page_title: Bob Dylan World Tour 1978
hierarchical_section_title: Bob Dylan World Tour 1978
caption_attribution_description: English: Bob Dylan performing in Rotterdam, June 23 1978
context_page_description: The Bob Dylan World Tour 1978 was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. In 1978, Dylan embarked on a year-long world tour, performing 114 shows in Asia, Oceania, North America and Europe, to a total audience of two million people. For the tour, Dylan assembled an eight piece band, and was also accompanied by three backing singers. Highlights of the European leg of the tour were Dylan's first concerts in Germany where he had never wanted to play because of the Jews' persecution by the Nazis. However, after warmup concerts at Dortmund and Berlin, he performed on July 1 on the Zeppelinfeld at Nuremberg for 80,000 people. Promoter Fritz Rau had convinced him to perform in Germany. It was the spot where Adolf Hitler had appeared prominently on his "Reichsparteitage", the party convention of the NSDAP. Dylan's stage was placed opposite to the rostrum where Hitler had given his speeches. After the concert, Bob Dylan said that it was a very special event for him, which he had marked by appearing in normal street clothes instead of the usual street clothes. Eric Clapton, who also appeared at Nuremberg, joined him for two songs at the end of the concert.
context_section_description: The Bob Dylan World Tour 1978 was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. In 1978, Dylan embarked on a year-long world tour, performing 114 shows in Asia, Oceania, North America and Europe, to a total audience of two million people. For the tour, Dylan assembled an eight piece band, and was also accompanied by three backing singers. Highlights of the European leg of the tour were Dylan's first concerts in Germany where he had never wanted to play because of the Jews' persecution by the Nazis. However, after warmup concerts at Dortmund and Berlin, he performed on July 1 on the Zeppelinfeld at Nuremberg for 80,000 people. Promoter Fritz Rau had convinced him to perform in Germany. It was the spot where Adolf Hitler had appeared prominently on his "Reichsparteitage", the party convention of the NSDAP. Dylan's stage was placed opposite to the rostrum where Hitler had given his speeches. After the concert, Bob Dylan said that it was a very special event for him, which he had marked by appearing in normal street clothes instead of the usual street clothes. Eric Clapton, who also appeared at Nuremberg, joined him for two songs at the end of the concert. As a live album had been recorded at Budokan Hall, Tokyo, the Nuremberg concert recording was never officially released but only appeared on Bootleg recordings. Two weeks later, both artists performed again at a mass festival at the Blackbushe Aerodrome in England.
  When Dylan brought the tour to the United States in September 1978, he was dismayed the press described the look and sound of the show as a 'Las Vegas Tour', not unless because the European concerts had been a great success. The 1978 tour grossed more than $20 million, and Dylan acknowledged to the Los Angeles Times that he had some debts to pay off because "I had a couple of bad years. I put a lot of money into the movie, built a big house ... and it costs a lot to get divorced in California."   It was during the later stages of this tour that Dylan experienced a "born-again" conversion to Christianity, which would become the overriding thematic preoccupation in his music for the next couple of years, such as on the albums Slow Train Coming (1979) and Saved (1980).
caption: Rotterdam, Netherlands, June 23, 1978
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