Dylan's Judas Concert — Free Trade Hall, Manchester

On May 17, 1966, Bob Dylan played the Free Trade Hall in Manchester on his world tour — and during the electric second half of the show, an audience member shouted "Judas!" at him from the stalls. Dylan's response — "I don't believe you. You're a liar." — followed by the instruction to his band to "play it fucking loud," leading into a ferocious version of "Like a Rolling Stone" — is one of the most celebrated moments in rock history. The confrontation crystallised the controversy around Dylan's decision to abandon acoustic folk for electric rock, a choice that had alienated large sections of his folk audience.

The bootleg recording of the concert circulated for decades under the mistaken label of the Royal Albert Hall — which Dylan had played two weeks earlier — and was consequently known as the "Royal Albert Hall Concert" bootleg, one of the most traded recordings in bootleg history. The Manchester location was only confirmed when the recording was officially released in 1998 as part of "Bob Dylan Live 1966." The heckler was eventually identified as Keith Butler, a student from Keele University, who later expressed no regret.

The Free Trade Hall on Peter Street was converted into a hotel (the Radisson Edwardian) in 1996. The building's exterior, with its Victorian palazzo facade, is preserved. A plaque acknowledges the building's history. The moment it contains — Dylan's contemptuous, liberating response to being called a traitor to folk music — is one of the defining declarations of artistic independence in rock history.