Prague '95: "The Thing of Lore"

1995-03-11, Palac Kultury, Prague, Czech Republic

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Thirty years ago yesterday, Bob Dylan did something he hasn’t done too often: He cancelled a show. He’d arrived in Prague for the opening of his 1995 European tour, but come down the flu. Not just him either; drummer Winston Watson was just as sick, passing out in the shower and needing rescue by a hotel porter. “The joke was that I got Bob sick, but it was [from] the plane on the way over,” he told me. “There were sick people on the plane and I could just tell… This is '95; no one knew how filthy human beings were on airplanes.”

Not an auspicious start to the new year, after a couple years of Dylan shows that averaged pretty-good-but-not-great (and a couple years before that where shows averaged even worse). But when he took the stage on what was supposed to be the second night of his Prague residency, but was now the first, thirty years ago today, something happened. “It became the thing of lore,” Watson said.

The sign posted on the venue door in Prague on March 10th, courtesy Ian Woodward / Rod MacBeath

Today, we kick off the second half of the miniseries I never came up with a catchier name for than “Seattle and Prague.” While the Seattle half was primarily about the band, this half is entirely about Bob. And, as I wrote in the series intro, I expect this half is more familiar to many of you. That’s kind of the whole point. The Prague ’95 shows have become legendary among Dylan nuts. Some argue his best shows of the Never Ending Tour. I don’t know if I’d go that far—but I wouldn’t argue back too hard either.

So, for the thirtieth anniversary, a three-part deep dive for the three Prague shows on both the context and the music.

We’ll get to that most important second part—the music—tomorrow (going to paid subscribers only, sign up now!). But today, the basics. An overview on what happened those three nights in Prague, and people care so much three decades later. How it became, as Watson put it, “the thing of lore.”

Local paper’s coverage, courtesy Ian Woodward

As Derek Barker noted a few weeks later in his Isis fanzine, “at the time it seemed like the tour was off to the most disastrous start imaginable.” He described staying at the same hotel as the band and running into various members of the entourage that first, cancelled night—tour manager Victor Maymudes, guitarist JJ Jackson—who kept assuring him Bob would be better by the next day. But he felt distinctly un-reassured. Dylan doesn’t cancel shows often, and especially on opening night, after he’s had months to rest up.

There’s no suspense with what happened next. You know already that the show did eventually go on, and became legendary. But one question I had looking back was: Did Prague ’95 gain its status over the years, as recordings and rumors circulated, or was it placed in the pantheon instantly?

Answer: Instantly.

The Wicked Messenger newsletter writer Ian Woodward was also at the shows. He published his report only two days after the third night. In it, he called opening night “one of those absolute stormers you hope to live to tell your grandchildren about.” High praise from someone who’d been seeing Dylan concerts since the Dont Look Back era (read my conversation with Woodward here).

It wasn’t that Bob had made a miraculous full recovery. Just the opposite. In a way, the reason the shows were so great was because Bob was sick. Too weak, at least, to hold his usual guitar. So instead, for almost the entire show, for the first time ever, he just stood there. Microphone in one hand, harmonica in the other. In more recent years, the Sinatra era especially, Bob standing center stage singing has become more common. But at the time, it was an extremely rare sight. Maybe a song or two here and there over the years (the “Pressing On” finales from the gospel era come to mind), but almost the entire show with no guitar or piano? Unheard of.

Now, hearing “Bob is so weak he’s worried if he wears a guitar he will simply topple over” does not, on paper, sound like a promising situation. It sounds like maybe he should have postponed another night. Thankfully, that’s not what he did.

Without needing to focus on playing guitar as well, a few things happened:

1. The songs got tighter, less padded with long guitar jams where Bob would solo endlessly (and often poorly).

2. He played a ton of harmonica. Pretty much any moment he wasn’t singing, he was blowing.

3. The big one: His vocals improved tenfold. Some of the best vocals of his career on these nights, and the main reason that the shows are so beloved. He wasn’t having to worry about also playing guitar at the same time. He just stood there, no distractions, and sang. And you can hear it.

I’ll turn you over to Ian Woodward again, for more from his on-the-scene report in The Wicked Messenger at the time:

When he started with Down In The Flood, the audience could scarcely believe it. Yet, this wasn't the most surprising part. He sang throughout with a hand-held mike in his right hand and the mike cable in his left. Though there were guitars on stands behind him, he didn’t play one at all. This continued for If Not For You, his left hand holding the mike cable high and, at the end, playing a harp solo straight into the hand-held mike, the manner for the night. On Watchtower, Dylan came close to Jackson to play harp as the latter played guitar; Dylan threw the harp side-stage rear at the very end. Dylan was concentrating on his vocalising of lyrics and on his harp-playing without the need to consider the guitar-playing side of his performance. This gave him a great deal of freedom in terms of lateral movement, because he wasn't limited to standing at the mike-stand for most of the time. He moved around the stage a great deal. It also meant he could move up, down and about in a vertical plane without restriction; this he did, too. At times (and I know you're gonna laugh), I thought of a latter-day Frank Sinatra, with a rock band rather than the jazz orchestra. You probably think that I've lost my marbles and, if not, then I must count them each morning just to make sure they're all still there. All I can say is that this thought kept coming into my mind. One thing: those newspaper reports of Dylan taking sparring lessons have to be true. He held the mike and the cable in his fists just like a boxer, in true gymnasium style on occasions. The concentration on lyrics, the exceptional harp-playing and the use of body, arms and hands to emphasise the songs were quite literally stunning. How long would he continue this way? All night, it transpired.

Again, he’s writing this practically as soon as the show ended—long before anyone outside the room in Prague would hear it—but the legend is all there. By the time the final notes of night one were sounded, Prague ’95 etched its way into Dylan-superfan history. Tomorrow we’ll begin a close-listen to hear exactly why.

1995-03-11, Palac Kultury, Prague, Czech Republic

Subscribe to get the next two entries in the Prague '95 series, which will be going to paid subscribers only this week:

And, ICYMI, catch up on the trio of Seattle '05 entries (hope you like violin solos!):