Al Kooper remembered the foul weather too, in his memoir Backstage Passes and Back - stabbing Bastards . He called the rain earlier that day “God’s little preview of what the night held in store.” Forest Hills was the first concert after his famous Dylan-goes-electric set at the Newport Folk Festival a month earlier. Let’s spare another retelling of the most dissect - ed forty minutes in rock history, one whose central controversy—the folk crowd’s sense of betrayal after their hero plugged in his gui - tar—seems quainter with each passing year. But suffice it to say, the musicians in Dylan’s band had reason to see the bad weather as an omen, because unlike the surprise of New - port, the Forest Hills audience knew what was coming. They’d had a month to work themselves up. “America was ready for hand- to-hand confrontation with its reckless idol,” Kooper wrote, “and Forest Hills would prove to be the battleground.” As he had at Newport, Dylan first per- formed a solo acoustic set, which only thick - ened the anger. They booed and catcalled. Jack Newfield, reviewing for The Village Voice , called the audience “riotous.” Backstage, Dylan’s band, which also included Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm, watched with knee-buckling fear. “We nearly shit our pants,” Brooks would later say. Dylan, cool and unwavering, called the musicians into a huddle during intermission, warned them it was going to be a “circus,” and told them to play through it no matter what. There’s still debate about whether the au - dience “rushed the stage” that night. When the Times used that language in an article a few years back, a reader wrote in to say he was there, and that no, it was more like “three people running in circles around a tennis court trying to avoid security guards.” Brooks remembered more onrushers, and one of them getting to Al Kooper and wrenching his stool out from underneath
him so he fell over. It’d be hard to argue the intent wasn’t violent. Brooks looked to Dylan, who motioned to just keep playing. When the band closed with “Like a Rolling Stone,” released weeks earlier and already a hit, the crowd booed and sang along at the same time. It’s been years since people have cared that passionately, to the point of near-riot- ing over a musician’s artistic choices. When Dylan performed at Forest Hills this sum - mer, people just hoped he’d sing his classic tunes in a voice that was fairly intelligible. (In typical Dylan fashion, he didn’t give the audience what it wanted.) Nonetheless, hav- ing him perform at Forest Hills again was meaningful, for Luba and for the West Side Tennis Club. It signified that the stadium is really back. Roland Meier, the former club president, said the place feels alive again, with members gathering for barbecues at the clubhouse during concerts. Even pro tennis has returned, with World Team Tennis play - ing matches this summer. Even with the repairs—and the stadium, today, looks ten times better than it did for the 2013 Mumford show, with actual seats where there’d been naked concrete—there remains a wonderful ancientness, a sense of being out of time and place. Seeing that arched stone facade rising from a Queens neighborhood is a little like the feeling you get in Rome when you turn a corner and before you is a colossal engineering marvel dating back to the days of chariots and the Empire. The new Barclays Center over in Brooklyn may have private lounges, a retail concourse, and a Junior’s, but you don’t feel the open-air thrill of having taken over Pom- peii for the night. Forest Hills, said Meier, “represents his - tory, a certain style.” Thinking of how close it came to being crushed, he shuddered: “It’s mind-boggling that we could’ve turned this into a parking lot and condominiums.”
Steven Kurutz is a features reporter for the New York Times and the author of Like a Rolling Stone: The Strange Life of a Tribute Band .
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