Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue: A user's guide
The background: When Bob Dylan toured for the first time in eight years in 1974 following his near-fatal 1966 motorcycle accident, he was backed by The Band for a triumphant tour dubbed Before the Flood that touched down in sports arenas and other large venues across the country. The following year he assembled a far less structured outing, the Rolling Thunder Revue, something he envisioned being more in line with old-time traveling medicine shows, gypsy caravans or vaudeville tours. He chose smaller venues - mostly theaters that held 1,500 to 5,000 people and predominantly in non-major markets. It opened in historically resonant Plymouth, Mass., with stops in Cambridge, Worcester, Niagara Falls and Augusta, Maine, before ramping up for bigger shows in Boston, and Montreal, and concluding at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The participants: Perhaps most
