The Never Ending Tour is a popular term for Bob Dylan's seemingly incessant performing schedule since June 7, 1988. Attention has often focused on Dylan's seasoned (but evolving) backing band, which he displayed on record with the 2001 album "Love and Theft" and the 2006 album Modern Times. The tour is notable for Dylan's age - he turned sixty-six in 2007, and in 2006 played ninety-nine shows. According to the count maintained by Olof Bjorner's Dylan web-site Still On The Road, Dylan played his 2000th show of the Never Ending Tour on October 16, 2007, in Dayton, Ohio.[1]
Contents |
Impact on Recordings
Although Dylan had toured in every year of the 1980s (except 1983 and 1985), including his 1987 tour with the Grateful Dead, the Never Ending Tour presented a more focused Dylan touring with a stable but constantly evolving band.[2] 1992's acoustic folk album Good as I Been to You was favorably compared to the acoustic sets Dylan usually performed during each show on the tour. 1997's Time Out of Mind, his first record of originals in seven years, was considered a full-fledged comeback. Finally, 2001's "Love and Theft" was seen by critics as a good representation of what Dylan and his recent bands had become famous for in concert.
Evolution of Old Songs
The tour's sets are infamous for progressive reworkings of classic Dylan songs such "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and "Like a Rolling Stone" - in which rhythms, genres and even lyrics are often completely altered. It is a practice the singer-songwriter experimented with since the 1960s, but is now found throughout entire concerts.
The Title
The tour's name was cemented when journalist Adrian Deevoy published his interview with Dylan in Q Magazine no.39, December 1989. The critic Michael Gray listened to Deevoy's interview tape, and points out in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia that though Deevoy's article put the phrase into Dylan's mouth, in fact the label came from Deevoy in the following exchange:
- AD: 'Tell me about this live thing. You've gone straight into this tour again - one tour virtually straight into the next one.'
- BD: 'Oh, it's all the same tour.'
- AD: 'It's the Never Ending Tour?'
- BD: (unenthusiastically) 'Yeah, yeah'.[3]
Dylan has been dismissive of the Never Ending Tour tag. In the sleeve notes to his album World Gone Wrong (1993), Dylan wrote: "don't be bewildered by the Never Ending Tour chatter. there was a Never Ending Tour but it ended in '91 with the departure of guitarist G. E. Smith. That one's long gone but there have been many others since then. The Money Never Runs Out Tour (fall of '91) Southern Sympathizer Tour (early '92) Why Do You Look At Me So Strangely Tour (European '92) The One Sad Cry Of Pity Tour (Australia & West Coast American '92) Outburst Of Consciousness Tour ('92) Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Tour ('93) & others too many to mention each with their own character & design." (sic) The tour was unofficially and unexpectedly interrupted in 1997. Dylan had to cancel dates after suffering a serious medical issue in May. CBS Records announced he was being hospitalized for a "potentially fatal" chest infection[4]. A European tour was cancelled prior to release of Time Out of Mind to allow him to recuperate. In a 2001 Austrian press interview with Thomas Zeidler, Dylan dismissed the term on the grounds that someday he will be unable to hit the road.
Dylan's Introduction
Since August 15, 2002, Dylan has been introduced at the beginning of most of his concerts with an announcement made by a member of his stage crew:
| “ | Ladies and gentlemen please welcome the poet laureate of rock 'n' roll. The voice of the promise of the 60's counterculture. The guy who forced folk into bed with rock. Who donned makeup in the 70's and disappeared into a haze of substance abuse. Who emerged to find Jesus. Who was written off as a has-been by the end of the 80's, and who suddenly shifted gears releasing some of the strongest music of his career beginning in the late 90's. Ladies and gentlemen - Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan![5] | ” |
This introduction was adapted from an article about Dylan that had appeared in a local newspaper, The Buffalo News, on August 9, 2002.[6]
Releases, Broadcast & Books
The only officially released live document from the period covered by The Never Ending Tour was a solo set for MTV Unplugged in 1995. Fans, especially on the internet, are known to record, catalogue and trade CDs from his concerts at about the rate of other celebrated live artists, such as Phish and The Grateful Dead. As with those groups, a proper explanation for this is Dylan's tendency to rarely perform a song or even a show in the same manner twice. Amazon.com broadcast a 2005 live performance on their homepage, in celebration of the site's tenth anniversary. Andrew Muir authored the book Razor's Edge: Bob Dylan and the Never Ending Tour in September, 2001. The book attempts to chronicle the first decade and a half, while exploring Dylan's possible motivations.
Band
During a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone, Dylan spoke about his current band:
This is the best band I've ever been in, I've ever had, man for man. When you play with guys a hundred times a year, you know what you can and can't do, what they're good at, whether you want 'em there. It takes a long time to find a band of individual players. Most bands are gangs. Whether it's a metal group or pop rock, whatever, you get that gang mentality. But for those of us who went back further, gangs were the mob. The gang was not what anybody aspired to. On this record (Modern Times) I didn't have anybody to teach. I got guys now in my band, they can whip up anything, they surprise even me.
—Bob Dylan, August 2006, Rolling Stone
Since 2005, Bob Dylan's band consists of the following members:
- Bob Dylan - vocals, guitar, keyboard, harmonica
- Stu Kimball - guitar
- Donnie Herron - pedal steel guitar, lap steel guitar, electric mandolin, banjo, fiddle
- Denny Freeman - guitar, slide guitar
- Tony Garnier - bass guitar, standup bass
- George Receli - drums
Notes
- ^ "Log of every Dylan performance, 1958 to Today", Bjorner's Still on the Road, 2007-10-01.
- ^ "Log of every Dylan performance, 1958 to Today", Bjorner's Still on the Road, 2006-09-16. Retrieved on 2006-09-23.
- ^ Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, 173
- ^ CNN Showbiz. "Bob Dylan hospitalized with chest infection" 28 May 1997. (accessed 14 April 2007)
- ^ Dylan's introduction, August 15, 2002.. Bjorner's Still On the Road (2002-08-15). Retrieved on 2007-06-16.
- ^ The Buffalo News, August 9, 2002. Geocities (2002-08-09). Retrieved on 2007-06-16.
References
- Gray, Michael (2006). The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. Continuum International. ISBN 0-8264-6933-7.
- Muir, Andrew (2001). Razor's Edge: Bob Dylan & the Never Ending Tour. Helter Skelter. ISBN 1-900924-13-7.
