The 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 4 – Down Electric Avenue
58. NET, 2001, Part 5: Power, Wealth, Knowledge and Salvation
59. NET 2001 Part 6: More power, wealth, knowledge and salvation
60. 2002, Part 1: Never Ending Tour, 2002,, Seattle Showdown
61. Part 2  Tickling the Ivories
62. Part 3: Manchester and other outstanding performances
63. Part 4: Magnificent performances
64. Part 5: Accidentally friends and other strangers
65. Part 6: Atlanta Aftermath and Manchester Moonshine
66. NET, 2003, Part One. Things come alive or else they fall flat
67. 2003 part 2: Pounding pianos and hectic harps
68. 2003, part 3:I know I’m only living
69. 2003, part 4: No flash in the pan
70. 2003, part 5: Can there be a perfect performance?
71. 2003, part 6: The Ragged Clown
72. 2004: Part 1: The best singing audience
73. 2004: Part 2: The jazz connection
74. Never Ending Tour, 2004, part 3, Harping On
75. Never Ending Tour, 2004, Part 4 More jazz, regulars and rarities
76. NET 2004 Part 5: Rocking on
77. Never Ending Tour 2004 part 6: Stone you and then come back again
78. NET, 2004, part 7 Epilogue: Sing me back home
79. Never Ending Tour 2005 part 1: Choice cuts from London and Dublin
80. Never Ending Tour 2005 part 2: More choice cuts from London and Dublin.
81. Never Ending Tour 2005 part 3: Seattle Stopovers
82. NET, 2005, Part 4, Hello, Goodbye: First Ever, Last Ever
83. NET 2005, part 5: Old friends grow old too
84. Never Ending Tour, 2005, Part 6: God knows you gotta weep
85. The Never Ending Tour 2005 part 7: Epilogue. Tell Ol’ Bill and other matters
86. Never Ending Tour, 2006, Part 1, Enter The Organ Grinder
87. Never Ending Tour, 2006, Part 2, Enter Modern Times
88. Never Ending Tour, 2006, Part 3.  Walking through the Cities of the plague
89. Never Ending Tour 2006, Part 4.  Strange Brews
90. NET 2007 Part 1: The light is never dying
91. Never Ending Tour, 2007, part 2: Your servant both night and day.
92. NET, 2007, Part 3, One foot on the platform
93. NET 2008, part 1, Industry Standards and Dallas Delights
94. NET 2008 Part 2 Something’s out of whack: Salzburg and Odense
95. NET 2008 part 3: Controversy Surrounds Him
96. NET 2008 Part 4 Drowning in the honky-tonk lagoon
97. Never Ending Tour 2009 part 1 Contending forces: Courting Disaster
98. NET 2009 part 2: contending forces: through the tears and the laughter
99. NET 2009 part 3 The blood of the land in my voice: Together Through Life
100. NET 2009 Part 4 – foundations: the raw and the real
101. NET 2009 Part 5 – Old things become new again
102. NET 2009 Part 6 – Rolling the Rock
103. NET 2020 Part 1 – Centre Stage, a change coming on
104. NET 2010 Part 2.1 Mostly Pardova: Fires on the Moon
105. NET 2010 Part 2.1  Fires on the moon
106. NET 2010 part 3 Jumping on the monkey’s back
107. NET 2010 Part 4.1  Stay Dylan Stay
108. NET 2010: Part 4.2  Stay Dylan Stay
109. NET 2011: Part 1.  Things should start to get interesting
110. NET 2011: Part 2.  Sultans of Swing
111. NET 2011: Part 3.  I lit the torch and looked to the east
112. NET 2011: Part 4.  Forgetful hearts and the Crystal Cat blues
113. NET 2011 Part 5 – Quick man, I gotta run
114. NET 2012 part 1 The Ivory Revolution Begins
115. NET 2012 part 2 The Ivory Revolution Continues
116. NET 2012 Part 3 New wine in old bottles
117. NET 2013 Part 1: Shedding old Favourites: A Roman Farewell.
118. NET 2013 part 2: The art of the Dramatic Monologue
119. Never Ending Tour 2013 Part 3: A Date with The Faerie Queene?
120. NET 2013 Part 4: Softly softly golden oldies
121. Never Ending Tour 2013 part 5 – As Good As New
122. The Never Ending Tour 2014 part 1: The Setlist, the first half.
123. NET 2014 part 2 The Setlist: The second half
124. Never Ending Tour 2014 Part 3: The survivors
125. NET 2015 Part 1 Singing to you, not at you
126. NET 2015 Part 2: Bring on the setlist
127. NET 2015 Part 3: It doesn’t get any better than this
128. The best ever year for the Never Ending Tour? 2015 Part 4
129. Never Ending Tour: 2016  Part 1 – Riding the Wave
130. NET 2016 Part 2: Embodying American Music
131. NET 2016 Part 3: A New Art Form? Enter the Nobel Laureate
132. The Never Ending Tour: 2017 part 1. Songs on the rebound
133. NET 2017 Part 2 The Moveable Feast
134. NET 2017 Part 3 You went through my pockets while I was sleeping

You might also like to note…

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.