Warm memories

More Bob Dylan tour-following comics from long ago

2000 was a momentous year for me as a Bob Dylan fan. After a not-to-be-forgotten show in California that featured a performance of Highlands and started off a whirlwind romance for me, I found myself seeing Bob in Germany and Italy later that spring. That summer, I saw him in Toronto at the Molson Amphitheatre, and then, in September, I saw him again on another layover in Germany. I don’t have any comics about those last two shows - for the first time, I took a break from drawing in the drawing book. But then, I travelled to Ohio in November 2000 to see another show, and I took the drawing book with me.

I remember the stressful start to the show, but I don’t have a strong memory of the show itself. I do remember, though, the next show, the next night, in Ann Arbor. Before the show, there was a gathering of Bob Dylan friends, at the house of someone who lived in some forested place that was maybe just outside the city… we stood around under the trees in a clearing full of dead leaves and warmed ourselves at a fire. I drew the fire. Who were those people? I don’t even really remember, but I remember them as friends.

For some reason, I have a vivid memory of this show, more than so many others. I remember walking along the autumn streets, through the university, to the venue. I remember the theatre and where we were seating (on the floor). I remember dancing, I remember

the band, and I particularly remember loving Charlie Sexton and Larry Campbell singing harmonies on Duncan and Brady and Searching for a Soldier’s Grave. (You can see the whole set list here.) I remember leaving town the next day, getting on a bus to go somewhere (an airport?), and putting my Time Out Of Mind CD into my discman (or whatever those portable CD players were called) so I could replay the sounds of Standing in the Doorway, which I’d heard the night before.

“Let’s Work Up a Good Swet!”

After that trip, there were a few months without shows. But in the spring of the next year, Bob Dylan was off to Japan, and I decided to go. My brother had been part of a Japanese exchange program (the coolest exchange program you’ll ever encounter, the Ship For World Youth), and wanted to go back to Japan. He had a friend who offered us a place to stay in Tokyo. And of course, back then, because I was a flight attendant with Air Canada, it was easy to travel - as long as you didn’t mind sweating a little as you waited, with your fingers crossed, to see if you’d get a standby seat on the flight. We were lucky, and we did.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do much sketching on this trip. The thing I remember the most about it, was that Tokyo was freezing cold. No more working up a sweat for us. Unlike in Canada, no buildings in Japan had central heating, and the early spring temperatures hovered just above freezing the whole time we were there. I remember having a hot bath in the smallest bathtub I’d ever been in, which warmed me up a little.

It seems crazy to think that we actually travelled to Japan to see a show without having tickets lined up, but apparently that’s how we did it, since the first line in my Japanese word bubble says (kippu o-nimai kudasai), as far as I can tell: “Please give me two tickets.” This was long, long before Google translate - how did I figure out what to say? Maybe we had a phrase book written especially for concert-goers? Anyway, we got the tickets somehow, I guess!

kono butai wa sugoi desu: “This stage is amazing!”

bando to issho desu: “I’m with the band.”

The setlist wasn’t too far removed from the ones at the November shows I’d seen just a few months before. I remember that our seats were up high, on the side of the auditorium, so that we looked down at a side view of the stage. I think I remember taking pictures and having my film taken away from me (that happened to me at a few shows) - anyway, I didn’t leave with any pictures. I did take some pictures of the crowd outside, which I can’t find now. In the throng of people outside the venue, there was a band of buskers playing Bob Dylan songs in Japanese. What a cool and surreal experience. And so nice to see a show with my brother, too.

In the book where I keep my Dylan concert tickets, I also found this. Wonder what it was from? It has some good advice, though - I think?

Thanks for reading! There are still a few more Bob Dylan comics in my old sketchbooks, so stay tuned in the weeks ahead!