This Day In Classic Rock [Videos] 5/17

Bob Dylan played the Free Trade Hall in Manchester England tonight in 1966, when an audience member pissed off about his use of a Fender Stratocaster in place of his usual Martin Acoustic guitar shouted "Judas!" in between songs. Dylan quipped " I don't believe you! You're a liar!", and carried on, telling his band launching into Like A Rolling Stone to "play it f***ing loud!". The show was recorded, but not released until 1999.

The Beatles were at Abbey Road today in 1967, starting in on a new John Lennon number, You Know My Name (Look Up The Number), a comedy-music hall song in the style of their friends The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. They didn't like it much, didn't finish it until 1969, and it didn't come out until after they'd broken up, as the B-side to Let It Be.

Long-playing (LP) records for the first time sold more than singles in England today in 1969. No at all coincidentally, the top album on the charts was the debut by Led Zeppelin, who's manager Peter Grant refused to let them release singles in England.

Elton John hit a record sales milestone today in 1975, when his Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboys was certified platinum (over 1 million copies sold) on the day it came out, the first album ever to do so. Here he is doing the title track live at the Seattle Center Coliseum circa 1975. Maybe you were there, I was.

An arsonist set fire to Tom Petty's house in Encino California tonight in 1987. Lost to the flames were about $800,000 in guitars, house, and Tom's signature grey top hat, but the Encino Fire Department was able to save his beloved Gibson Dove acoustic, the basement recording studio, and best of all the tapes he had recorded there. Tom kept the house, and it had it rebuilt with flame-proof materials.

Bill Wyman went into the restaurant business when Sticky Fingers opened in London today in 1989. He may have been pre-planning the diversification of his financial assets, as he would do the Steel Wheels and Urban Jungle tours with The Rolling Stones that year, then quit the band, though it wasn't formally announced until 1992.

Nirvana played the last show of a North American van tour at a small club called The Zoo in Boise Idaho tonight in 1990. The next day they would drive back to Seattle and sack their drummer Chad Channing, later to replace him with Dave Grohl of the recently-split Washington D.C. band Scream. In the interim they would do one show at the now long gone Motorsports Garage on Stewart Street with Mudhoney's Dan Peters on drums.

Paul McCartney and second wife Heather Mills announced today in 2006 that they'd given up on trying to save their 4 year marriage. Heather had apparently dreamed of a jet-setting lavish social life with a former Beatle, but later complained to friends that he was "a boring old fart", "the only thing he ever did was go down to the pub with his roadies, We never have parties or do fun things". She hated living in the English countryside, and also complained that Paul "Smoked cannabis as regularly as others would have a cup of tea". Their highly publicized divorce in 2008 would cost millions in legal fees and leave Heather with a mere £24.3 million to get by on.

Rock and Roll Birthdays

Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford is 71.

Pearl Jam's heyday drummer Dave Abbruzzese is 52, and back in Texas. He was never on board with their famous 1994 boycott of TicketMaster, and they sacked him citing "personality conflicts" in August of that year.

Kyuss, Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone AgeThem Crooked Vultures, and occasional Eagles of Death Metal (he wasn't with them during the terrorist attack at the Bataclan nightclub in Paris) guitarist, singer, songwriter, and producer Josh Homme is 47.


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