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Bob Dylan was in London today, having played the Royal Albert Hall the previous night, with another show upcoming. According to The Beatles Bible,
Following his 26 May concert, Dylan visited Kenwood, Lennon’s home in Weybridge. The following day the pair were filmed being driven to the May Fair Hotel in Stratton Street, London, where Dylan was staying.
Present in the limousine was director DA Pennebaker, who had been hired to make a documentary on Dylan’s UK tour, and sound operator Bobby Neuwirth. The footage, titled Eat The Document, was later shelved after the US TV network ABC, which had funded the shoot, rejected a rough cut.
Fortunately, all things are available to us denizens of the 21st century:
You wonder what they must have been up to the night before, because Dylan is a mess — slurring his speech, rubbing his eyes, and at one point threatening to throw up onto the camera. Lennon, who is in much better shape, appears to relish the fact that Bob is so wasted and helpless. It seems that John harbored something of an inferiority complex when it came to Dylan, who always operated at a somewhat more literary and higher-toned level, without the relatively teenybopper background of having been a Beatle.
Dylan did eventually make it back to the hotel, and later in the day John and George attended his second RAH show. (Paul and Ringo had something better to do, apparently?) One account I read has the two Beatles loudly defending Dylan against the hecklers who, as they did on every stop of this tour, took offense at Dylan’s decision to play rock’n’roll. While that story may well be apocryphal, it’s a mental picture I very much enjoy.
After the concert Dylan went to Dolly’s nightclub. Paul McCartney, having finished with his dinner party or whatever he was doing, was there. So were the Rolling Stones. Just another boring day in Swinging London.