A Montana Concert Promoter Remembers His Audience with Bob

"Bob Dylan has always looked out for the little guys"

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Independent concert promoter Tom Garnsey has been bringing concerts to Montana since 1990. In 2000, that included two Bob Dylan shows in the cities of Missoula (25 years ago today!) and Bozeman—somehow Dylan’s first concerts ever in the state of Montana. They were a big deal locally, with both shows selling out after fans camped out for tickets. One area diner even put out a sign: “Bob Dylan eats free.” (Wonder if he took them up on it.)

A while back, Tom wrote in to share his story—and how it led to the photo you see above. This account is compiled from his writeup and a subsequent phone conversation. Here’s Tom:

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Back in 2000, after 10 years of slugging it out in concert promotion and over 1,000 shows in Montana, we received the news that we had landed two shows with Bob Dylan. No small feat as, at the time, Clear Channel and the other national demons had gobbled up most of the promoters, venues and radio stations around the country on their way to becoming the monopoly they are today. My firm Vootie Productions was a small, independent company in what the industry called “the lost cities,” or the flyover states, but had proven ourselves with a handful of agents and had become somewhat trusted to deliver.

You could have knocked me over with a feather as I’d grown up in Upstate NY in the '70s seeing every possible concert within 300 miles of my parents’ home. My first Dylan shows were on the Slow Train tour in Syracuse and the one after that, and I was a guitarist and singer who had more Dylan in his setlist than most.

We got the news and set about the onsale and prep for the shows. Oddly, Dylan had never played in Montana, and our two shows Missoula and Bozeman were to be the first ever. Heady stuff. I’d seen Bob enough to know that his live shows were erratic but it was enough to have a hand in the history. Advance work on the shows went great and his team were the pros you’d expect. Both shows sold out instantly: Missoula at 5,000 tickets and Bozeman at 8,000.

March 24th (Missoula) came and his crew were all business and we learned that [longtime stage manager] Alan Santos’ bark was worse than his bite. Dylan performed an amazing show with his killer band and left people stunned. In Missoula, there’s a large “L” in white stones for “Loyola High School,” and on the morning of the show the town woke to find that someone had added D Y A N to spell his name in fifteen-foot letters for all to see!

The next day was a day off that the band spent in Bozeman. Bozeman is the home of the Gibson Guitars acoustic division and through my friendship with them we had commissioned a guitar to commemorate his first shows and record sellout. Most venues present the artist with a hockey jersey or the like, and we felt this was a special way to say “thanks.” We gathered up the band and some crew and a few of members of Asleep at the Wheel for a tour of the Gibson factory. For a bit we thought that Bob may come over, as calls went back and forth. We actually waited outside the Holiday Inn for a half hour, then a wicked hailstorm blew in and Bob decided to stay put.

That evening all of Bob’s band and Cindy Cashdollar had a great dinner downtown and I was regaled with road stories. Got to know [manager] Jeff Kramer a bit and we bonded over the discovery that his first foray into concert promotion was a Grateful Dead show at Colgate University in ’77 that I attended as a high school junior!

We talked a bit about the guitar; he seemed to be under the impression we wanted a photo op out of it. I assured him that I neither wanted nor expected anything from Bob Dylan and left it at that. Obviously a photo in Pollstar would be great press for our small company but I wasn’t even dreaming that. The next day in Bozeman, all went smoothly at the venue. At about 4PM after soundcheck, Kramer grabbed me and said “At 8:50, I’ll get Bob off the bus and walk him down this hallway. Have your partners and your photographer just outside dressing room door. We’ll walk in, I’ll introduce you, you present the guitar and say what you want, we’ll snap a photo and he’ll head for the stage.” What?

Sure enough, at 8:50 Kramer rounds the corner with Bob, long black coat folded over his arm and in full cowboy regalia, headed straight for us. We entered the dressing room and Kramer introduced me and I introduced my partners. Bob offered his hand and said “Howdy boys.” I stammered something about his first time ever in MT and the Gibson and handed him the guitar. He said something like “Guess I should have come here a long time ago” and thanked us. We stood against the wall and snapped a quick photo. At the very last second, he put his hand on my shoulder!

Then poof! He was gone and on stage kicking off the best show I had ever seen him do. Kramer later told me that the MT shows were the best of the tour. Something about the further he got away from all of the west coast hype and into the heartland, the more focused he became. After an amazing show, off they went to the next stop on the tour.

After the glow of these events passed a bit, it occurred to me that I hadn’t really been able to sit and absorb the two shows (other than some great recordings that soon popped up) as there’s a lot of work as promoter that has to get done night of show. I decided I’d head down to Denver a few weeks later to see him at the Fillmore at the end of the tour. Kramer and his management could not have been kinder and I was allowed to sit side stage next to the monitor console for the whole show.

Here’s where my favorite part of this whole tale comes in. Kramer and I were discussing the tour and the Montana shows later that night, and I made some mention of the guitar having led to the photo op and he stopped me. “You didn’t get a photo with Bob Dylan because you gave him a Gibson guitar. He has hundreds of guitars and doesn’t give a shit about that. Bob Dylan gave you a photo because you are the little guys in this ruthless business, and Bob Dylan has always looked out for the little guys.”

I still get chills when I think of that. Thanks Bob.

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2000-03-22, University of Montana, Missoula, MT

2000-03-24, Brick Breeden Field House, Bozeman, MT

Missoula and Bozeman stage setlists (via Tom)

PS. I wrote more about these two shows in the newsletter’s early days: