Rolling round Bob Dylan's Madrid

Though he is said to be unsociable, elusive and inscrutable, there was a time when Bob Dylan was seen strolling around Madrid, smiling and looking relaxed. It was June 1984. Bob was 43 years old and in the company of an 18-year-old named ?ngeles Gonz¨¢lez-Sinde. Yes, the same woman who is now culture minister. She was then working for the concert promoter Gay Mercader, and her mission was to be Dylan's aide during his stay in the Spanish capital. "I was enthusiastic about it," said Gonz¨¢lez-Sinde in an interview. "I was always by his side. I went with him everywhere to help him get along.

"It wasn't just about being his interpreter, but also a person who would make his stay easier. He was very kind to me." The future minister took him to the Prado museum and on a shopping expedition to Calle Almirante.

On that first visit to Madrid, Dylan was also seen inside a downtown bar, the Caf¨¦ Alc¨¢zar, sporting a Hawaiian shirt. It was eight in the evening and he was being interviewed by the British journalist Mick Brown. "He ordered coffee and lit a cigarette - the first of a stream he would smoke over the next hour," Brown recalls in a recent article for The Telegraph.

That same night, Bob Dylan played his first Madrid concert. It was June 26, 1984. He showed up on the stage of the Rayo Vallecano soccer stadium at one in the morning. His opening act, Carlos Santana, had stretched out his concert for nearly two hours, and Dylan apologized for the delay. Concert tickets cost 2,000 pesetas (24 euros) and members of the audience included the leadership of the recently elected Socialist government: Defense Minister Narc¨ªs Serra, Justice Minister Fernando Ledesma, Labor Minister Joaqu¨ªn Almunia and Culture Minister Javier Solana.

It was the first of six visits Dylan would make to Madrid over the years. But finding out where he went is harder than investigating Obama's affaires as he always did his own thing. That is why it's not hard to imagine him walking around Retiro park or riding his bike, like he did in June 1989, on his second visit.

We do know more about his July 19, 1995 show. Dylan walked into the dressing room at Sala La Riviera, making his own way through the crowd, to everyone's surprise. "It was one of the best Dylan concerts in Madrid," recalls Sonia G¨®mez, who has seen him play live over 50 times. "He was nice, and it was the closest we ever came to him. You could almost touch his hand."

Photographer Quino Castro did touch his hand, when he went on stage to give him a picture. "Before the encores Dylan was smiling, playing with the girls and doing high fives with the first rows," recalls Quino, now 44. "I had in my wallet a photo of Dal¨ª's painting of the Christ, and I showed it to him. He pretended to keep it. But suddenly he saw me up there on stage, so he shook my hand and autographed the image."

But, explains Gay Mercader, who has organized 54 of the musician's concerts in Spain, with Dylan, "the best thing to do is just leave him be [...] He is a troubadour, a wanderer... Keith Richards once said that Dylan is addicted to the white line. To cocaine? No, to the line of the road. I doubt if even he knows where he lives."