Rolling Thunder's Designer Talks Circus Curtains and Trail Maps

1975-11-17, War Memorial Coliseum, Rochester, NY

Flagging Down the Double E’s is an email newsletter exploring Bob Dylan concerts throughout history. Click the button below to get new entries delivered straight to your inbox. Some installments are free, some for paid subscribers only. I’ve also got a book now available for preorder: ‘Pledging My Time: Conversations with Bob Dylan Band Members’

I’d already written about today’s paid subscriber request from Jay L two years ago — because Jay requested a 1975 Rolling Thunder show, and I did a series writing about every 1975 Rolling Thunder show. (If you missed it, go here and scroll down to 1975. Here’s the entry on the Rochester show Jay requested, 47 years ago today. )

But it’s not like I was now never going to revisit Rolling Thunder, arguably Bob’s greatest-ever tour. In fact, I actually have been revisiting it recently, conducting more Rolling Thunder band member interviews for my forthcoming book (ahem). Raconteur Ramblin’ Jack Elliott; ‘76 percussionist Gary Burke; featured player and, later, Chabad duet partner Kinky Friedman… I can’t get enough Rolling Thunder, and I’m sure some of you are the same.

So, to check back in with the tour today, I chatted with a behind-the-scenes figure, Rolling Thunder designer Tom Meleck.

What does a “designer” mean in this context? Tom handled much of the tour’s visuals, the branding such as it was. He designed the posters and t-shirts. He designed the amazing Rolling Thunder curtain up top, the first thing the audience would see when they entered the venue. He even designed a cool Lewis & Clark-style trail map tracing the motley crew’s route through the States.

And he did all that while still a college student no less, working on the side for tour promoter Barry Imhoff. We talk about all that below!

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Tell me how you got involved with Rolling Thunder.

I got a call from Barry Imhoff. I was going to NYU at the time.

You were a student?

Yes. I went to NYU for theater – set design and lighting design. NYU's philosophy was that, rather than having teachers, they would have working professionals who came in and acted as teachers. You could get a job with one of these teachers who knew your work.

So I had been doing some commercials, Maxwell House and others, and also doing some rock and roll things for a company called See Factor. I designed Aerosmith's Flying A tour, Peter Frampton. I guess Barry got my name from them.

One of Imhoff's secretaries called and said, come up and see us. So I did. Barry said, “We're doing a very small tour. There won't be very many people, a very small audience. We can't tell you who it's for.” But they talked about it being a folk rock band.

If he's not telling you the musicians, what direction is he giving you?

Well, I knew how many band members there were. So I did a floor plan of where the band members would stand. The drummers and percussion would go in a certain place, the guitars went in another. That was approved and was used on the tour.

Because we were going to small houses, a whole bunch of tiny little places, I designed what we call an "olio drop" or a roll drop. So you could put it in any venue because they didn't know which venue they're going in. This roll drop could be put anywhere, on any size stage. If the stage was too big, you'd put black curtains on either side.

It was made of muslin and painted to look old fashioned, like something you'd see in the theater in the 1800s. The idea was that Bob and Joan would stand there on a small platform that matched the height of that drop. And what happens is, it rolls from the bottom up, so that they would be pretty much the first thing you would see.

[Here that is in action:]