1999 was a great year for Bob Dylan’s “Never Ending Tour”.
For all the splendours of earlier in the year [1999], this last leg was the most consistently triumphant. By the time Dylan brought the year’s touring to an end, with an extended set on November the 20th, he had played 121 shows – the most in a single year of his entire career. It had been a very good year, the best since 1995.
~Andrew Muir (One More Night: Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour)
A lot of concerts from this tour are in circulation (both video & audio) and this concert is (again) a great example from that last leg.
University Of Illinois Conference Center Pavilion
Chicago, Illinois
31 October 1999
Don’t let that scare you. It’s just Halloween. I have my Bob Dylan mask on. I’m masquerading ha ha.
~Bob Dylan (before If You Gotta Go, Go Now)
‘Live 1964 brings back a Bob Dylan on the cusp. . . . It brings back a time between his scuffling sets at the downtown clubs and his arena-rock tours of the 1970s and after. It brings back a long gone era of intimacy between performer and audience, and the last strains of a self-aware New York bohemia before
bohemia became diluted and mass marketed.’
~Sean Wilentz
Here is “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding”:
There are…. Hey anything you say! Hope I never have to make a living. This is called It’s Alright Ma It’s Life An Life Only. Yes it’s a very funny song.
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying
Milwaukee Arena
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
30 October 1999
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Charlie Sexton (guitar)
Larry Campbell (guitar, mandolin, pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There’s a dyin’ voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair
Maple Leaf Gardens
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
29 October 1998
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
Larry Campbell (guitar)
Tony Garnier (bass)
David Kemper (drums & percussion)
Don’t have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand
Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay
I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand
I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer’s dream, in the chill of a wintry light
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand
–
Thanks everybody, I want to introduce my band to you right now.
Of course-a … on the guitar tonight is Larry Campbell. David Kemper’s
on the drums. David Kemper’s been leading up with Angle Deacon [?]. Bunch of other people. Bucky Baxter’s on the steel guitar. Bucky will see you last. And Tony Garnier is on bass tonight.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Hoist the mainsail, here I come
Ain’t no room on board for the insincere
You’re my witness, I’m your mutineer
~Warren Zevon (Mutineer)
Uptown Theater
Kansas City, Missouri
28 October 2002
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Charlie Sexton (guitar)
Larry Campbell (guitar, mandolin, pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
