[vmorrissette]

So Bob Dylan played with his band in Atlanta, Chastain Park ampitheatre next to my house. It was confusing, because the stage is sort of triangular and he was in the back left of the stage instead of the front. Another suprising thing was that he didn't even play acoustic guitar, instead he played an electric lap steal... Then he sort of remixed all his songs with different pronunciation like HEY (long pause) MISTer TAMbourine MAN... alot harsher too. It was still Dylan though so what can you do... didn't really feel like folk music though.

[horn82y]

my father went to one of his concerts this past summer and said basically the same thing, that a lot of his song were sung different and he really didnt play any of his vintage music, just the stuff he has come up with recently

[dadfad]

I've seen Dylan twice, the last time almost twenty years ago, and he was disappointing both times. I think he just picks up the phone every once in a while whenever his bank acccount drops below eight digits and tells his "people" to hook something up for him. He'll do a little perfunctory crap and rake in a few mil and feels he has honored the "little people" by merely allowing them to bask in his presence. After all, he is Dylan.


What respect I had once for the man (which was considerable) who had written so may great tunes began to diminish in the 70s and was nearly gone by the end of the 80s. The tiny bit I still had left was wiped out a year or two ago when I was able to read a contract a friend of mine was given and needed to sign before he (or any other artist on a Dylan-tour) would be allowed to open for him on a date on a tour. Enough to gag a maggot. The guy is so full of himself it's ridiculous ("...artists must avoid eye-contact with Mr. Dylan unless approached by Mr. Dylan. Artists must leave the room or, if that is not possible, move to the other side of the room or hallway when Mr. Dylan enters them. The artist must not speak to Mr. Dylan unless Mr. Dylan initiates conversation with him first..." blah-blah-blah... ) He obviously believes his own press and knows he is no longer just a mere mortal but a legend... ...Dylan.

The only thing that still amazes me about Dylan is that his head hasn't swollen so big that it hasn't popped yet.

[okiejohn]

I've seen Mr. Dylan three times. The best was when he toured with that Saturday Night Live band...G.E. Smith, I think, was in charge. Anyway the fella that played guitar and directed that SNL band. Bob changed alot of his tunes around on that tour as well, but I'd think they would get rather old if he played them the exact same way night after night...year after year.

On another night, another time, another place, it was just Bob and a couple of players...totally acoustic, just chords, and it was total crap. It would have been better...I think, if it had just been Bob.

Maybe I've only seen him twice .

I've heard of the conditions in stage contracts. I can see some of that, he's always been the odd duck, and without some of that stuff folks would probably be all over him. Ha..folks might discover he's just a man, and maybe he's got nothing to say, anymore.

He did write some great lyrics, he did save us from the crap that was passed off as pop music before he hit the scene. I might be wrong, but folks had to pick it up after Bob laid his stuff on us.

[mcgrail]

I saw Dylan last year, here in birmingham UK. It was pretty dissapointing. he didnt touch a guitar the whole night. The best thing about bob dylan and his band... was his band. Dylan didnt sing how he did on the reocrds, so there was no sing along to Mr. Tamboriene man. the timing was completly different. He didnt even speak to the audience. the only interaction he had with them was when he stood at the front of the stage and help out his UK music hall of fame award for about 5 minutes. Got an applause then played an encore. It was pretty rubbish, and alot of my respect for the man who preaches so many good things in his songs (yet does not seem to abide by them anymore) has diminished.

[vmorrissette]

I watched that DVD No Direction Home, a while ago and I thought to myself what an arse Dillan was in the interviews, and the ways in which the other interviewees(sp?) portrayed him, such as Joan Baez etc... There is footage of him yelling at the audience, and refusing to do signatures stating "if you really needed my signature i'd give it to you, but you don't so I won't"... it baffled me simply because I don't see how he would allow them to release a documentary about him which basically made him look like an egotistical maniac.
On the DVD it seemed as if the director (spielberg maybe?) was hinting at the fact that Dylan went electric in his later years and abandoned the folk music scene as well as the protest scene which had made him famous. I'm guessing he also abandoned a lot of fans... which is seen in how they boo'd at him in concerts. Maybe that's why he's so bitter.

[Grizzly Adams]

If you think that made him look like a jerk... watch "Don't Look Back". The scene with the "Science Student", holy crap. But I'm still a huge fan.

About those contract things... Did Dylan actually come up with it? Seems like something the promoter of the concert (Columbia?) might put in there just so Dylan doesn't complain to them about something and they can cover themselves.

Dylan never sings his songs the same live. If you check out some of his live recordings you'll see that it can work for the better sometimes. But in his defense, he's been touring regularly for a long time now and wouldn't you get a little bored of doing the same songs the same way?

But yes I agree, I saw him a few years ago and it was a little less than exciting. And I'll admit I'm guilty of being excited and basking in the presence of the immortal DYLAN... we all have our guilty pleasures.

[dadfad]

It just seems to me ANY musician should show respect and appreciation for his fans. Playing a few covers you're tired of playing once in a while is a pretty small price to pay to show how much you appreciate the people who have made you a multi-millionaire many times over and made it possible for you to live a lifestyle where you can pursue your music without the day to day tedium and drudgery that 99.9% of the other musicians on earth must deal with as they pursue theirs. Without those fans he'd be working in a car-wash or schlepping insurance. Being talented does not necessarily preclude a person from being a self-centered asshole.


(The contract clauses... I'm sure "Mr. Dylan" must be aware of what "his people" come up with. And you can bet they didn't come up with things like that because "Mr. Dylan" respects or enjoys the company of fellow musicians. Keep in mind, these contracts are for professional performing musicians (and obviously pretty accomplished ones or they wouldn't even be considered to tour with "The Bob.") It has nothing to do with screaming adoring folkies and fans and other "riff-raff.")

[Craig61]

One of these days I would like DADFAD to list the rock and roll concerts he has attended over the years. My wife's cousin lived in New York City and over the years he kept all his ticket stubbs from the concerts he has seen and pasted them to his door. When he filled up his door he took the door down put a glass top on it and it is now a table with all the ticket stubbs under the glass. Looks pretty cool. It is a who's who of Rock and Roll of the 1970's

[dadfad]

One of these days I would like DADFAD to list the rock and roll concerts he has attended over the years. My wife's cousin lived in New York City and over the years he kept all his ticket stubbs from the concerts he has seen and pasted them to his door. When he filled up his door he took the door down put a glass top on it and it is now a table with all the ticket stubbs under the glass. Looks pretty cool. It is a who's who of Rock and Roll of the 1970's

Haha! I'll try to do that sometime. In a similar vein, back in the hippie "psychedelic ballroom" days of the 60s the four "main" original ballrooom venues (The Filmore East, Filmore West, Grande and Avalon) (and others that eventually sprang up too like the Riviera, the Eastown, etc) used to have "psychedelic" posters of the groups that would be appearing there (like Jefferson Airplane, Cream, Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer, Mothers of Invention, The Fugs, James Gang, Chamber Brothers, etc, etc... the old "hippie bands" ) done in that "surrealistic" art-style of that day. The full-size posters would be on display outside or occasionally tacked up in a "non-mainstream" record store or in a "hang-out" for counter-culture types. They would also print identical smaller "hand-bills" that were identical to the large posters (you still see handbills from some bands passed out or sometimes tucked under the windshield-wiper of your car outside a small club or something now). They were about large postcard-size (actually many of them would even have a place for a stamp, message and address on the back so they could be used as post-cards, and I'd used many for that purpose while travelling). I'd been to three of those four original ballrooms back then many times (and actually played at two of them in a no-name opening band or "off-night" band), especially the Grande Ballroom in Detroit (never made it to the Filmore East for some reason even though I spent time in NYC). And so tucked around in boxes of "old junk" and stacks of old records, or between the pages of my old books, etc. I found I still had about twenty-five or thirty of them left that hadn't been tossed or mailed or used to jot down some chick's phone number on back then. I used them to make a sort of collage under the glass top of a very large chromed-steel coffee-table (fifties-modern maybe? ) in my music room. Kind of like what your wife's cousin did with his door. I wish I'd kept more "momentos" of the past than I did. I have a lot still I guess... half of a broken Keith Moon drumstick, the pick I loaned Ronnie Lane once when be broke his last one on stage, Warhol's scribbled "2U -Andy" on a bar-napkin... just assorted junk-o-bilia!... but not because I really tried to consciously save them so much as that they just somehow never happened to have gotten lost or tossed over the years. I wish I had.

[Will_Wood]

Speaking of which, I just recorded Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Coincidence?

[TMFG]

I've seen Dylan twice, the last time almost twenty years ago, and he was disappointing both times. I think he just picks up the phone every once in a while whenever his bank acccount drops below eight digits and tells his "people" to hook something up for him. He'll do a little perfunctory crap and rake in a few mil and feels he has honored the "little people" by merely allowing them to bask in his presence. After all, he is Dylan.


What respect I had once for the man (which was considerable) who had written so may great tunes began to diminish in the 70s and was nearly gone by the end of the 80s. The tiny bit I still had left was wiped out a year or two ago when I was able to read a contract a friend of mine was given and needed to sign before he (or any other artist on a Dylan-tour) would be allowed to open for him on a date on a tour. Enough to gag a maggot. The guy is so full of himself it's ridiculous ("...artists must avoid eye-contact with Mr. Dylan unless approached by Mr. Dylan. Artists must leave the room or, if that is not possible, move to the other side of the room or hallway when Mr. Dylan enters them. The artist must not speak to Mr. Dylan unless Mr. Dylan initiates conversation with him first..." blah-blah-blah... ) He obviously believes his own press and knows he is no longer just a mere mortal but a legend... ...Dylan.

The only thing that still amazes me about Dylan is that his head hasn't swollen so big that it hasn't popped yet.

The man knows how to write a catchy tune though.

[ninjato]

The guy is so full of himself it's ridiculous ("...artists must avoid eye-contact with Mr. Dylan unless approached by Mr. Dylan. Artists must leave the room or, if that is not possible, move to the other side of the room or hallway when Mr. Dylan enters them. The artist must not speak to Mr. Dylan unless Mr. Dylan initiates conversation with him first..." blah-blah-blah... ) He obviously believes his own press and knows he is no longer just a mere mortal but a legend... ...Dylan.

The only thing that still amazes me about Dylan is that his head hasn't swollen so big that it hasn't popped yet.

I've never liked Dylan as a performer. He can't sing nor play guitar very well. I do a lot of his covers that other artists have done but I never choose to put Dylan on the stereo or CD.