after Bob Dylan turned up for the rehearsal for The Concert For Bangladesh, George Harrison was not confident that Dylan would make the actual shows. The night before, after the rehearsal, Dylan had reiterated his aversion to the Madison Square Gardens scene. Speaking to Anthony DeCurtis in 1987, Harrison spoke of Dylan’s appearance at the afternoon show: “And I looked around, and he was so nervous, he had his guitar on and his shades, he was sort of coming on, coming. It was only at that moment that I knew for sure he was going to do it.” Allegedly, the audience was totally astonished by Dylan’s arrival.
Dylan played five songs, not including If Not For You: A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, Blowin’ in the Wind, It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry, Love Minus Zero/No Limit and Just Like a Woman. For the evening show, Dylan adjusted the song order and substituted Mr Tambourine Man for the excellent Love Minus Zero. Dylan’s sets at both shows went down a treat. Years later, Harrison told Rolling Stone that Bob Dylan was so happy after the concerts that he picked Harrison up and hugged him, saying “God! If only we’d done three shows!”
Record company obstruction meant that the release of The Concert For Bangladesh triple album was delayed. Worse, the funds were only released to charities some years later, for the same reason. Nonetheless the precedent set by The Concert for Bangladesh, and the lessons learned, paved the way for subsequent major fundraising concerts like Live Aid.
Finally, a little treat for those intrigued by the way in which the future Travelling Wilburys compatriots pitched their vocals in the 1971 rehearsal take of If Not For You. Here is George Harrison singing If Not For You in a distinctly Dylanish style for Bob Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Concert, 1992: