My 5 Days with Bob Dylan - "Don't even look at him"
Intro
I’ve told this story many times, but since I don’t have any tech topics to write about this week, and it’s almost a year since my last anecdote from my time as a sound engineer way back when, I thought now’s a good a time as any to share it here!
Setting the scene
All the way back in March 2000, I was still house sound engineer at the Sun Theater in Anaheim California. It wouldn’t be long until I hung up my headphones after 15 years in the music business and moved to San Francisco to get into writing code, but for now, Old Town Orange in Orange County California was home, and my trusty (rusty) grey primer Karmann Ghia was my daily driver.
We’d been told that the promoter Ken Phebus had booked Bob Dylan to kick off his Never Ending Tour in 2000 at our theater. Might have seemed unbelievable if we hadn’t also had the likes of James Brown, Ray Charles, B.B. King and countless other icons perform, but to top it all, Dylan would be using the venue for 4 days of pre-tour rehearsals Monday to Thursday, followed by 2 shows on the Friday!
It was made clear from the outset that I would open up the venue Monday morning, help the band and crew get loaded in, stage set and everything miked up and patched into the board. They would sound check, get comfortable, and then I would leave. Bob would then arrive, they’d rehearse all day, then after Bob left, they’d call me and I’d lock up and turn things off.
This all sounded great to me. His band were legends, particularly the inimitable Charlie Sexton, so I was psyched to be working with them and get to see the shows at least on the Friday.
Or so I thought…
Front of House
Immediately I hit it off with Bob’s front of house engineer Pablo Wheeler. I think it was my English accent that never seemed to fail to charm, and we were talking about the Beatles, Patti Smith and all kinds of things as we got everything set up and ready. Then he dropped the bombshell… as this was the first day they had got together for rehearsals he needed to go up to LA to finalise some of the touring sound system. A quadraphonic Midas mixing board if I remember correctly, but whatever it was, he asked if I would be able to sit out front and watch the front of house during rehearsals!! Yes, I know…
To explain a bit, many of the microphones and DI boxes run off something called phantom power, which is 48V that runs down the mic cables from the front of house mixing board. So even though the out front main faders would be down, meaning the speakers would be silent, every mic needed to be set up and powered.
Sidebar: I still have the channel list shown below. This lists all the channels, instruments, and some of the mics and preferred stands:
He also told me if Bob asked for the house to be turned on I should push up the faders. Me. Bob Dylan asking me!! Well, that was an “if” I guess. Given that, we had to sound check and EQ everything out front just in case needed.
As this was all being explained to me, Bob’s manager approached me. The conversation went something like this:
“Hey, so Pablo told me you won’t be leaving each day, but will be sitting at front of house. OK. So, don’t think about approaching Bob, or talking to him. You know what? Don’t even look at him.”
Shortly after, I was side of stage rummaging around for some cables right when a hooded figure arrived in side door. It was bright outside but dark inside and as this figure approached me, he flipped his hood back just a few feet from me, there I was, face to face with Bob Dylan.. “don’t even look at him” still ringing in my ears. I sharply moved away back to my safe space out front :D
The Rehearsals
It honestly feels a bit like a dream at this point. I was sitting there for 4 days straight, behind a 52 channel mixing board out front in a theater with no-one in it except a few security guys and techs, and with Bob Dylan on stage with his band, working out arrangements and playing songs. Seemingly just for me!
It truly was surreal. To watch him work, and hear him break down songs. Incredible. He’d frequently call out to his monitor engineer (the guy mixing the sound on stage so the band can hear) to play an old track from a CD so he could reference something. The contrast between 60’s Dylan’s voice coming out of the stage monitors while he and the band listened intently, then 2000’s Dylan singing the same song back.
During those 4 days, I got to hang out with some of the band as we were all there early-ish, at least I was to power everything back up, and the band rolled in and were friendly and relaxed before Bob arrived.
I always had my small Sony minidisc recorder on hand and yes, I did record about 10 songs and some chat in rehearsal! I’ve not shared this anywhere in 24 years, but will do one day.
One last memory to share is bands used to dine al fresco outside the stage right doors. Africanised killer bees and Martin Fry from ABC spring to mind when I think of that space, but that’s yet another story for another day. Back to Dylan, and I remember I had to dash out while they were eating - no idea why - but I hopped in my aforementioned primer gray, rusty, and backfiring VW Karmann Ghia and glancing in the rear view mirror, I could see Bob Dylan, looking at me drive away as he shook his head :D
The shows
On to the shows! The Sun Theater (now called The Grove of Anaheim) was a “dinner theater” type seated venue. One day I’ll write down my Joe Strummer story as he wasn’t too enamoured with the diners aspect, but I digress. There were 2 shows, one at 8pm and one at 10:30pm. As I recall, Bob insisted his tickets were $45 max which was admirable given we had Stevie Nix at the same place and tickets were $150!
Anyhow, as you might expect, the shows were incredible. Some songs were played for the first time ever, or in many years, and still one of my favourite songs, the at-the-time unreleased “Things Have Changed” got it’s first ever live airing. That song went on to win the Academy Award for Best Song the next year!! It really is remarkable.
I wasn’t really aware of the cult of Dylan, especially on the internet these days, but thankfully it exists and you can hear an audience recording of the entire second show at the link below!
Epilogue
This experience really was a turning point for me. I felt after 15 years in music I wasn’t really going to top it. I’d already worked with Ray Charles, James Brown, and countless legends in my year at the Sun Theater, and during my 5 years touring with the Specials been insanely lucky to rub shoulders with the likes of David Bowie and many more.
Within 5 months of this show I’d packed it in, got a job in San Francisco with an internet startup and basically never looked back!
This kind of article is a bit off topic to the usual, so let me know if you want more, or less, or none at all! Don’t hesitate to drop me a note via twitter or any other channels listed here.