An old Larry Campbell story from way way back

The strangest gig he's ever had.

Larry is tiring of the road.  He loves the gig, but he says it is the strangest gig he's ever had.  He told a story that when it was finalized that he would take over for JJ, he was told four days of extensive rehearsals would take place.  So he goes to the rehearsals, and they play nothing but old blues workouts and 50's songs.  In the four days, not one Bob Dylan song. Tony was sort of helping him out, but Larry didn’t know what to think, and they had gigs scheduled a matter of days later.

So, they get to the first gig he's gonna play, and they get onstage and Larry looks down at the setlist and there's 4 possibilities of opening song, and Bob doesn't call for any of the four.  Somehow he makes it through, though it's primarily Bob who has the only real sense of what's going to happen, and even he may not know.

And you know that when Bob Dylan is most together one musically on stage, there could be explosions.

Larry says that the road is tiring him out, but he loves the gig.  Dylan doesn't socialize much.  They don't really see him except backstage and on stage, sometimes a glimpse at the hotel.  He said that Dylan couldn't stand Bucky for years before he finally axed him.  He just never had the heart to fire him.  Finally he just said something like "we ain't using pedal steel no more" and that was the end.

The next show, Larry was on pedal steel.  He also says that Bob has given him less than five instructions over the course of his time of what he wants or doesn't want, and it hardly matters anyway because half the time you don't know what he's talking about.

The first instructions he gave, after some time in the band was that he wants "everyone playin' parts, but not real parts, everybody playin" and that was that.  He also says that the band as a whole does not like playing with Kemper.  They think his timing's not good and his fills aren't right.  Tony loves the whole thing, the road, Dylan, and he'll go as long as Bob wants him there.  As for Dylan's guitar playing, Campbell said "he's definitely got his own style."