I'm only speculating about this...but it's my impression that Bob doesn't like being on TV. He certainly does like live performing in concert, however, and I've seen him do shows that were simply wonderful. I've also seen him do some that were average, and one or two that were mediocre...for Bob. So he's definitely moody and changeable when it comes to that.

I saw the same show you did, daylia, although I'm not sure if it was the same exact night. Bob was in the early and terribly earnest stages of his religious conversion, and he was deliberately doing ONLY the new Christian songs he'd written at that time. He did them awfully well, with tremendous energy and committment, because he was inspired about it. The music was great and the band was great.

One guy kept yelling "Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol"...all night long...until finally people started yelling, "Oh, shut up!" at him. He wouldn't quit. Well, "Hattie Carrol" is a superb song, but it's not what Bob was there to do that night. Some people just don't understand that the World is not there to meet their every passing whim...

To quote Bob in one of the religious songs: "Do you ever wonder just what God requires? You think He's just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires? When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up, When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?"

Those are worthwhile questions to ask. Most people's idea of both God AND their favorite entertainer AND even their lover is essentially that he/she is just an errand boy to satisfy their wandering desires!

That's a hard thing to say, but look around and you will see that it's true. That's not love. It's something that needs radical changing, because "you gotta serve somebody" if you expect to grow as a living and conscious soul.

Dylan, in his own mind, was consciously serving God (his idea of God) and humanity by singing only the religious songs. That was how he honestly felt. I'm not saying I would have done that if I was in his place, but that's how he felt at the time. Kind of took guts to do that, wouldn't you say?

By 6 months later he'd mellowed on it some and he was working the older songs back into the shows. For a lot of those unhappy people in the audience when you and I went in 1980, it was just 6 months too soon that they went to see him, that's all.