Some said he went “Vegas.” The story was he’d seen Neil Diamond perform there and had the idea of a real production for his live show. He hired Jerry Weintraub to manage his career. He had assembled the largest band he has ever had: Sax, keyboards, percussion, drums, lead guitar, violin, 3 backing vocalists, and Bob himself. The drastic rearrangements of his songs had kicked into overdrive, though really he’d been doing that since 1965. His popularity was at its highest since his initial heyday, due to some big-selling albums: Blood on the Tracks, The Basement Tapes, Desire, and the live Hard Rain. He had mounted a huge world tour, beginning in Japan. Some cynics dubbed it the Alimony Tour as it followed Dylan’s divorce. They took a short break to record the great Street Legal, then left to perform throughout Europe. During the tour, his movie Renaldo and Clara was released and eviscerated by the press, even after being awarded the Palme D’Or at Cannes. Street Legal received similar treatment. That’s the real divorce album, by the way, not Blood On The Tracks. Critics didn’t much care for the live show, as did lots of diehard fans. Towards the end of the tour, he had a vision in a hotel room and was changed, seen wearing a cross at the last few shows.

That fall, the tour came to New York City, to Madison Square Garden for two nights. And it was then that I attended my first Bob Dylan concert, September 29, 1978, 46 years ago today. He was 37. I was 15. Down below is the original ticket stub I’ve saved all these years.

That was 151 shows ago. My 152nd show took place July 6th of this year, with my beautiful girlfriend, up at Bethel Woods on Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Tour. In these 46 years, he’s sung hundreds of songs for me, and has seemingly been as many Bob Dylan’s. Seeing him never means anything less than the world to me. I’ve seen him in water front parks, stadiums, arenas, college gyms, clubs, theaters, opera houses, and on a stage in the center field of a minor league baseball stadium.

As big a gift as the concerts have been is the music he’s put me in touch with, from citing them in interviews or covering their songs: To list a scant few: Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Odetta, Hank Williams, Link Wray, Muddy Waters, The Mississippi Sheiks, Bob Wills, Robert Johnson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Blind Willie McTell, The Clancy Brothers. I’ve heard him cover songs by Leadbelly to The Ink Spots to Blind Blake to Charles Aznavour. 

I was there for the live debut of “This Wheel’s On Fire” (Madison, NJ 4/13/96). And one of only two performances at the time of “House of the Rising Sun” (NYC 7/17/86). And the only performance of “Weeping Willow” (Supper Club, NYC 11/17/93). And “Something,” for George, a year after his passing, in the house where Harrison had twice introduced Bob to the stage (NYC 11/13/02).

He’s been good, great, brilliant, hilarious, infuriating. Sometimes all at the same show.

He changed my life.

Many shows stand out musically, many for other reasons: Like the shows when I was there with one my sons (my big boy, age 11, Yogi Berra Stadium 6/24/05, and my young boy, age 13, Brooklyn 11/21/12). Neither may claim it as a highlight, but they might look back and see it differently one day. Or when he played a high energy New York City show two months after 9/11, and during the band introduction said “all of these songs we’re playing here tonight were written here in New York City. And if they weren’t written here, they were recorded here. So nobody has to ask me MY feelings about this town!” Or the Beacon Theater, 10/13/89, when I patted him on the back as he exited the house. That’s a story for another time.

The biggest moment though, that was May 10, 2003, at 11:09pm in Atlantic City, corner of Boston & the Boardwalk outside of the Grand Theater at the Hilton Hotel. He’d just played a great show, and a crowd was waiting at the stage door. The door opened, and out he came. I was near the front of his bus. He made his way through the crowd, signing autographs, listening to what people had to say, nodding in appreciation, but I kid you not: he didn’t utter a syllable to anyone. So he’s making his way through the crowd, he’s getting closer…and closer…Closer….HOLY SHIT HE’S IN FRONT OF ME!!! I grabbed his shoulder, said “you were so great tonight, so great.” AND HE LOOKED AT ME, just like he recalled Buddy Holly looking at him at the Armory in Duluth a few days before The Day the Music Died. I still get choked up.

God Bless Him, he’s 83 now, and still on the road.  

But it all began 46 years ago today. The lights went down, the band came out without him, played an instrumental “My Back Pages,” and there he was! He was holding an armful of white flowers which he tossed into the crowd, picked up his ’61 black & white Strat and played Muddy Waters’ “I’m Ready” to a Bo Diddley beat. 2-½ hours later he played “Changing of the Guards” as a one-song encore, and it was over. I never could have known then how it would lead to all this. 

I saw him next 4/27/80, at the Palace Theater in Albany, singing nothing but his gospel songs. His pal Keith Richards called him The Prophet of Profit at the time. He preached in between songs (“You need a doctor? Jesus can be that”), and sang and played brilliantly. Jim Keltner was on drums, the same drummer backing him this July. A part of the crowd seemed to hate it, some people walked out throughout, but I thought it was cool as all hell. I wasn’t there when he went electric or country, so this was the big Dylan confrontation I had only ever read about. A year later I saw him in New Jersey, he was someone else.

He’s kept that up for the majority of my 152 shows. It’s all been great to me, even on those nights when he tested everyone’s patience. His checking in here and there, like America’s Uncle, is always good enough for me.

So many people have this story. But this is mine.

I can’t begin to thank him enough. Or feel I could say it exactly how I’d like. He’s there for you at every stage of life. So…thank you Bob. Just thank you. For saying things your way yet always making me think “that is exactly how I feel.” And for talking about my Great Uncle, Joe E. Lewis, on the “Joe” edition of your radio show, even saying the family name and pronouncing it correctly. Thanks Bob. Just thanks.