Dylan on Dylan by Jeff Burger

Author:Jeff Burger
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2018-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

[Commercial break.]

Dylan: I’m usually in a numb state of mind before my shows, and I have to kick in at some place along the line. Usually it takes me one or two songs, or sometimes now it takes much longer. Sometimes it takes me up to the encore! [Laughs.]

Kleinman: The band, I would imagine, has an effect on that.

Dylan: Oh, absolutely. I’ve played with some bands that have gotten in my way so much that it’s just been a struggle to get through the show. At certain times it gets ridiculous.

Kleinman: I’d imagine the flip side, too. Have there been bands that turn you on?

Dylan: Yeah, this last band. I thought they were pretty good.

Kleinman: Rolling Thunder was an interesting tour. It wasn’t just the performing but the whole idea of the thing. There was a spontaneity of a kind to it.

Dylan: Yeah, there was definitely a lot of spontaneity to that.

Kleinman: Was it scary or exciting?

Dylan: A little of both. We were doing double shows on the Rolling Thunder shows. We’d be in a hall, say, for fourteen hours. You know, Rolling Thunder shows were six hours long!

Kleinman: That had to be people loving making music.

Dylan: Well [laughing], there were so many people. You know, the people in the audience came and went. People would bring their lunch or dinner or something.

Mogull: Like a Grateful Dead concert?

Dylan: Yeah.

Kleinman: Was that your idea? Did it come from you?

Dylan: No, it just happened. We started out with a small show and it just evolved.

Kleinman: That’s an amazing thing to me, that you’re able to maintain that. A lot of people, when they get to a certain place in the business—

Dylan: I thought the Rolling Thunder shows were great. I think someday somebody should make a movie out of them!

Kleinman: And call it . . .

Dylan: Rolling Thunder!

Kleinman: [Laughs.] You’ve been smiling and laughing a lot here, but you don’t do that much on stage. But you say you really enjoy yourself. You look so serious.

Dylan: Well, those songs take you through different trips. What’s there to smile about in singing “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” or “Tangled Up in Blue” or “With God on Our Side” or “Mr. Tambourine Man” or “Like a Rolling Stone” or “License to Kill” or “Shot of Love” or “Poisoned Love”? Any of that. How can you sing that with a smile on your face? It’d be kind of hypocritical.

You’ll do things on certain nights, which you know are just great, and you’ll get no response. And then you’ll go someplace else and you just don’t have it that night, for a variety of reasons, and you’re just trying to get through it. But you’ve got to get it to a place where it’s consistent. Then it stays on that level. It can get great, which is really triple consistent. I’ve done things where I might have had a temperature of 104, or I might have been kicked in the side that day. I have done shows where I could hardly stand up.

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