The Rolling Thunder Revue (from left): Roger McGuinn, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Mick Ronson (hidden), Joan Baez, Bob Dylan in whiteface, Bobby Neuwirth in profile and Rob Stoner. (Paul McA/pine)
126
BOB DYLAN
seventy people on the road. Small venues didn't pay that much; business is business. Audiences didn't care one way or the other. Two shows in Providence, Rhode Island, and two more in New Haven, Connecticut, put seating figures up towards 20,000, and though there were complaints about the rotten sound, they were swamped by the adulation of Dylan's real audience, the kids (some up to forty or fifty years of age) who heard about the tour and moved fast to acquire tickets. Dylan told People Magazine he didn't care what people expected of him, but his shows, and the new music presented in them, more than met those expectations. His shows ran along certain lines, showing that Dylan still knew how to appeal to his audience and their expectations of the unexpected. Like that night in Niagara Falls. After a delay of almost an hour, the Rolling Thunder Review opened with Guam, alternatively known as the Budweiser Review