Keith Moon & The Who all left me in my office. I was hoping Bob Dylan would still speak to me!
Keith Moon & The Who all left me in my office. I was hoping Bob Dylan would still speak to me!
Keith Moon, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend and John Entwistle left my office as I continued to speak to Paul Wasserman, Bob Dylan’s publicist, on the phone. I asked where Bob Dylan was going after the UK, and he said Holland, Germany and France. I asked if Morgan Renard was going to all of them. He said all of them except France. So, naturally, I asked if I could photograph a show in France. He waited a moment, and I could hear the cogs turning, and then he said, okay, you can, but we won't pay for any of your travel. I asked if I could shoot the whole show, which was the norm in those days, and he said yes. I asked where I would collect the pass from, just in case I had to collect it in London or something daft like that. In any case, I wanted to ensure there were no mistakes or holdups on the day of the gig in Paris. He answered my questions about the photo pass and asked me to bring a print of one of the photos from the London Standard so they could see if they wanted to use it for the US tour. I said it’s the ‘Evening Standard’. I am not sure he was too impressed with me correcting him again. But that is what it was called, the ‘Evening Standard’! I agreed to take a print and said that if they used it, we would need to discuss a fee, which he said was fine. He also told me that after the gig in Paris, I should go to the backstage door and ask for him. This was so he could collect the print from me.
When it was time to go to Paris, I looked in a London-based magazine called Time Out, where I saw an advert for a bus company called ‘The Magic Bus’. You could buy a ticket from London to Amsterdam or Paris for ten pounds. So, on that day of the gig, I met up with the bus in London. It was a very early start, which was horrible for me as I was always more of a night person. I jumped aboard “The Magic Bus’. I can't remember exactly, but there were about 15 passengers. The driver had one eye looking at the oncoming traffic and the other looking around the corner. He had a face fit for radio and would have been better suited driving a hearse in a horror movie. In reality, it was a dented and damaged old grey Ford Transit van with bald tyres, one wobbly wheel and seats in the back that seemed to have a strange relationship with the floor. I say strange; they were loosely connected to the floor and moved and slid around in the back of the van. The only benefit of them being mostly unattached was that they became, at times, rocking chairs. So, on a reasonably long trip to have free-flowing chairs made it slightly more interesting. There were no seatbelts in those days, and it was quite shambolic.
As we left London and headed towards the south coast, I realised I was in a vehicle that was going to limp from London to Paris. I was sitting next to random, sweaty hippies. Nobody seemed to know anyone else on the bus. But, as the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. It didn’t take long. Once we got going, the smell of grass (hashish) wafted around the van. Joints were being freely passed around the bus, and pretty much everyone except me took a big old lug and passed it on. It didn’t take long before the next joint arrived and wafted past me. Our driver, who also resembled the actor Marty Feldman (if you don’t know him, Google him) but without Feldman's good looks, also took part in the consumption of joints being passed around by his paying punters behind him. We had joss sticks & incense burning in the back, too. It was a proper hippy bus.
The guy next to me was on his way to Afghanistan via Marrakesh. He had a long, heavy Afghan hippy coat, a cheesecloth shirt, jeans, flip-flops and loads of beads around his neck. He also smelt of a similar incense that I used to smell at a London venue called The Roundhouse. It was a common and popular kind of hippy smell. Many people will know exactly what it was, but I don’t remember, as I didn’t want to smell it. I was more of an ‘Aqua de Silva’ boy at the time. Oh yes, I was very sophisticated. Well, at least I thought I was. Now, everything he or I said was followed by him saying “Far Out Man” or “That’s Cool” When he spoke to women on the bus, he called them “Honey Baby” or “Hot Stuff”. He was also into transcendental meditation, or so he said. I only wished that he practised what he preached and did some meditation. He didn’t stop talking to me once I foolishly mentioned that I had photographed Bob Dylan and that I had nearly spoken to him in my office. That was it; he had adjusted his seating position to face me slightly, and he didn’t stop talking. He asked me question after question but often didn’t wait for my answer before the next question came hurtling towards me. I found it exhausting. I guess the fact that I had been on the bus since around 8 am and had only slept a few hours the night before made it even more tiring for me. It took a while before he introduced himself. His name was Arrow, and I think he thought he was my new best friend. Fortunately, there was no way for us to stay in touch. This is a gentle reminder to anyone who doesn't know how it was back in 1978. There were no mobile phones or the internet, and therefore, there was no Facebook, Twitter, or anything else. Just postal addresses and landline telephones. We finally arrived in central Paris on this hot July day. We got off the bus, grabbed our possessions, and said goodbye. Arrow’s adventure involved now getting to Spain and across to Morocco and eventually sitting around campfires in Marrakesh probably meditating and getting stoned. He said that he was aiming at the Khyber Pass, Iran, and Afghanistan. I wasn’t envious at all. Even though the countries he was going to visit were very different from today, the ‘Hippy Trail’ didn’t appeal to me in the slightest. I had more of a magnetic pull towards the USA. That is where I thought it all was for me. My plan that day was simpler and more straightforward than his. I just wanted to get to the right venue that night and photograph Bob Dylan. So, we all said our goodbyes and went in separate directions, never to meet or see each other again. I didn’t smoke cigarettes or anything else and never have, but as I walked away from the Magic Bus due to the company I had kept and in such close proximity on the bus, I realised I was now smelly, stoned and hungry. As I walked through the streets of Paris towards the nearest Metro
I quickly grabbed some French bread with ham in it. The bread tasted so much better than in the UK. That French bread immediately brought a memory flooding back. I clearly recalled eating it as I walked to the Metro to get a train over to the area where the venue was. I had been to Paris quite a few times before this, but I remember my first ever time in France and Paris was eight years before this, when I was around eleven years old. My dad was working in Paris at an exhibition, so my mum, my brother, and I got a train from London’s Victoria Station to Folkestone on the south coast of England, where we got a Hovercraft to Boulogne in France.
We boarded an SNCF French train to Paris. However, as we got off the Hovercraft, my mum was trying to get my brother and me to board a train that I pointed out to her was going to Brussels, so, at least I was alert at eleven. My mum was well known for getting lost in a supermarket. She would always walk out of a store and in the opposite direction of the car. When we were kids and lived in the East End of London, my parents bought a new car, a bottle green Mini. Mum got out of the car and went into a shop. My dad sat in the car with my older sister, my younger brother and me in the back. When my mum left the shop, we all watched her walk straight up to another green mini along the road in front of us. She opened the door and got in. We could see the driver sitting and reading a newspaper. We watched her sit there for a minute and then jump out of the car. We were all laughing as Mum walked towards us and got into our car. She said that she asked him why there were pots of paint on the floor on her side of the foot well. When the driver dropped his newspaper, to see who she was, they both realised she had got in the wrong car. She swiftly jumped out, looked around and saw us. There were many other situations where she would get completely lost in a shopping mall or something. As we set off, en route to Paris on a busy SNCF train, we bought French bread with ham from a seller in the carriage. It was very different and much nicer to what we had in England. So, at least the French bread was still rather nice and brought back happy memories. Anyway, I digress.
Back to 1978 and on camera one: I had left the bus and was now heading to the Pavillion de Paris. It was now early afternoon, and it was the day of the gig. I arrived at the Metro stop, Porte de Pantin, the nearest station to the ten thousand-seater stadium. I was relieved that I had found the right place and was early. I knew I had to wait until the evening. I wandered around the perimeter of the big building. I was generally wasting time until the evening gig when I was walking past the backstage door when a coach with a sign in the front window that said ‘Bob Dylan’ pulled up next to me. That would never happen today; nobody would put a sign in the window to let everyone know who is inside it. Then it stopped, and the doors opened. The coach was on my left-hand side, and I had a camera out and hidden from them on my right side. Suddenly, Bob Dylan is right there, walking past me. I lifted my camera and took one shot of him. As I took a second, I was picked up by a few rather large French guys, thrown away along the road, and landed on the cobbled stone street with a bang. ‘Ouch’, that really hurt, big time. I managed to protect my beloved Nikon F2As Camera from hitting the road.
I didn’t say anything to anyone; I just got up and walked away and out of site. I didn’t want to mention who I was or anything about the show that night, as it might have ruined my shooting chances. I mean, they might have said oh, for taking a shot of Bob in the street, you can’t now shoot the show. So, I knew it was best to disappear quickly. Later that evening, I arrived at the box office, and as promised, there was my pass. I could shoot the whole show from wherever I wanted, except on stage and not backstage. So, this time, unlike London, I had lots of film; this time, it was colour as well as black & white.
I knew I could be more experimental as I had more time to shoot. I still like to shoot like that and be as creative as I can. I personally want to see live photos of artists looking in the photo like they did in real life, if not better. So, that’s how I tend to shoot. I took all my experimental bits and pieces with me to Paris. I mean, things like homemade filters for the front of my lenses. Now, what I mean is this; I would have a filter that I would screw onto the front of the lens, but I had gone to a hardware store in England a long time before these gigs, and I had bought a small little glass cutter, It was a small wooden device with a little metal wheel on the bottom of it. People use these for scoring lines in the glass, and then you can tap the glass, and it breaks in a straight line along the mark you made. Well, I would use this little glass cutter to put gentle little lines in the filter, and that would cause the light on stage to go along those lines and cause dramatic streaks of light. I would also get little bits of glass from one of my grandparents’ glass ashtrays, and I would break off small bits and glue bits to a filter. Again, this would give a spooky look with light refracting all around. I also used Vaseline on little parts of the side of the filters to give a soft and crazy feel to the edges. It wasn’t long before we could all buy filters like these as they were soon to be produced by filter companies in Japan and slowly shipped into the UK, Europe and America. But, during my days in the early 1970s, I had to be creative and make my own. So, this show in Paris was to be me, let loose, I mean freedom to shoot the whole show with Bob Dylan, and I was there officially.
I received my pass and made my way into the arena. It was a lovely feeling to be shooting the legend Bob Dylan for the second time, but with the knowledge that I had a ‘KCP ‘77’ (the promotor) sticker on me, that meant I was official and could concentrate on actually taking photos and not looking for security hurtling towards me to throw me out
.
The band came on shortly, followed by Bob. The show was very much the same as London, with, for me, one major difference: I only saw about one or two songs in London before I got out of there. The French crowd were as enthusiastic as they were in London. I knew in London, but even more now, that the audience was looking upon this singer-songwriter as a god-like figure. I was a very young boy when the Beatles hit the world; I was about four when they erupted. To me, they were musical gods. But, here in front of me in Paris was another musical genius and musical god.
I recognised some of these songs, although many were from his latest album “Street Legal’ which was being played nonstop on the radio in the UK. So, that helped me think it sounded familiar. Some of those songs I had heard before were, ‘Baby, Stop Crying, Changing of The Guards, Is Your Love in Vain’. I would guess that virtually everyone in the arena had been out and bought the newly released album ‘Street Legal’, and now that I know fans of Bob Dylan, I know they would have played it over and over again. Therefore, they would have known all of these songs at the gig, explaining why they went crazy at the beginning and end of every song. The show finally ended, and I left the arena through the main front doors the same way I came in. I walked to the back of the building and found the stage door. Funnily enough, it was right near where I had been thrown earlier in the day, and Bob’s coaches & tour trucks were parked. I knocked on the backstage door and asked for Mr Paul Wasserman. I was told to wait outside there, which I did. Some time passed, and then the door burst open, and a very big French security guard said, ‘Come, follow me’. As I walked along the corridor with him, we didn’t speak. I just followed the Olympic speed-walking security guard through the back end of this big building. Finally, I was told to wait, and he went through another door. As the door opened, I saw crowds in the room looking like music biz types. A moment later, a tall, balding man with his hair in what we call in the UK a ‘Bobby Charlton Combe Over’ in his mid-forties came through the door and said, Danny? “I am Paul Wasserman. How did you get on shooting the show?” He walked me into this large room where I would guess there were 150-200 hundred people, maybe more. He kept walking and stopped behind what I thought was Bob Dylan. A man with dark curly hair was wearing a black jacket, which I used to call a donkey jacket. Paul Wasserman tapped him on his shoulder, and he turned around. It was Bob Dylan. Wasserman said this is Danny from the London Standard. Well, I had to, didn’t I? I said, well, it’s the Evening Standard. Wasserman just looked at me; Bob leant forward and put his hand out to me to shake hands. As we shook hands, I thought, what a limp handshake that was. As we finished shaking hands, Bob leant forward and said great photos, I love them. I said thank you very much. Paul Wasserman then put his arm around my shoulder and ushered me away as Bob Dylan turned back to the people he was with, and that meeting with me was now over. Wasserman said, “Did you bring the print for me?”. I said yes, here it is, as I took it out of the side of my camera bag. I then said, I have two. Do you think Bob would sign one for me? He took them both from me and told me to stand where I was. He walked back to Bob, who was in the middle of this busy room and stood there for a moment. He quickly returned to me and handed me one of the prints. Bob had signed it ‘To Danny, best wishes, Bob Dylan’. I was rather pleased and quickly slipped it into the side of my camera bag. As I stood up, Wasserman started speaking to me and had his arm around me. He then said, here is my business card. Let me know if you ever get to LA. He opened the door in front of me and guided me through it. Then, just like that, BANG! The door shut behind me, and I stood alone in a Parisian street. Yes, I was out, gone! How did that happen? I have just met Bob Dylan; he told me how much he liked my photos. Paul Wasserman gave me his business card, and I walked through a door, not paying attention to where I was being guided, and wallop, I was outside. I stood there trying to take in all that had just happened, and I laughed and thought, that is hilarious. Well, I had my photos in The Evening Standard, and Bob Dylan liked them enough to make contact with me. I have just officially shot his show in Paris and met him. This cannot end here. As my lovely grandpa used to say to me when I was about four or five years old,” Daniel, Hitch Your Waggon to a Star”, meaning, go for your dreams and don’t stop. Well, I am always aiming ridiculously high. So, in my head, this wasn’t going to end there. I walked to the Metro station, jumped on a train and headed back to the flea-infested room that I had booked in the cheapest part of town. The next day, I took a self-timed shot of myself in front of the Eiffel Tower. You may notice I was wearing one of my favourite bands T shirt, Status Quo.
I got to the meeting place for The Magic Bus and climbed aboard the exotic sister vehicle, another Ford Transit of similar quality and sat with more international travellers and fellow dreamers as we bounced around up to the French coast, across the English Channel and finally into central London.
I couldn’t wait to see the colour film I had taken in Paris. So, I headed straight to Covent Garden underground Station in London. I walked down the street to the basement photo lab called NJ Paolo. This was my favourite lab. The time to process colour transparency is two hours. So, during those two hours, I would sometimes wander through Covent Garden or, better still, head back to the station, where the Music Paper Sounds had their offices directly above the station. I would usually manage to pick up a job of two if I popped into the office. At the very least, I would get a free coffee.
After the two hours, I would run down the stairs to the lab. Most photographers shooting on film couldn't wait to see photos as soon as they were processed. So, as they handed me the films in strips of 36 pictures, I immediately saw they were spot-bang on. I was very, very excited. I then headed out of central London to my girlfriend Lyn’s house in Hatch End, where I was living. I couldn’t wait to show her and her parents my photos of the Paris gig. When I arrived, they were as excited as me.
I have to say it was a stark contrast to the reaction from my own family. A few weeks earlier, I had taken a copy of the Evening Standard and the ‘Eight Page Exclusive’ pullout of my photos of Bob Dylan in the big music paper, Melody Maker, to show my parents. My dad looked at it all silently. Then threw the newspapers on a chair and said, “When are you going to get a proper job?” and walked away from me. My mum said even less, as they had no interest in what I was doing in my photographic career. My girlfriend was with me when my parents said that to me, and that lucky girl is now my wife. I am glad she was there to witness how they were with me. Most people wouldn’t believe what they said to me, and there was a complete lack of support and encouragement. So, you can imagine how nice it was for me to have future in-laws who were the most loving and supportive people anyone could have wished for. The opposite of what I had known with my family. No wonder I left home when I was around 15 and a half or 16.
So, I was back from Paris with great photos of Bob Dylan. I felt that I was so close yet far from something big.
So, what should I do next?
All will be revealed in Part 3. Please subscribe below to find out.
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Best wishes,
Danny
Just love these accounts of travelling the world and catching the Music and people as it happened , against a musical background of Status Quo …. my own heroes .
Excellent..