Beyond the music, Dylan's performance that night also marked a turn in American culture.
"Before 1965 was really a different world, and it's the '60s of the Civil Rights Movement, and of folk music and of joining arms across the generations and across the races. And after 1965 it's the world of rock…I'm not saying that Dylan created that change, but I do think that the confrontation at Newport happened because it was symbolic of that much larger confrontation, and has been remembered because it really is sort of the moment of rupture where the new '60s emerged.