Disappointment is in the air for UK and European fans. After US fans were free to shove their phones toward the stage and record a wrench-wielding Bob Dylan perform some of his earliest and best works, it is back to darkness for what is likely the last of these Rough and Rowdy Ways shows. Back into the Yondr pouch our devices go. A slick bit of kit that. Seal your phone inside, and open it by slamming it against something hard. Like a caveman striking a rock with a bigger rock, the sparks of ingenuity flash at these gigs. It is easy to enjoy a gig without being on your phone. Dylan is not the first, nor will he be the last, to implement such a ban. But barring people from using their phones at a gig displays a lack of trust in the audience. Dylan is right not to trust us to whip out our phones.
Whatever his reasoning for banning phones (he initially said it is to give those in attendance a chance to enjoy the experience) the results cannot be denied. We are suckers, those of us who sit and listen to bootlegs of decades-old shows, searching for a glimmer of interest or a bright spark of new detail we had missed on a first run-through. And yet for years, it has been a thorn in his side. Bootlegs like Great White Wonder directly affected how Dylan performed and provided material to his fans. It spawned his official bootleg series, a masterful series of compiled deep cuts, studio outtakes and alternate versions which is more than enough for the average Dylan fan. But we remain reliant on bootlegging. For those wanting more, those hungry for the detail of a specific performance. It is easier in some ways now to hear an artist’s work on stage from your home. All it takes is a balcony seat and a railing to prop your phone up on. Even a recording device in the front pocket is worth a go.
For Dylan, this is a disastrous development because it removes what he perceives as the magic of his closed-off shows and prevents people from being truly in the moment. Asking an audience not to go on their phones – as Nick Cave did recently when he told audiences to put their devices away after posing for them – is not enough. It is too easy to check the time or see your notifications in the downtime from song to song. Our attention spans grow weaker by the day. Any time we see Beavo swallowing food without chewing on TikTok or some snippet of a show with a poor crop for a YouTube short, a bit of us dies. To release us from that need to tap is something more artists should do.
Some are having to do it by force, plastering “no phones” signage around the venue before entry. Take Cave as an example. He did not outright ban phones from his shows but appears annoyed by their constant presence. Where is the breaking point for an artist wanting to connect without the screen? Comedian Stewart Lee made it clear there was to be no flash photography or phones during his gig at Newcastle City Hall, and it worked. Audiences need their hands holding. This is not a one-generation problem. Elvis Costello at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall was stocked primarily with those of an older generation, and more than a few pulled their phones out to try and record the Pump it Up performer. Staff were on hand to stop it, to implement a rule held by the venue rather than the performer, but by the end when everyone was up for the encore, there was no way to enforce it. Most had their phones in the air, zoomed-in photos of a blurry 70-year-old now in their possession.
Dylan, like Lee or City Varieties Music Hall, has challenged the notion of gigging with your phone. Why do you need that photo or video? In some cases, it makes sense – one or two shots for personal use, a video or two to relive the fonder moments – is understandable. Pulling your phone out through a moment of interest is to break from the experience, that much is true. Reliving it is to either rely on another recording or to remove yourself from the emotion of the immediate moment, for a chance of a small drop every time you rewatch it. It’s a tricky position to be in. The fundamental desire to record and release every moment we have in our lives, for the benefit of nobody but ourselves, is fascinating. More gig-goers should be responsible with how they interact with the art they have paid for, but it is not until restrictions are enforced that it will make any difference.
Damon Albarn said of the gigs that “if you’re engaging with them correctly,” then an audience will not be on their phone. Sentiment may have persevered there, Albarn is wrong. Whatever the case Dylan makes for preserving the moment is neither here nor there, it is tremendously strange to exclude those who do not, or could not, get a ticket to his gigs. But at the same time, those who are there have a duty to themselves and the artist not to be sucked into their screens. To engage with the art in front of them is trickier if people are on their phones a row ahead. It has left its mark on otherwise perfect gigs, and the only route left for some artists is to ban phones entirely. In Dylan’s case, it is not the few bad eggs ruining it for everyone as it is with Lee, but a sense of preserving the moment without tech.
This argument from Dylan is all the stranger when there was seemingly no problem with the Outlaw tour earlier this year. But that would imply other artists on the tour agreed, which they likely did not. Dylan has a hang-up about phone and tech usages, and he is right to feel this way after decades of seeing people haul camera and recording equipment into his shows, just to make a print of the performance. There is not much more he can do bar search people as though they were going through security at an airport. As we have seen in the continuation of the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour, recordings still make their way out. And yet even with those slips, there is still an elusive nature to the performances. We do not see Dylan, just hear him. It creates a new character for the next steps of his career – and banning phones from his concerts has gotten him there.
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