Excerpt
When the van rolled up to the Chateau Marmont Hotel on Sunset Strip to fetch Bob Dylan for his sold out concert at the nearby Pantages Theater on the evening of May 14, 1992, the legendary singer/songwriter was already spaced out on tequila, and more.
“He was on smack,” declared one of his handlers that night. “He was nodding off time and again.”
By the time the driver had coaxed him into the van and ferried him to the Pantages, Dylan was slurring his words and had to be helped to an easy chair behind a curtained-off section at the loading dock out back of the theater, where he fell into a trance watching black-and-white TV reruns of Gilligans Island until his stage call.
He made it by rote through his 90-minute set that night, leaning on his keyboard for support, seemingly oblivious to the chorus of boos as the audience reacted to the fact that his vocals were indecipherable and the arrangements loud but unrecognizable. When hed finished, Dylan left the stage without having said a single word to the audience. He walked directly out of the rear of the theater where, rather than wait for his driver to take him back to the Chateau Marmont, he climbed into the van, threw it into reverse, and nearly backed over one of his roadies.
Its hard to imagine that anyone in the Pantages audience left that night satisfied with what had occurred. The fact that any fan showed up in the first place was a testament to Dylans distant past, not his recent achievements. It had been 30 years since Blowin in the Wind first thrust him into the public consciousness, 17 years since his album masterpiece Blood on the Tracks. Since then a string of 18 mostly forgettable albums had produced few hit singles.
Dylan had continued to tour, playing smaller venues and sometimes selling them out. But the faithful who paid to see him frequently came away disappointed, saddened, and even unnerved to watch the great musical hero of their youth so reduced. What was the deal, they wondered. Was it age? Boredom? Did he just not care anymore?