A Personal Never Ending Tour #1: "Roving Gambler", Zurich 6/5/2000

This will hopefully be the first post in a series looking at what I see as landmark performances in Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour, as I have experienced it over the last six years. The NET is a strange beast - most Dylan afficionados agree that in his twilight years Dylan's performances have been through something of a renaissance, to varying degrees. Yet no two people experience it in the same way. Everyone attends different concerts, listens to different recordings, and has their own favourite performances. Attention to setlists and recordings can wax and wane as much with the mood of the individual as with the quality of the performances. While no one (or no one in their right mind) would cite the NET as the peak of Dylan's recording career, it's understandably a period I identify with most on a personal level. I mean, 1966 was wonderful, but unfortunately I wasn't there...

I have so far seen over 30 Bob Dylan concerts since May 2000, in the UK, Europe and the US, and I've been lucky enough to witness some rare and fairly noteworthy performances on the way. I thought it would make sense to begin at the very beginning, with the first song of the first gig, in Zurich's cavernous Hallenstadion in May 2000. I had travelled to Switzerland especially for the concert, and was there with my girlfriend at the time, my constant Dylan companion (and the man responsible for this particular addiction of mine) Ed, and his girlfriend. It was exciting enough for four 18 year olds to be on a jaunt in a strange European city, but seeing Dylan for the first time was an incredible experience. I'm sure everyone can remember the moment they first saw that iconic silhouette emerge on stage, and on this occasion as no other since, the heart-in-mouth excitement continued throughout the show. It helped of course that Dylan and co were incredibly on form in the Spring of 2000.

So, back in the day, Bobby would generally open with a traditional song, done acoustically in a great jug-band style by what I think were one of his finest backing bands. "Roving Gambler" is a song that Dylan sang way back in the early 60s before his first album came out, and it was resurrected in the early years of the NET as a solo piece. Like the other openers at the time, "Roving Gambler" always made for a great start to a Dylan gig - over recent years he has often seemed most engaged with singing traditional material, and so starting like this gets his attention much more than slogging through another version of "Maggie's Farm" does these days. The rambling spirit of the song epitomises the romantic, hard travellin' side of the NET, and in this performance it is so much an ensemble piece; in those days seeing Bob Dylan really was about seeing the band as well. The backing vocals of Charlie Sexton and Larry Campbell, in particular, are much missed in recent years.

You can download an mp3 of this performance here:
Roving Gambler (Zurich 6th May 2000)

The Strokes: Shepherd's Bush, 25/1/06

I went to my first gig of the year last night, a fairly last minute dash to see The Strokes at Shepherd's Bush Empire. They're not a band I would say I'm necssarily a huge fan of, but a friend of mine had a spare ticket, and since there's generally quite a lot of hype around them I thought it would be good to see them first hand; I often think that seeing a band live is the best way to see if you like them or not.

I obviously knew the old favourites from their breakthrough album, and songs like "Last Nite" were the best moments of the night for me. There are some cracking songs on the new record as well - "You Only Live Once" and "Juicebox" stand out in particular. It wasn't a show that had much change in dynamics - it's pretty straight rock 'n' roll really, there's nothing revolutionary or even original about them, but much of it was very good fun. "New York City Cops" was the standout, though I don't actually know what record it'There more teenyboppers there than I've become accustomed to at gigs (more a reflection on the types of concerts I attend these days than anything else, methinks) with even a bit of the old crowd-surfing, not something I've indulged in for many a year. Christ, I'm sounding older than 24...

I noticed about halfway through the gig that the band look almost exactly the same as they did when they burst onto the scene 5 years ago - same clothes, same hair, same strut. For such a seemingly image-conscious group, it's slightly perplexing that they haven't evolved in that department too. There was a time when they first arrived when it seemed like they would be one of the bands to define the noughties as Oasis, Nirvana and Radiohead had defined the nineties. They're miles away from that now though... I wonder which bands will go down in history as defining this decade? Coldplay, certainly. The White Stripes, hopefully. The Arctic Monkeys, possibly. We shall see.

Here's the setlist, from nme.com:

'Heart In A Cage'
'The Modern Age'
'Juicebox'
'Evening Sun'
'The End Has No End'
'Barely Legal'
'Hawaii'
'On The Other Side'
'Red Light'
'Last Nite'
'Hard To Explain'
'Razorblade'
'Trying Your Luck'
'What Ever Happened?'
'You Only Live Once'
'Someday'
'15 Minutes'
'Reptilia'
'12:51'
'New York City Cops'
'Under Control'
'Soma'
'I Can't Win'
'Take It Or Leave It'

New music charts

I've added some new music charts to the right sidebar - these show what I've been listening to last week and overall, fed from my profile at www.last.fm.

Last.fm is this wonderful site that keeps a record of everything that you listen to through iTunes, and creates charts, makes recommendations on what you might want to listen to next, let's you set up listening groups etc etc. A wonderful concept.

And now that I've got my lovely new 60GB iPod (mmmm... Christmas presents to yourself are always the best) it can keep track of everything I listen to on that as well.