Riding the Train Around Europe with Bob Dylan

An interview with Summer 1978 crewmember Marshall Bissett

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In Summer 1978, Bob Dylan was in the middle of the busiest touring year of his career to date. He was traveling around Europe playing a bunch of wildly re-arranged hits, à la Budokan a few months before, but now mixed with new songs from the just-released Street-Legal. He played some of the largest shows of his career that summer, including one giant show in Blackbushe to upwards of a quarter million people (on today’s date in 1978) and another at Hitler’s old rally grounds in Nuremberg. He also had his largest band ever.

Such big shows with such a big band required a big touring crew. One of the guys handling the lighting and setup was Marshall Bissett. He’d toured with Queen, Neil Diamond, Jethro Tull, and many more. These days, he’s the Chairman of the Parnelli Awards for the live event industry. But we talked about life on the road—or on the rails—with Bob Dylan in 1978.

Marshall on tour with Dylan in 1978

How did you get involved? Where were you at the time?

I was based in London, running a lighting company based in the States called TFA. We were doing the lighting production on the European tour. I was really close friends with Patrick Stansfield, who was Dylan's production manager. He did the Budokan shows and the whole American tour. I was his counterpart in Europe. I did a lot of the tour coordination on the technical side from our London office,

Patrick and I had done a lot of shows previously. In ‘77, we'd done the big Neil Diamond tour. What Patrick figured out on Neil Diamond was that the best way to travel, the crew and the band and the artist, was by train. So on Neil Diamond, for the first time ever, we hired our own train. Not the engine, but the carriages.

We did the same for Bob in '78. We started the tour in London at Earl's Court—he was fantastic, by the way, I think the second night at Earl's Court was probably one of the best shows I've ever seen—then went over to Paris and picked up a train. We had the French presidential car, which was like an observation car, all beautiful walnut paneling, appointed for the French president. That was Bob's quarters. Then there were two cars for the band, two cars for the crew, and a baggage car. We would basically park our carriages in a siding on all the different European stops, and the local train would pick us up.

So you're being connected with trains that have other cars?

Yeah.

With people on them who have no idea that Bob Dylan is part of their train?

Yes. What worked out really well is that in Europe, typically, the best hotel in town is right down by the railway station. So we scheduled it so that the band and crew were always staying right in the heart of downtown, near the station.

The biggest challenge was when we would stop at a station, we had to get all the bags off in the time that the train stopped. Can you imagine how much luggage we had? So we had a little army of local helpers getting all that stuff off into a little flotilla of vans, and then taking it all to the hotel.

German TV news clip with footage of Bob and co. at the train station:

Is Al Santos still working for him? I said to him once [more recently], “Where does the crew stay on these American tours?” And he goes, “We stay in the La Quinta chain.” Then he says to me, “Do you know what ‘La Quinta’ means in English?” “No.” “It means ‘just behind the Denny’s.’” [Note: The La Quinta crew includes Dylan himself, per longtime assistant Victor Maymudes]

Anyway, the train was great. There was no pressure, no airports, no long drives. It was very, very relaxed. So everyone got to know each other pretty well. We would just wander around our carriages talking to each other.

I saw some photos from this run of Dylan on a train in a dining car. Was that part of your setup too?

We had our own dining car. And he was very sociable. He didn't stay much in his own compartment. He would wander around, he’d talk to the band members, then he'd come back and sit down with us, with the lighting crew and the audio crew. The thing that he always wanted to know from the London-based crew was where to go hang out in London after the show. “Where can I go hear some reggae music? Where can I go hear ska? Where's the Black part of town? Where do other people not go? I want to go there.”

It was rumored that during the Earl's Court shows, and I can't confirm this, that he did on a couple occasions just jump on the London Underground at Earl's Court and go over to South London and hang out in different clubs and music places. It was definitely the British African-American part of town where you could hear all the ska bands, reggae, early punk stuff even. That's what he liked to do. He was very nocturnal.

Confirming I think what you're saying, I read that he went and saw a reggae band called Merger and then ended up inviting them to open at Blackbushe.

That's very possible. It's exactly what he did. You know, he never wanted to be surrounded by security.

Backstage at a Link Wray show in London during this time

We stayed in the Kensington Gardens Hotel, which was nice, but not super fancy. All he really wanted was windows that open and an upright piano. That was it. Which by rock star standards was fairly modest.

The interesting thing about our crew is that we were kind of hired fans. We would go from one tour to another, but the people in my company, the lighting guys, they were just fighting to get on the Dylan tour. Because they're all super Dylan fans. So we watched every show, which is very unusual. We started to notice all the little nuances of the way that he would change lyrics at will in different venues.

He would do “Tangled Up in Blue” in that very famous version with the sax player. That was so moving. He would just change lyrics around a little bit every night. Normally, we wouldn't pay attention to something like that, but we got really riveted by watching him. I'm sure it drove the band crazy, although it was actually his fairly disciplined period. We had pretty much a straight-up set list. He didn't vary much from that, but he would change the lyrics around just because he felt like it.

He's always had the best bands. I mean, it's got to be hard being Dylan's drummer. Because while he's got a fantastic, almost metronomic sense of timing, he can also just change things up, almost at will. It's got to be very hard to follow him sometimes,

I've spoken to a bunch of his drummers, and it is.

If you talk to any of his producers, they'll tell you that his internal metronome is impeccable. When he's accompanying himself on guitar, he keeps perfect time. And as a guitar player myself, I can tell you that's true. When you listen to his early stuff, he's absolutely spot-on.

Patrick and Bob and myself got into this conversation on the train. Sometimes he would play “Simple Twist of Fate,” which is one of everyone's favorite songs, and sometimes he wouldn't. So Patrick said, “You know, you didn't play ‘Simple Twist’ last night, Bob. Why not?”

You can't ask Bob questions, of course. So Bob just looks at Patrick for a long time. Then he goes, “So, Patrick…you like that song?” Patrick goes, “Yeah, Bob, I think it's one of the best songs you ever wrote.” Bob just looks at him again, and he goes, “Patrick, you really like that song?” Patrick's going, “Yeah…”

And then Bob looks over at me and goes, “You like that song?” I go, “Yeah, yeah, I think it's a great song.” Then after that, Bob just looks at us and goes, “Wow, you really like that? Wow. Wow.”

It's funny. You get this opportunity to spend all this free time with one of your idols from your youth, and you don't get to ask him questions. He gets to ask you questions.

He's just so good at doing that. You always want to say, “What did you mean in that lyric?” or— but you just can't. He's too intimidating. At the same time, he's very disarming. Very charming. But there's this little barrier where he doesn't invite questions.

But, sure enough, he did that song pretty much consistently for the rest of the tour.

Musically, he was really on his game. I know you talked to Billy Cross. Billy Cross was funny, because when we did the outdoor shows, we would meet up with Eric Clapton's band. I can't remember which show it was, but Billy Cross came off stage at the end, and he was just sort of standing on his own. Just in a daze. I heard somebody say, “Are you okay Billy?” Billy says, “I don't know, man. I think I could die and go to heaven now. I traded licks with Eric Clapton on stage. I think my life is complete.”

Eric wasn't particularly on his top form on that tour. It was in the height of his alcoholism. Not really pleasant to be around, as a matter of fact, but he still played pretty well.

No one will ever know how many people were at Blackbushe Airfield for that final show, I don't think. The crowd estimates are so varied. I've seen anything from 200,000 to half a million.

Blackbushe 1978

I just interviewed Harvey Goldsmith a week ago. Mostly about 1984, but we talked Blackbushe too.

Harvey was great on that thing. Such a good promoter. I think everyone was pretty amazed at how that show sold out. No one had done that venue before either. But it was a good show. It wasn't as good as the indoor shows, but those outdoor shows never are.

I remember backstage, there were these trailers. Harvey hired local bank employees from all the different banks in London. And you could get a glimpse inside there and see this little tables all set up with these mainly females just counting English bank notes as fast as they possibly can. They just had stacks and stacks of British currency. Then outside, there were these heavy guys in leather jackets with black plastic garbage bags just full of money.

I mean, think of how much money changed hands in that, and it's all in grubby English bank notes.

What was your job day to day?

I was mainly involved with the lighting and set going in. I supervised setting up the lighting rig every day, coordinating with the local crew to be there for the load in, working with the sound guys to make sure that they had everything that they needed. Just running the technical end for when the band and backline crew would come in and set up, getting ready for soundcheck.

We did this show in Paris in what we used to call The Abattoir [The Slaughterhouse]. We walked in there the day before the show. It was a very sunny Paris day. This building has holes in the roof, and, through these holes, the sunlight would just come through in these beautiful shafts of light. 

Bob and Patrick and myself, we walked in there to look at the venue and Bob was super impressed by these heavenly lights coming down. He said, “Patrick, that's the look I want in the show.” Patrick’s going, “Yeah, yeah, Bob, we'll work on that.” Because you can't argue with Bob. You just sort of say yes and hope that he forgets.

Was that typical, that he would show up early to look at the venue?

You never knew with him. He would sometimes, but otherwise, you wouldn't see him much. If we were in a hotel with a pool, he's always hanging out by the pool. He wasn't hidden away the whole time. He liked just being around. 

If we ever traveled on a plane, which we did I think on the London to Paris leg, you would see him hunched over, writing all the time with these tiny little fine pens that he had. Almost like drafting pens. He would write on tiny little bits of paper, microscopic almost. Then he would stuff these bits of paper into his pocket.

He would write on the back of cigarette packets and the back of tickets. Anything like that, he would write just something and stuff them in his pocket. Of course, everyone was hoping that he would drop one, to find some piece of Dylan memorabilia, but he never did.

Thanks Marshall! Check out what he’s up to now at ParnelliAwards.com.

Southern Mountain Reggae [large Summer ‘78 tour compilation]

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