Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr performed together to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” The Rolling Stones went on tour to commemorate their 50 years as a band. So why not celebrate 50 years since the origin of Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree?”

Folk singer-songwriter Guthrie and his band are on tour highlighting the song — and Feb. 13-14 they played it as part of a nearly two-hour set at the downtown Asheville’s Diana Wortham Theatre. For both shows, the 500-seat venue was filled.

After intermission on Feb. 14, Guthrie sat alone on a stool and performed “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” as images from a 1969 Arthur Penn film of the same name appeared on a screen behind the stage.

The saga detailed on the 16-minute recording of the — for the most part — talking blues starts with Guthrie and a friend being arrested for illegally dumping garbage. (It was Thanksgiving, so the town dump was closed.)

The two are arrested and put in jail in Great Barrington, Mass. and remain there until Alice, who generated the garbage along with her husband Ray, bails them out.

From there, Guthrie sings of being drafted during the Vietnam War, but after being “selected, injected and detected,” he delights in avoiding having to serve because of the littering arrest.

 The song, which appeared on Guthrie’s 1967 “Alice’s Restaurant” album, contains a catchy chorus, to which the audience sang along without prompting. 

“Songs can create a movement,” Guthrie said during Feb. 14 performance, after wrapping things up. “Somebody sometime will come up with one but for now we’re stuck with this.”

To open the show, an animated pickle riding a motorcycle down a mountain road appeared on the screen.

Meanwhile, Guthrie’s band members arrived on stage, followed by Guthrie, who began singing “The Motorcycle Song.” 

“Don’t want a pickle, just want to ride my motorcycle... / I don’t want to die, I just want to ride my motorCIIIIcle.” 

“It’s amazing a man can make a living singing a song that dumb,” Gutherie had said during a previous Asheville appearance. “Well, that’s America for you.”

Guthrie’s son, Gabe, plays keyboard in the tight four-piece band. Like his father, Gabe has shoulder-length hair; at age 68, Arlo’s hair and mustache are snow-white.

Between songs, Guthrie often would talk of his father, folk music giant Woody Guthrie.

According to Arlo, his father’s song, “Tom Joad,” which summarizes the events of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” drew the ire of the author.

“You dirty little blank,” Steinbeck said in a letter to Woody. “You said in 12 verses what it took me about 600 pages to do.”

Arlo added, wryly, “My father was a good editor.” 

Woody Guthrie, who died in 1967 at age 55, was also a teacher. 

“This is a song I had to learn playing in the backyard,” Guthrie said before launching into “This Land is Your Land,” which drew enthusiastic applause.

Another song that went over well was “City of New Orleans,” Guthrie’s biggest commercial success. 

“Steve Goodman wrote this song in 1970 or 71 and he wanted to get Johnny Cash to record, but Johnny Cash said he’d already done enough train songs.

He didn’t want to get ‘trainicided,’” Guthrie quipped. “Worked out for me.”

Arlo finished off the night with “All I Can Give You Is Peace,” a gentle ballad he wrote in memory of his wife Jackie, who died in 2012. “She was sick a long time, but she made it through our 43rd anniversary party,” he said.

As for “The Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” Guthrie emphasized that it was a true story. “You can’t make stuff like this up,” he said.

The real Alice and her husband Ray still live in Great Barrington and the former church building where they accumulated all the garbage is now the Guthrie Center, which hosts charitable non-profit groups and serves free lunches, Guthrie said.