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 Never Ending 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.

The series was completed on 22 January 2024, and an index to the series is published below.   However it’s not all over since we are now running “The Never Ending Tour Extended”.  Details of that appear on the home page.

  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. 1995 Part 6: The Kingdom of Experience
  32. Never Ending Tour, 1996, part 1. Busy being born. With Al Kooper in Liverpool
  33. Never Ending Tour, 1996,  Part 2  – More Liverpool
  34. Never Ending Tour 1996 part 3: Berlin and Beyond
  35. Never Ending Tour, 1996, part 4. In the House of Blues forever.
  36. Never Ending Tour, 1997, part 1.  The Lonely Graveyards of the Mind
  37. Never Ending Tour 1997, part 2: Hanging onto a Shadow
  38. Never Ending Tour 1997, part 3: I came in from the wilderness
  39. Never Ending Tour 1997, part 4: Like so many times before
  40. NET 1998 Part 1: One who sings with his tongue on fire.
  41. 1998 Part 2: Friends and other strangers
  42. The Never Ending Tour 1998, part 3, What’s a Protest Song?
  43. Never ending tour, 1998, Part 4. You won’t regret it
  44. NET, 1999, Part 1: Every night in a combustible way.
  45. Never Ending Tour, 1999, part 2 – Is everything as hollow as it seems?
  46. NET, 1999, part 3 Touchdown at Tramps – Archaic Music
  47. Never Ending Tour, 1999, Part 4  – Minstrel Bob
  48. Never Ending Tour, 1999, part 5 – Inside the museum.
  49. NET, 1999, part 6. Honky Tonk Dylan: Despair and sentimentality.
  50. Never Ending Tour 2000, Part 1 – Master Vocalist: Finding voice
  51. NET, 2000, Part 2. Master Vocalist – Please heed these words that I speak
  52. NET 2000 Part 3: Master Vocalist – Rock n roil
  53. NET 2000 Part 4: Back to Bedrock I
  54. NET 2000 Part 5: Back to Bedrock II
  55. Never Ending Tour, 2000, part 6 – Beyond Dylan
  56. Never Ending Tour, 2001, Part 1 – Love and fate: acoustic 1
  57. Never Ending Tour, 2001 Part 2 – The Spirit of Protest: acoustic 2
  58. Never Ending Tour, 2001, Part 3 – In bed with the blues
  59. Never Ending Tour, 2001, Part 4 – Down Electric Avenue
  60. NET, 2001, Part 5: Power, Wealth, Knowledge and Salvation
  61. NET 2001 Part 6: More power, wealth, knowledge and salvation
  62. 2002, Part 1: Never Ending Tour, 2002,, Seattle Showdown
  63. Part 2  Tickling the Ivories
  64. Part 3: Manchester and other outstanding performances
  65. Part 4: Magnificent performances
  66. Part 5: Accidentally friends and other strangers
  67. Part 6: Atlanta Aftermath and Manchester Moonshine
  68. NET, 2003, Part One. Things come alive or else they fall flat
  69. 2003 part 2: Pounding pianos and hectic harps
  70. 2003, part 3:I know I’m only living
  71. 2003, part 4: No flash in the pan
  72. 2003, part 5: Can there be a perfect performance?
  73. 2003, part 6: The Ragged Clown
  74. 2004: Part 1: The best singing audience
  75. 2004: Part 2: The jazz connection
  76. Never Ending Tour, 2004, part 3, Harping On
  77. Never Ending Tour, 2004, Part 4 More jazz, regulars and rarities
  78. NET 2004 Part 5: Rocking on
  79. Never Ending Tour 2004 part 6: Stone you and then come back again
  80. NET, 2004, part 7 Epilogue: Sing me back home
  81. Never Ending Tour 2005 part 1: Choice cuts from London and Dublin
  82. Never Ending Tour 2005 part 2: More choice cuts from London and Dublin.
  83. Never Ending Tour 2005 part 3: Seattle Stopovers
  84. NET, 2005, Part 4, Hello, Goodbye: First Ever, Last Ever
  85. NET 2005, part 5: Old friends grow old too
  86. Never Ending Tour, 2005, Part 6: God knows you gotta weep
  87. The Never Ending Tour 2005 part 7: Epilogue. Tell Ol’ Bill and other matters
  88. Never Ending Tour, 2006, Part 1, Enter The Organ Grinder
  89. Never Ending Tour, 2006, Part 2, Enter Modern Times
  90. Never Ending Tour, 2006, Part 3.  Walking through the Cities of the plague
  91. Never Ending Tour 2006, Part 4.  Strange Brews
  92. NET 2007 Part 1: The light is never dying
  93. Never Ending Tour, 2007, part 2: Your servant both night and day.
  94. NET, 2007, Part 3, One foot on the platform
  95. NET 2008, part 1, Industry Standards and Dallas Delights
  96. NET 2008 Part 2 Something’s out of whack: Salzburg and Odense
  97. NET 2008 part 3: Controversy Surrounds Him
  98. NET 2008 Part 4 Drowning in the honky-tonk lagoon
  99. Never Ending Tour 2009 part 1 Contending forces: Courting Disaster
  100. NET 2009 part 2: contending forces: through the tears and the laughter
  101. NET 2009 part 3 The blood of the land in my voice: Together Through Life
  102. NET 2009 Part 4 – foundations: the raw and the real
  103. NET 2009 Part 5 – Old things become new again
  104. NET 2009 Part 6 – Rolling the Rock
  105. NET 2020 Part 1 – Centre Stage, a change coming on
  106. NET 2010 Part 2.1 Mostly Pardova: Fires on the Moon
  107. NET 2010 Part 2.1  Fires on the moon
  108. NET 2010 part 3 Jumping on the monkey’s back
  109. NET 2010 Part 4.1  Stay Dylan Stay
  110. NET 2010: Part 4.2  Stay Dylan Stay
  111. NET 2011: Part 1.  Things should start to get interesting
  112. NET 2011: Part 2.  Sultans of Swing
  113. NET 2011: Part 3.  I lit the torch and looked to the east
  114. NET 2011: Part 4.  Forgetful hearts and the Crystal Cat blues
  115. NET 2011 Part 5 – Quick man, I gotta run
  116. NET 2012 part 1 The Ivory Revolution Begins
  117. NET 2012 part 2 The Ivory Revolution Continues
  118. NET 2012 Part 3 New wine in old bottles
  119. NET 2013 Part 1: Shedding old Favourites: A Roman Farewell.
  120. NET 2013 part 2: The art of the Dramatic Monologue
  121. Never Ending Tour 2013 Part 3: A Date with The Faerie Queene?
  122. NET 2013 Part 4: Softly softly golden oldies
  123. Never Ending Tour 2013 part 5 – As Good As New
  124. The Never Ending Tour 2014 part 1: The Setlist, the first half.
  125. NET 2014 part 2 The Setlist: The second half
  126. Never Ending Tour 2014 Part 3: The survivors
  127. NET 2015 Part 1 Singing to you, not at you
  128. NET 2015 Part 2: Bring on the setlist
  129. NET 2015 Part 3: It doesn’t get any better than this
  130. The best ever year for the Never Ending Tour? 2015 Part 4
  131. Never Ending Tour: 2016  Part 1 – Riding the Wave
  132. NET 2016 Part 2: Embodying American Music
  133. NET 2016 Part 3: A New Art Form? Enter the Nobel Laureate
  134. The Never Ending Tour: 2017 part 1. Songs on the rebound
  135. NET 2017 Part 2 The Moveable Feast
  136. NET 2017 Part 3 You went through my pockets while I was sleeping
  137. NET 2018 Part 1
  138. NET 2018 Part 2
  139. NET 2018 Part 3 Riding the Setlist Wave
  140. Never Ending Tour 2018 part 4: Hell bent for leather
  141. Never Ending Tour 2019 part 1 The liberated republic
  142. NET 2019 part 2 We can either play or we can pose
  143. NET 2019 part 3 The Greatest Band Ever To Hit The Stage
  144. 2019 part 4: Virgil’s farewell: It’s not dark yet

You might also enjoy The Never Ending Tour Extended which traces the way individual songs have changed their format across the years.  The most recent edition, which itself contains an index of previous articles in the series, is at…

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.