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And Finally Artist News Gigs & Festivals
Bob Dylan speaks on stage for the first time in years (to tell off his audience)
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 18 April 2019
Bob Dylan angrily told off an audience for taking photos during a show in Austria earlier this week. The rant was not notable because it adds him to the list of artists who don’t like having smartphones pointed at them while performing. He’s been on that list for a long time. But it marked the first time he’s spoken to an audience in about two years.
During the encore at Konzerthaus in Vienna on Tuesday night, Dylan halted a performance of ‘Blowing In The Wind’ after one verse. Instructing the band to move on to the next song, he then halted that after around 30 seconds, grumbling to the audience that they wouldn’t perform if people were taking pictures.
He then stepped back, tripping over a guitar monitor, before standing with his band, apparently posing. He then shouted at the audience: “Take pictures or don’t take pictures. We can either play or we can pose. Okay?”
After the audience replied “play, play”, he returned to his piano and resumed playing ‘It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry’. However, he then left the stage after it was finished, leaving the band to play final song ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues’ without him.
We know this, of course, because someone filmed it all on their smartphone and uploaded it to Facebook. That video has now been removed after people pointed out that – in his excitement over hearing Dylan speak – the man who posted the footage had perhaps missed the irony of what he’d done.
