The dust of rumour: Spin in camp Dylan (2001 Tour) — "I don't want to see you here anymore"
Here's one deep in the back pages from the 2001 tour.
The reports on this tour are strange to say the least, though sometimes it seems I'm the only one who thinks so. I don't know what is with his security force or maybe it's just him, but at Montreux there was some guy near the front, a fan for 23 years. Now the guy could've been obnoxious, I don't know, but Bob says to him "I don't wanna see you here any more." I think that's completely out of hand. Dylan has this thing of not wanting to see the same fans down front every night. In this particular case, this was the guy's first show this tour! He'd seen him last October or something. But, and this was reported in England last year, this shit of picking people out of the line regardless of how long they'd been waiting and selecting who gets to go down front and telling certain people down front for apparently no reason they can't be there. You can't micro-mangage an audience. And I've had some accounts from people who have been fans for years that it's happened to. You just can't micromanage your audience.
I don't know what is with his security force or maybe it's him. You would not believe some of the emails I've dealt with by the Bob can do no wrong faction on RMD if you've followed the reaction to the Montreux incident, and I saw his suddenly making himself accessible to fans and signing autographs in Scotland as total spin control. Really made me wonder if the Dylan powers read my post about Wille Nelson signing the autograph of every fan who wanted one.
I love Bob Dylan, but that does not mean I defend his every action. I find telling a fan, "I don't wanna see you here again" indefensible.
Some fans have been quite vociferous in defending him while saying they know of people who have been "moved" at concerts including the once famous "Sadie Jane" last year in England. I had no idea. My feeling is if someone stands in line all night, then they earned the right to go up front. When an audience buys a ticket it's always a gamble (no matter who the performer) on a good show and likewise the performer takes a gamble on a good audience. Just cause Bob Dylan doesn't happen to like someone at that second doesn't mean they should be moved. As far as I'm concerned that's tough shit for him. I mean too bad if he doesn't like his fans. If he's going to do that, then either have a sit down show with assigned seating (fine with me) or only invite those people who you wanna look at to your shows and do only private performances.
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