Dylan as ever full of surprises Bob Dylan Bill Graham Civic, San Francisco Tuesday, October 17 2006 Dylan starts with “Maggie’s Farm”, follows it with “She Belongs To Me”, “Lonesome Day Blues”, “Simple Twist Of Fate” and “Rollin’ And Tumblin’” and your first thought is that as brilliant as these songs are being played, tonight’s set is going to be a shuffling of the pack. Songs you’ve heard, that is, over the last four shows, simply played in another order, the tour repertoire pretty much what’s been performed so far. Which is when, of course, Dylan starts lobbing in even more surprises. Like a fantastic version of “Boots Of Spanish Leather” almost too beautiful for words, with Donnie Herron’s violin to the fore and a guitar solo from Donny Freeman that sounds like something made of crystal cracking in slow motion. Dylan’s voice, meanwhile, fully recovered and showing none of the occasional fatigue of last night’s show, is a vehicle of profound and wavering loss, a postcard home from some outpost of love and longing that’s way off the map, too much aching grief in what he’s singing to easily accommodate, tears in the eyes of many. Next is a brusing bluesy “Till I Fell In Love With You”, a blistering thing. It’s hotly pursued by a radiant “I Shall Be Released” – the audience finding a voice of its own. Bob giving it everything, which is a lot, and then some more. Then there’s the best version yet on this tour of “Highway 61 Revisited” – played for five shows straight, but more searing tonight than ever, with a Doug Sahm-style keyboard solo from Dylan I swear wasn’t there the last time I looked. The venerable anti-war lament “John Brown” is next – as scarily appropriate as the version of “Masters Of War” played in Portland, Dylan finding another way of reminding us of the dismaying repetition of history, a fuming anger burning within it at what continues to happen to too many people in too many places, bullets flying everywhere and bombs going off in every direction. Donnie Herron’s stirring mandolin and George Recelli’s military drums make you want to march down the nearest street under a banner or blow up the White House and whoever’s in it. This is followed by a chiming “Most Likely You Go You’re Way (And I’ll Go Mine)”, keening pedal steel giving it a driving edge. From here, we’re into another tremendous reading of “Workingman’s Blues”, Dylan finding new ways to sing a song that like “Highway 61” we’ve heard at five consecutive shows, but which Dylan continues to invest with subtle new shadings. The closing jamboree of “Summer Days” and the three-song encore are the only things that are predictable, but when those three songs are “Thunder On The Mountain”, “Like A Rolling Stone” and “All Along The Watchtower”, hell, who’s complaining? Set list: San Francisco, California Bill Graham Civic Auditorium October 17, 2006 1. Maggie's Farm 2. She Belongs To Me 3. Lonesome Day Blues 4. Simple Twist Of Fate 5. Rollin' And Tumblin' 6. Boots Of Spanish Leather 7. 'Til I Fell In Love With You 8. I Shall Be Released 9. Highway 61 Revisited 10. John Brown 11. Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine) 12. Workingman's Blues #2 13. Summer Days (encore) 14. Thunder On The Mountain 15. Like A Rolling Stone 16. All Along The Watchtower

Allan Jones survives a fourth day of the 'never-ending tour' Bob Dylan Bill Graham Civic, San Francisco Monday, October 17 2006 Tonight sees the youngest crowd and the most expensive beer of the tour so far. There are kids as young as 12 running around here - their age the equivalent of the number of dollars you are expected to pay for a beaker of Heineken, a grimly extortionate price that the spirit of wily old promoter Bill Graham lives on beyond his demise, Bill still raking in a whopping profit in whatever afterlife he now inhabits. The Civic turns out to be the first non-seated venue of the current trek, and the place is packed and rowdy and loves Kings Of Leon, playing their fourth show with Dylan and getting into their stride now, buoyed by the crowd’s enthusiasm. For the first time at any of these shows – and despite San Francisco’s strict non-smoking policy and anti-drug laws – there’s a conspicuous whiff of marijuana in the air. I can’t see anyone actually lighting up or smoking anything resembling a spliff, though. Maybe some enterprising young psychedelic technician at work in a basement lab in Haight Ashbury, a noble son of Owsley, has come up with a way of absorbing what you’d normally smoke by rubbing it all over yourself as a body oil. Here’s to him, if he has – and pass me the bath sponge. Tonight’s show, meanwhile, is a dark and turbulent thing – in many ways the most intense so far. The set features only three new inclusions – a gloomy “Lenny Bruce”, as the opening number, which gets a big cheer at the end although I’m not sure quite how many people either recognise it or have even heard it before, a dramatic “Senor” and a skittering “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”, with Bob crooning like he’s auditioning for Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys, and snappy work from guitarist Denny Freeman and Donnie Herron on pedal steel. Bob starts in strong voice, but there’s an occasional hint of fatigue as the result of four shows in six days. He also seems troubled by a cough that makes him fluff a couple of vocal entries. It’s no big deal to anyone in the crowd, apart from the kind of hardcore Bobcats who pounce on such things as if they are the end of the world. Despite rumours of a surprise appearance, there’s no sign of Neil Young, so often a guest at Bob’s Bay Area shows. But the appearance in the audience of the Dead’s Phil Lesh causes a suitably excited commotion. Still, there’s always tomorrow night. Set list: San Francisco, California Bill Graham Civic Auditorium October 17, 2006 1. Maggie's Farm 2. She Belongs To Me 3. Lonesome Day Blues 4. Simple Twist Of Fate 5. Rollin' And Tumblin' 6. Boots Of Spanish Leather 7. 'Til I Fell In Love With You 8. I Shall Be Released 9. Highway 61 Revisited 10. John Brown 11. Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine) 12. Workingman's Blues #2 13. Summer Days (encore) 14. Thunder On The Mountain 15. Like A Rolling Stone 16. All Along The Watchtower

Uncut Editor Allan Jones' near-perfect Bob evening. Bob Dylan Memorial Coliseum, Portland Saturday October 14, 2006 The Who had apparently played this windy hangar the night before Bob blows into town. And God only knows what they may have sounded like here – somewhat akin, you imagine, to a Korean nuclear test in some desolate wasteland, an infernal din, an improbably deafening roar. The arena’s booming acoustics do no particular favours, anyway, to Kings Of Leon, who sound like they’ve mutated overnight into a thrash metal and playing in a wind tunnel. The Portland crowd – a strange mix of rowdy types and more sedate old-timers – seem to lap ‘em up, however, displaying on the whole a vivid taste for aural carnage. I can only think it must have something to do with the weather, which, come to think of it, is turning distinctly blustery, more typical everyone keeps telling me of the Pacific northwest than the balmy conditions so far characteristic of this particular trip. Anyway, after spectacular shows in Vancouver and Seattle, Dylan and his band sound at first comparatively muted - far from subdued, just a little distant. Pretty soon, however, they are firing on what you might call all cylinders. Mind you, not much less than the earth cracking open like a vent of doom and being sucked into the bowels of hell could fully have blunted the sharp edge of their peerless musical interplay, guitarist Denny Freeman on fire particularly and Dylan imperious. And what a set list he has devised tonight, once again ringing enormous changes. The opening five song salvo is quite unbelievable – “Tombstone Blues”, followed by “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”, a debut for Modern Times’ “Rollin’ And Tumblin’”, a scary “Masters Of War”, and a searing “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again”. And he later throws in a blistering “Cold Irons Bound” – the only song featured so far from Time Out Of Mind”. Hell, I thought I’d died and moved to Kent. And now San Francisco beckons. Time to get out of town, and back on the road. Memorial Coliseum, Portland Saturday October 14, 2006 Tombstone Blues Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues Rollin' And Tumblin' Masters Of War Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again Just Like A Woman Highway 61 Revisited When The Deal Goes Does Cold Irons Bound Simple Twist Of Fate Watching The River Flow Workingman's Blues " 2 Summer Days Encore: Thunder On The Mountain Like A Rolling Stone All Along The Watchtower

Allan Jones, Uncut's esteemed Editor, sends a personal note from a hockey stadium, where the powers that be are taking no chances. Bob Dylan KeyWest Arena, Seattle Friday October 13 2006 I’m standing on the concourse of Seattle’s KeyWest Arena where in a couple of hours Bob Dylan plays the second of his Fall 2006 US tour. What I’m looking at in front of me here is a walloping great sign that advises that before I am allowed access to the home of the Seattle SuperSonics, the 2004 WBNA champs, the Seattle Storm and, by God, the Western Hockey League’s Seattle Thunderbirds - I have to be frisked for weapons. I am gravely warned that none of the following are allowed in this clearly hallowed arena - knives of any description, fireworks, explosives, hard-sided missiles and other potentially dangerous missiles. You wonder why they don’t add to this fearsome list Stinger missiles, Scuds, assault rifles, high-velocity automatic weapons – surely all similarly to be worried about in this fretful atmosphere, and just as likely to be concealed upon my person. In the event, a crusty old codger pats me down gently, flashes a torch in my shoulder bag and waves me through into the cavernous hinterland of KeyWest, free to wreak potential havoc if that’s what I’m here for. Which, I’m not – luckily for a sold-out crowd of some 17, 000 unsuspecting souls. What I’m here for is the second show of Bob Dylan’s Fall 2006 US tour, which as previously reported opened two nights earlier in Vancouver. It’s become part of the enduring folklore of Dylan’s Never Ending Tour that he rarely plays the same set twice. I remember in the dark days of 1991 when he toured with a poorly rehearsed band and was most nights drunk on stage, Dylan, in either Switzerland or Belgium, had, unthinkably, played identical sets at consecutive concerts. The hardcore Dylan fans known as the Bobcats were left spitting feathers, and there were sinister rumblings that all was lost in Bob’s world. Tonight, Dylan is true with a vengeance to the idea of nightly changes to his concert repertoire and spectacularly overhauls the set-list he had opened with in Canada. So out go “Cat’s In The Well”, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”, “Tweedle Dum And Tweedle Dee”, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” and “Desolation Row”. In come, instead, “Maggie’s Farm”, given a melodic new lilt, “Love Minus Zero”, “Positively 4th Street”, “Just Like A Woman”, a stunning “A Hard rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, plus the live debut of “Thunder On the Mountain”, the powerhouse opening track of Modern Times, played as the first of three encores. A great Seattle crowd goes duly ballistic. None more so than the woman standing next to me, who has spent much of the evening whooping with delight and occasionally sobbing. During one between-song lull, said woman, overhearing me talking to someone from a local radio station who’s just invited me to talk about Bob on her show, tells me for no obvious reason that she bets I am the only other person in the hall whose heard of Ruby Wax, the formerly ubiquitous TV personality. I am baffled several times over by this remark. The she goes on to tell me that she was, in fact, at high school with Ruby and indeed featured somewhat prominently in the documentary Ruby made some time ago about her class reunion. She is clearly thrilled when I remember the film and seems crestfallen that I don’t recognise her. “Give my love to England,” she says, anyway, putting on a brave little face. I tell her I will, and go back to cheering Bob. SET LIST KeyWest Arena, Seattle Friday October 13, 2006 Maggie's Farm Love Minus Zero Lonesome Day Blues Positively Fourth Street It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) Just Like A Woman Highway 61Revisited When The Deal Goes Down Tangled Up In Blue A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall Watching The River Flow Workingman's Blues No 2 Summer Days Encore: Thunder On The Mountain Like A Rolling Stone All Along The Watchtower