Tour of 2008 starts strongly with trio of Dallas gigs

Bob Dylan’s 2008 tour started strongly with a three-night residency at the House Of Blues, in Dallas, Texas, a relatively small gig holding around 1,600. It acted as a warm-up for a five-country swing through Latin America, starting tomorrow in Mexico City.

Both the setlists and the band line-up suggest that the 2008 gigs will be a straight run-on from the format that proved so popular last year. Why change when you’re winning?

The three Dallas setlists – an ever-changing mixture of classic repertoire anchored around tunes from the current album, Modern Times – continued the pattern of introducing new tunes every night, thus reinforcing the addiction of habitual attenders.

In three Dallas nights, Dylan played a remarkable total of 35 different songs. Favourites I’d love to have heard included Girl Of The North Country, Positively 4th Street and Mississippi.

Whatever Dylan plays, of course, someone is bound to want to hear something else. Thanks to Martin Cowan for this note:

“Nice to see Bob on the road again and an interesting set list from the first two shows. My only comment is that while it's nice to see an abundance of recent songs in the sets it's a shame that he is almost completely ignoring 70s and 80s songs. A show with representatives from all decades would be good to see.”