I’ve always loved to travel and play my songs, meet new people and see different places. I love to roll into town in the early morning and walk the deserted streets before anybody gets up. Love to see the sun come up over the highway. ..
Then, of course, there’s playing on the stage in front of live people, feeling hearts and minds moving. Everybody don’t get to do that. Touring to me has never been any kind of hardship. It’s a privilege.
-Bob Dylan (to Edna Gundersen – USA Today, July 20, 1988)
The second part of my take on “Bob Dylan N.E.T. 1988” includes the two last legs:
INTERSTATE 88 – Part 2: US and Canada Late Summer Tour
August 19 – September 25
INTERSTATE 88 – Part 3: East Coast Fall Tour
October 13 – December 6
Hey! Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you
Voorst Nationaal
Brussels, Belgium
23 March 1995
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
If the show didn’t have the playfulness of the song selection and emotion of Madison Square Garden, what it did have was Dylan singing with amazing intensity (especially at the beginning) and not only that, but the confidence to make his voice do what he wanted it to do.
~Peter Stone Brown (boblinks.com)
First Union Center Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 15 November 2002
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Charlie Sexton (guitar)
Larry Campbell (guitar, mandolin, pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
– “I really don’t have any place to put my feet up…. well, we want to play ‘cause we want to play… Why tour?
It’s just that you get accustomed to it over the years.
The people themselves will tell you when to stop touring.”
-Bob Dylan (to Kathryn Baker – Aug 1988)
The Never Ending Tour is the popular name for Bob Dylan’s endless touring schedule since June 7, 1988.
AD: Tell me about the live thing. The last tour has gone virtually straight into this one.
BD: Oh, it’s all the same tour. The Never Ending Tour…
-Adrian Deevoy Interview (October 21, 1989)
Bob Dylan has later rejected to “Never Ending Tour” tag.
Don’t be bewildered by the Never Ending Tour chatter. There was a Never Ending Tour but it ended in 1991 with the departure of guitarist G. E. Smith.
-Bob Dylan (album sleeve notes to World Gone Wrong (1993))
..but many of us like this tag, and continue to refer to his endless touring since June 7, 1988 as “The Never Ending Tour”.
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 is in circulation (both video & audio) and this concert is (…again) a great example from that last leg.
Centrum Arena Worcester, Massachusetts 14 November 1999
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