Nobody in the audience at the Concord Pavilion on June 7, 1988, thought they were witnessing history. Not the fans who bought tickets next to ads for Heart, the Jets, and Iron Maiden. Not the critics who utterly trashed the show the next day. Not even Bob Dylan himself, probably.
Looking back at what was happening in Dylan’s career at that moment, it’s easy to see why no one expected anything special. He’d just released two genuinely terrible albums, “Knocked Out Loaded” and “Down in the Groove.” His movie “Hearts of Fire” had flopped so badly that most hardcore fans didn’t even know it existed. He’d spent two years touring almost nonstop, sometimes with Tom Petty and the Heartbreaks, sometimes with the Grateful Dead, and plenty of nights where he seemed to be going through the motions. The mystique that had surrounded him since the 1960s? Gone.
As Dylan later revealed in his 2004 memoir Chronicles, he had a plan. A crazy one. He told his manager Elliot Roberts to book 200 show dates in 1988 alone, and keep that insane pace through 1989 and 1990. He figured it would take three years to find a new audience, to replace the aging fans who knew all his old songs and stared rather than participated.
“I definitely needed a new audience because my audience at the time had grown up on my records and was past the point of accepting me as a new artist,” Dylan wrote. “This audience was past its prime and its reflexes were shot. They came to stare and not participate.”
So on that June night in Concord, Dylan walked out with the smallest band he’d ever used: guitarist G.E. Smith, bassist Kenny Aaronson, and drummer Christopher Parker. And he kicked into the first live performance of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” since 1965.
The show was packed with firsts. The live debut of “Absolutely Sweet Marie.” The first “You’re a Big Girl Now” since 1978. The first “Gotta Serve Somebody” since 1981. The first “Boots of Spanish Leather” since 1963. And un-billed guest Neil Young showed up, unfamiliar with the material, adding to what can only be described as controlled chaos. Dylan threw in “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Maggie’s Farm” at the end, but otherwise he stayed away from his greatest hits.
The reviews were brutal. Joel Selvin of The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Dylan “stumbled through the music,” with “ragged endings, a sloppy mix and a tentative, uncertain ensemble sound.” He called Young “an unrehearsed guitarist” and said Dylan “mumbled lyrics, never dug into his songs with any kind of feeling and generally tossed off the tunes like he could hardly wait to get out of there.” Selvin’s closing line cut deepest: “Dylan used to matter.”
What nobody knew, not Selvin, not the audience, not even Dylan himself, was that they were watching the first show of a tour that would last 36 years and span more than 3,700 concerts.
The plan worked exactly as Dylan outlined it. Those older fans and casual listeners largely stopped coming. What remained was a devoted crowd, both young and old, who showed up knowing exactly what they were getting. They didn’t expect “Mr. Tambourine Man” or “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” They came for whatever Dylan wanted to play, even if that meant five years of “Rough and Rowdy Ways” material.
A new leg of this endless tour begins this week. These shows are in large outdoor venues, sharing bills with artists like Lucinda Williams and Jimmie Vaughan. There’s a good chance he’ll lean into covers and rarities the way he did during the Outlaw Festival runs, or he might stick with the “Rough and Rowdy Ways” material. Nobody knows what will happen until it happens.
One thing we know for sure: the critics were wrong about June 7, 1988. Dig into the recording of that night. It’s a document of messy, vital, alive musicianship, the sound of an artist refusing to become a museum piece.
And honestly, that chaos makes it better.
