- photos & story
© 7/99 Chas Campbell
"Send me your huddled masses," reads the Statue of Liberty and the entrance to Ellis Island. For Independence Day, 1999, the masses were huddled at Duluth's Bayfront Festival Park to hear Bob Dylan and Paul Simon perform. At one point during the concert, Dylan pointed to the bluffs rising to the west and said "I was born in those hills."
For Kathy and me, it was a flashback to "Summer Jam," one of the largest concerts of the late 70's with over 650,000 attendees, including us. We smiled and reminisced on the drive up about all the mud and our VW microbus parked in the corn fields at that one, not realizing we were in for a '90's version of the same thing - only this time we had our 13-year-old daughter, Kat around too.... "Oh the times, they are a changin..."
The Ground was muddy. The Sound was superb! Starting with the BoDeans, then moving on to Paul Simon, who pleased us all with renditions of many old favorites. Bob Dylan then came out for some duets before closing the show. Since we were clinging to our patch of mud with the rest of the 20,000+ attending, here are better links from people who had press passes: Duluth.com, DuluthNews.com
Tech Notes: All photos taken handheld with my trusty Nikon 9000S Digicam. Stage close ups at max optical plus 2X Digital Zoom. Wide shots include screw-on .45X lens. Spot metering at -1-2 exposure. Incandescent balance. High capacity NiMh batteries. All this in a package about as big as 2 packs of cigarettes! Extreme cropping, sizing, & optimization using Picture Publisher 8. While no camera restrictions were listed on their web site, a sign saying "No Cameras" was posted at the front entrance. I was admitted with no problems carrying the Nikon.... Before I had to sort out whether I should shoot at the concert because of the restriction, I saw the disposable 35mm jobbies for sale at the "official souvenir" booth... :)
The weather was mystical, with a heavy layer of fog just a 100' or so over our heads... rolling in off the lake and merging into the hills. Below, we huddled to our lawn chair base of operations, or rocky spots above the mud. Heavy rains before hand and massive construction projects had left the park in sad shape for an onslaught of spectators ever inching forward for a better view.
As night fell, the lights came up on the old master. As impressive as Simon's band had been, including 2 drummers and a brass section, Dylans' band was now equally rich, but more acoustic, including a string bass. As always, his harmonica and instrumentals made up for the vocals....
Remember that fog layer...? Well, the show started up and as soon as the "big ones" shot up into the sky.... they disappeared! Huge aerial pyrotechnics had been reduced to a dull colored glow in the depth of the fog. Our $10,000 fireworks display was not going up in smoke, it had been swallowed by the lake and fog itself - this is something I have never experienced before and all I could shoot was the upward path the rockets took into the mist.
And then we all got up and went home. Closer for some than others. We packed up the van, made a "left" when most people were going "right" and found ourselves back in the Twin Cities by about 2:30, including a stop at Tobies' for some sugar (bakery!) and caffeine....
