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

Allan Jones, Uncut's esteemed Editor, sends a personal note from a hockey stadium. Bob Dylan The Pacific Coliseum, Vancouver Wednesday October 11 2006 The sign above the bar says, stentorially, “DRINK RESPONSIBLY”, which I duly do – just, you understand, to get myself in the mood for what turns out to be an incredible evening. After a full month off the road, a long break that, by his standards, constitutes a season of uncommon indolence, Bob Dylan resumed his fabled Never Ending Tour on a typically unforgettable night at this vast ice-hockey stadium, home to the Vancouver Giants. During this recent interlude, Dylan, of course, has released Modern Times, which has given him his first American number one album since Desire in 1976, and he goes into this 28-date leg of the NET more popular probably than he has been for the last 20 years. It’s a measure, if you like, of his commercial rehabilitation that Dylan is supported at these shows first by Kings Of Leon, then, successively, Foo Fighters and The Raconteurs. It’s the formerly-beardy Kings who open tonight, to the kind of whooping encouragement more usually heard here when men in helmets and shoulder pads are battling one another for speeding pucks, and other excitements. Dylan is onstage promptly at 8.30pm, looking extremely dapper and for the next 75 minutes is mesmerising. There had been much debate beforehand about whether Dylan would play anything from the new album, such is his reputation for perverse bolshiness when it comes to delivering to his fans what they most want from him. I know longstanding fans who go to his shows prepared for pretty much anything, braced for every eventuality – from a set full of Gay Dad covers to Bob fronting a Sisters Of Mercy tribute band and encoring with a 30-minute bluegrass version of “This Corrosion”. In the event, tonight’s 15-song set list is drawn mainly from Dylan’s classic songbook, albeit in incarnations you may not have immediately recognised - opening with a roaring “Cat’s In The Well” from Under The Red Sky, and ending almost two hours later with a torrential “All Along The Watchtower”. Along the way, there are simply amazing versions of familiar songs that Dylan and his brilliant band at every turn seem to have reinvented – among them “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”, done as a lilting country waltz, a fiddle-led version of “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” that sounded like something The Velvet Underground might have left off their first album for sounding too-far out, and an impossibly funky “Desolation Row”. The highlights tonight for many, however, might have been two songs from Modern Times he plays live tonight for the first time – a stunningly beautiful “When The Deal Goes Down” and a truly epic rendition of “Workingman’s Blues No 2”. Can it get any better than this? Tune in for our next report from Seattle! Set list: Cat’s In The Well You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere Tweedle dum & Tweedledee When The Deal Goes Down Watching The River Flow Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) Tangled Up In Blue Workingman’s Blues No 2 Highway 61 Revisited Simple Twist Of Fate Desolation Row Summer Days Encore: Like A Rolling Stone All Along The Watchtower