"An enormous fat guy wearing a beret with his mouth hanging open"

Bob Dylan performs in front of a Powerpoint slideshow of zebras, Klansmen, and architecture

Photo by Andrea Orlandi

When subscriber Michael Z requested today’s show, Durham 1997, he added an intriguing detail:

Also, this is something that I don’t remember anyone noting at the time, but I have a memory of his showing still photographs as a backdrop during at least one song during the acoustic set, I definitely remember an image of klansmen. Anyway, I am curious if you have seen this noted anywhere, I am not making it up!

I’d never heard this noted before either. Before I began digging, I thought I might return with the same disappointing answer as the guy whose father-in-law swore Bob performed a show in a space suit: Sorry, I wish it had happened, but it did not…

This specific Durham show proved a dead end; no photos or videos that I could find. But a little more digging confirmed that Dylan performing in front of slide-projection backdrops was indeed a thing around that time. For a few months, from late 1996 through mid 1997, at some shows (though not all; it may have depended on the stage setup, or just how Bob was feeling that night), he performed his acoustic sets in front of projected slides. For someone whose stage setup tends toward the minimalist, singing in front of a glorified Powerpoint presentation seems out of character, but that’s what happened.

My next question was: Slides of what? Answering that proved more complicated.

I found various fan reports posted at the time on the '90s-era message board rec.music.dylan. No one here mentions the Klan, but there are so many different images mentioned they must have changed from night to night. Here are some contemporary fan notes from shows around this time, with the content of the slides bolded:

On each of the acoustic songs, there was a stage backdrop that changed for each song. One song had yellow birdlike figures on the backdrop, and another had human figures that looked like they were drawn in the styles of Rembrandt and DaVinci. Other backdrops were just weird light patterns on differently colored backgrounds. There was no backdrop for the electric songs.

There was a large black curtain across the back wall behind the band. Right before the first acoustic number, they opened the curtain, which exposed a screen on which they projected the three slides in the light show. During My Back Pages, the slide was of a floral pattern. For Masters they switched to a large old (European?) painting. On the right side was a group of people (scribes?) who seemed to be cowering or shrinking away from some horror, and on the left was a large round man's face, whose eyes were bulging out, with his mouth open in a round circle, a look of evil… For Baby Blue, they switched to a slide of hieroglyphic-like drawings of animals. When the acoustic set ended, they pulled the curtain closed, and that was it for the light show, our little peek at the 60's.

Periodically there were slides shown on a white backdrop. They were very difficult to see, and I was only 10 feet away from the stage… They all seemed to be sculpture or abobe homes or shots of ancient Greece or Rome. Hard to say.

The acoustic songs had the screen backdrop, with the old-fashioned sepia-toned photos projected upon them. They reminded me of old photos from 1930s/40s National Geographics, only someone had taken only PARTS of the photos, such as geometric forms--such as staircases or towers--and used them as an abstract statement. I thought I recognized one of the photos as being from Angkor Wat!

They would fade from one image to the next at various points in the song. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to them, as I couldn't figure out the immediate relevance of most of the images (ie Aztec ruins during Tangled Up in Blue)… To Ramona, on the other hand, Was one of the big highlights of the show. I caught one relevant image being projected on the screen, a young woman wearing a flag, or cloths made of a flag print material.

The acoustic set is announced by the drawing of a black curtain at the back of the stage to reveal a white screen. During the next three songs photographs are projected: they look to me like a collection of old photographs of interiors of old homes, temples in tropical climes and such.

Anyway, the next three acoustic songs took my breath away, they were so beautiful. I liked the added projected image of flowers behind the band during "Mr. Tambourine Man”… The projected image used for "Masters Of War" was rather disturbing, but so is the content of the song. I couldn't get this one off of my mind for two days. It was very well done--intense.

And here’s my absolute favorite anecdote of all, connected to that disturbing “Masters of War” image, from someone in the front row: