Never Ending Tour

This series of remarkable articles complete with audios from the concerts is written by Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet), and charts Dylan’s continuing tour with musical examples throughout.

In each case the mainstays of the tour are listed, with an example of each song taken from one of the concerts in the tour.  We believe this is the only collection that has ever undertaken this massive task.

These articles have been published thus far, with more in the pipeline, working in chronological order.

  1. The Never-Ending Tour: 1987 – Farewell to all that
  2. 1988: Desperate stratagems, Part 1: Heroes and Villains
  3. 1988 Part 2: The 60s revisited
  4. 1988 Part 3: Absolutely still on the road
  5. 1989 Part 1: A sharper edge
  6. 1989 Part 2 – A fire in the sun
  7. 1989 Part 3: Blown out on the trail
  8. 1990 Part 1: Vomiting Fire
  9. 1990 Part 2 – Songs of love, songs of betrayal
  10. 1991: Part 1 Hidden Gems in a Train Wreck – The Undesirables
  11. 1991 Part 2 – Feet walking by themselves
  12. 1991 part 3: King of the unsteady
  13. 1992 part 1: Heading for the promised land
  14. 1992 part 2: What good am I
  15. 1992 part 3 – All the friends I ever had are gone
  16. 1993 part 1 – Tangled up in guitars
  17. 1993, part 2 – The epic adventures of Mr Guitar Man
  18. 1993, part 3 – Mr Guitar Man goes acoustic
  19. 1993, part 4 – The Supper Club and beyond.
  20. 1993, part 5 – A series of dreams
  21. 1994, part 1 – Full voice absolute vintage Dylan
  22. 1994, part 2 – Greatest ever Hard Rain
  23. 1994, part 3 – Absolutely Vintage Dylan, Encore
  24. 1994, part 4: I’d give you the sky high above
  25. 1994, part 5: Dancing to the nightingale’s tune
  26. 1995, part 1: The Prague Revelation and other astonishments
  27. 1995, part 2: The Prague Revelation – Salt for Salt, Peak Prague
  28. 1995, Part 3, The Prague Revelation – down in the flood
  29. 1995, Part 4, Beyond Prague, London Calling
  30. 1995, Part 5.  Acoustic wonderland
  31. Never Ending Tour, 1996, part 1. Busy being born. With Al Kooper in Liverpool
  32. Never Ending Tour, 1996,  Part 2  – More Liverpool
  33. Never Ending Tour 1996 part 3: Berlin and Beyond
  34. Never Ending Tour, 1997, part 1.  The Lonely Graveyards of the Mind
  35. Never Ending Tour 1997, part 2: Hanging onto a Shadow
  36. Never Ending Tour 1997, part 3: I came in from the wilderness
  37. Never Ending Tour 1997, part 4: Like so many times before
  38. NET 1998 Part 1: One who sings with his tongue on fire.
  39. 1998 Part 2: Friends and other strangers
  40. The Never Ending Tour 1998, part 3, What’s a Protest Song?
  41. Never ending tour, 1998, Part 4. You won’t regret it
  42. NET, 1999, Part 1: Every night in a combustible way.
  43. Never Ending Tour, 1999, part 2 – Is everything as hollow as it seems?
  44. NET, 1999, part 3 Touchdown at Tramps – Archaic Music
  45. Never Ending Tour, 1999, Part 4  – Minstrel Bob
  46. Never Ending Tour, 1999, part 5 – Inside the museum.
  47. NET, 1999, part 6. Honky Tonk Dylan: Despair and sentimentality.
  48. Never Ending Tour 2000, Part 1 – Master Vocalist: Finding voice
  49. NET, 2000, Part 2. Master Vocalist – Please heed these words that I speak
  50. NET 2000 Part 3: Master Vocalist – Rock n roil
  51. NET 2000 Part 4: Back to Bedrock I
  52. NET 2000 Part 5: Back to Bedrock II
  53. Never Ending Tour, 2000, part 6 – Beyond Dylan
  54. Never Ending Tour, 2001, Part 1 – Love and fate: acoustic 1
  55. Never Ending Tour, 2001 Part 2 – The Spirit of Protest: acoustic 2
  56. Never Ending Tour, 2001, Part 3 – In bed with the blues
  57. Never Ending Tour, 2001, Part 3 – In bed with the blues
  58. Never Ending Tour, 2001, Part 4 – Down Electric Avenue
  59. NET, 2001, Part 5: Power, Wealth, Knowledge and Salvation
  60. NET 2001 Part 6: More power, wealth, knowledge and salvation
  61. 2002, Part 1: Never Ending Tour, 2002,, Seattle Showdown
  62. Part 2  Tickling the Ivories
  63. Part 3: Manchester and other outstanding performances
  64. Part 4: Magnificent performances
  65. Part 5: Accidentally friends and other strangers
  66. Part 6: Atlanta Aftermath and Manchester Moonshine
  67. NET, 2003, Part One. Things come alive or else they fall flat
  68. 2003 part 2: Pounding pianos and hectic harps
  69. 2003, part 3:I know I’m only living
  70. 2003, part 4: No flash in the pan
  71. 2003, part 5: Can there be a perfect performance?
  72. 2003, part 6: The Ragged Clown
  73. 2004: Part 1: The best singing audience
  74. 2004: Part 2: The jazz connection
  75. Never Ending Tour, 2004, part 3, Harping On
  76. Never Ending Tour, 2004, Part 4 More jazz, regulars and rarities
  77. NET 2004 Part 5: Rocking on
  78. Never Ending Tour 2004 part 6: Stone you and then come back again
  79. NET, 2004, part 7 Epilogue: Sing me back home
  80. 2005…

You might also like to note…

Dylan and T.S Elliot meeting in the Captain’s Tower

And… Mike’s previous mega-series for Untold Dylan: Bob Dylan Master Harpist contains six articles which between them offer the most comprehensive guide to Dylan’s harmonica techniques ever assembled.

Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet) is a novelist and poet, born and raised in shit-faced little towns in the South Island of New Zealand. He graduated with a degree in Political Science from the University of Canterbury, and a sore head from too much educated rap.  He has also contributed the major series to this site.