With a career lasting over five decades, Bob Dylan still proves he's got it night after night on his Never Ending Tour.
Though the jam-packed North American leg is coming to a close, fans still have a few more opportunities to see the legendary singer-songwriter before ringing in the New Year.
The tour kicked off October 9th in Midland, Texas at the Wagner Noel Performing Arts Center and has 14 dates left before Dylan begins his residency at New York's Beacon Theatre. (A full list of dates is listed below).
"I'm not the songs," he said in a 1997 interview. "It's like somebody expecting Shakespeare to be Hamlet, or Goethe to be Faust."
Still, the Never Ending Tour is celebrated for its freewheelin' reinvention of classics and newer material.
Dylan plays at his own emotive and rhythmic speed, toying with his own lyrics so that no two shows are ever exactly alike; every song sports drastically altered arrangements.
Some are revisited as crooners, others as lullabies, some electric and dreamlike.
He's been sticking to a pretty standard hour-and-forty-five minute, 18-song set with a two-song encore for most of this year's jaunt, usually kicking off with "Things Have Changed" from 2006's Modern Times and closing the main set with "Gotta Serve Somebody" off of 1979's Slow Train Coming or "Long and Wasted Years" from 2012's Tempest before diving into his encore.
Below is a sample setlist from one of his recent shows.
Here are some highlights from the tour so far.
Dylan debuted his live cover of James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" at Bell Auditorium in Augusta, Georgia.
Since this show, he's played the song three other times (in Roanoke, Richmond and Charlotte).
He also broke out his classic rendition of Henry Mancini's "Moon River" for the first time since 1990 (fittingly) at the Johnny Mercer Theatre in Savannah.
There are hundreds of videos of Dylan's performances online, but this rendition of "Blowing in the Wind" from a recent show is too good to miss:
This version of Desolation Row is also a gem– Dylan performs nine of the original 10 verses!
One of the things that keeps people going to see these live shows is the constant reinvention and the mystery surrounding the setlists. Dylan is still making headlines with surprises here and there, and recently dropped a bomb for his fans: outtakes from one of his most cherished albums of all time.
With an extensive catalogue spanning 36 albums, none have been more nakedly honest and true of heart than Dylan's 1975 masterpiece, Blood on the Tracks, which birthed some of his most beloved classics "Tangled Up in Blue," "Simple Twist of Fate" and "If You See Her, Say Hello."
Dylan recently released the entire existing archive of studio outtakes from the album in an 87-track, six-CD box set (that can be found in as a condensed, 11-song version online and through streaming services.)
More Blood More Tracks answers questions long-time fans didn't even know they had, nearly half-a-century later.
But confused is exactly how he wants you to feel. It's all a part of the Dylan mystique.
Bob Dylan's remaining 2018 tour dates– including his seven-date New York residency– are listed below. Ticket info can be found on his website.
Bob Dylan's remaining 2018 tour dates:
11/13 – Youngstown, OH @ Covelli Centre
11/14 – Rochester, NY @ Auditorium Theater
11/15 – Utica, NY @ Stanley Center for the Arts
11/17 – Atlantic City, NJ @ Hard Rock Hotel
11/18 – Springfield, MA @ Symphony Hall
11/20 – Waterbury, CT @ Palace Theatre
11/23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30 & 12/01 – New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre
12/03 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Met
