A legendary show exit for Bob Dylan has been shared by veteran guitarist G.E. Smith.
Smith, who performed with Dylan at more than 250 shows, shared a brilliant moment from the songwriter, who managed to vacate the Beacon Theatre without anyone knowing. Recalling the moment during a podcast appearance, Smiths says he and the rest of the band were told by Dylan to continue playing during the closing number, no matter what happened. The instruction left the band strumming away on what some have suggested is the Beacon Theatre performance from October 19, 1990. Should fan suggestions be true, the story would also mark the final time Smith performed with Dylan.
Smith recalled: “We were playing at The Beacon, and I was working with him, we did like four or five nights. I guess the last night he says ‘the last song, I’m going to play harmonica at the end, and I’m going to walk down off the stage, and no matter what I do, you guys keep playing, and you keep playing, Jeff, the manager, he’ll give you the signal from the side of the stage when it’s time to stop playing.’
“‘But you keep playing no matter what I do. You keep playing.’ He’s got a wireless microphone, he never used a wireless microphone, never. We get to the end of the song, he’s playing harmonica, he’s got the wireless microphone, he walks down off the stage and he’s walking up the side aisle.
“All of a sudden he pushes on one of the doors and goes out onto Broadway. He’s still playing but at some point it’s not picking up anymore, the radio signal isn’t getting through the walls of the beacon. Walked too far away.
“We come to find out that he walked out and hailed a cab, and left. We just kept playing and I finally got to see, he must have like, called Jeff on his phone and said ‘okay, tell them to stop.’ Classic.”
This is apparently not the first time Dylan has made a sudden exit from his performances. One fan wrote: “He pulled the same exit at the end of his concert at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia in 1989. Played Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat as his encore with a handheld microphone on the harp.
“Ran down the centre of the stage to the side door – where I happened to be standing as I wanted to leave before the crowd let out. Dylan ran right past me, but not before I touched his elbow and yelled, ‘God bless you, Bob!’ Then a gorilla of a guy working security grabbed me. Unforgettable! And the band kept playing. I wonder where he went that night?”
Fans who had attended the Beacon Theatre performance also claimed there was truth to Smith’s story, as one humorously believed Dylan was preparing to “crowd surf”. They wrote: “I was there that night in the balcony of the Beacon with my wife. We watched Dylan get off the stage, wondered if he was going to be crazy enough to crowd surf, were relieved when he went up the steps stage right and disappeared behind a curtain.
“G.E. and the band kept playing, and it looked to us like G.E. and the band had no idea what was happening, so I’m glad to hear Dylan warned him beforehand. But the best thing was a few minutes later when we got on the subway, a young guy about asked excitedly, ‘Did you just come from the Dylan show?’
“When we said yes, he told us, ‘I just saw Dylan and his son get into a cab! They were pulling away and I shouted “Hey Bob!” and he turned and looked back, but then the cab hit a bump and Bob bounced up, turned his head back. The cab turned the corner and they were gone!’.”
A video of the Maggie’s Farm performance can be found below. It is not confirmed this is the performance G.E. Smith speaks of, though some fans have suggested it could be this date at the Beacon Theatre where Dylan pulled the sudden exit.
I was there. It was the final night of a 4-night stand. I had tickets to the other three, which were terrific, but couldn’t afford the fourth in advance. I was going to buy from a scalper at the ideal time–the prices had been good all week. Then there was a rumor that Jerry Garcia was in town and might join him on stage so all the tickets were snatched up quickly and at high prices.
I was left with a small handful of people with my head pressed against a steel door trying to make my setlist (this was pre-internet). In the middle of the final song before the encore, someone knocked from inside, the 7 or 8 of us out there backed up, they opened the door and beckoned us in without a word.
We could’t believe our luck. I guess they probably did it on both sides to be sure he didn’t run into fans on his way out. I rushed to the front of the stage pretty quickly and caught most of the encore from there. When he got off the stage, I could not believe what I was seeing. It was more shocking than the night years later when I saw him and all my friends got up on stage and danced with him, a friend kissed him on the cheek and hung off of him for a minute and he let her. This up the aisle and out the door exit was wilder.
By the way, I don’t remember him walking up a side aisle. I remember him walking up the center aisle then turning right halfway up and walking straight to the door. The band looked like they had no idea what was happening. They kept seeming to glance offstage waiting for him to come back.