SAN DIEGO — David Peck's birthday gift came early this year. The founder of San Diego's 30-year-old Reelin' in the Years Productions — a leading archive for rare music film and video footage — on Monday announced the discovery of previously unseen 1969 concert footage of Bob Dylan and The Band.
The two-minute clip is the first known professionally shot film of Dylan's Isle of Wight performance. It marked his official full-concert return to the stage following a three-year hiatus after Dylan's 1966 motorcycle crash in Woodstock, New York. Dylan's Isle of Wight gig drew three members of The Beatles, two members of the Rolling Stones, one member of Pink Floyd, and Eric Clapton, along with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Jane Fonda and hundreds of thousands of other fans.
The footage Peck unearthed features performance excerpts of three classic Dylan songs — "Highway 61 Revisited," "Like A Rolling Stone" and "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35." The quality and rarity of the footage prompted Emmy-winning director Jennifer Lebeau to incorporate some of it into the immersive film experience she created for the Bob Dylan Center, which opened Tuesday in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
