Bob Dylan: Like the Night - The Road to the Manchester Free Trade Hall (Paperback)

If you want to see exactly how much more there is to the new, improved, refurbished, updated and revised 'Like The Night', then it is best to start at the end - with the index. There are at least an additional 50 textual references in this new index and the same includes some important new entries. Probably the most important 'new' name in the index is Pam Lee who, in both editions, C.P. describes as 'the woman without whom all this would have been impossible'. Pam has thus earned her rightful place in the index for, without Pam there wouldn't have been an index at all let alone a book to go with it! Other less worthy new entrants include Tony Blair, John Prescott and Frank Zappa but there are two new names in particular that you should look out for both in the index and in the book itself and they are Keith Butler and John Cordwell.

In a brand new Chapter to the book - chapter 8 - 'Dining With Judas' - C.P. explains how these two characters, Butler and Cordwell, both hold themselves out to be the infamous shouter of 'Judas' at the concert. It is an intriguing and spell binding tale of transatlantic e-mails, late night curries, Boomtown Rats and a telephone call on Christmas morning. The new book is worth having for this chapter alone as it contains a myriad of superbly described circumstances yet leaves perfectly, and somehow enticingly, unresolved the question of really: 'Who dunnit?.

So, what else is new? Well, the compact size for a start, and also the cover photograph. This time Dylan has his back to us but the spotlight which has clearly hit Dylan full in the face, works to make a ragged halo around his '66 unkept bouffant. And, if it's photographs that you are after, there are plenty more here, including one of the author standing next to a Dylan statue and many of the Manchester Free Trade Hall which bring the story to life and add a new perspective to the history of the subject. One of the appendices which details internet resources, has been expertly revised and no doubt greatly improved by the appearance of Freewheelin-on-line 'The World's first Bob Dylan internet fanzine'!

Of course, since the first edition of 'Like The Night' was published, Sony Columbia have released the Free Trade Hall concert as 'The Bootleg Series Volume 4 - Bob Dylan Live 1966 - The 'Royal Albert Hall' Concert'. In 'Revisited' C.P. not only reports on the responses to the official release of the soundboard from the concert, but also provides some mouth watering details of other products, official and otherwise, which have their source in Dylan's frantic '66 activities.

There is nothing quiet or tricky about 'Like The Night (Revisited)'. It is a brilliant read full of anecdotes, observations and battlegrounds. It is a history book; as Geil Marcus declares on the new cover 'C.P.Lee was there but the point is that he can put you there too.' Whist, with 'Chronicles Volume 1' Dylan may be seen sitting stranded away from his art, C.P. takes you to the dead centre of the art form and brings us all into harmony with the cosmic sea that drenched Manchester on that night in May 1966. If you want a companion to Chronicles that will bring the music to your ears, this is it!