On This Day 27/06/2006 Bob Dylan

On this day, 27 June 2006, music legend Bob Dylan played Cardiff International Arena on what was titled Never Ending Tour.

Dylan had recently finished his 32nd studio album Modern Times which was released August 29, 2006.

The album was recorded with Dylan's touring band, including bassist Tony Garnier, drummer George G. Receli, guitarists Stu Kimball and Denny Freeman, plus multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron. This iteration of the Never Ending Tour band had played with Dylan for the entirety of 2005.

During a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Dylan spoke about his band at that time:

This is the best band I've ever been in, I've ever had, man for man. When you play with guys a hundred times a year, you know what you can and can't do, what they're good at, whether you want 'em there. It takes a long time to find a band of individual players. Most bands are gangs. Whether it's a metal group or pop rock, whatever, you get that gang mentality. But for those of us who went back further, gangs were the mob. The gang was not what anybody aspired to. On this record [Modern Times] I didn't have anybody to teach. I got guys now in my band, they can whip up anything, they surprise even me.

Setlist

Maggie's Farm

She Belongs to Me

Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum

Positively 4th Street

Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again

Love Sick

Watching the River Flow

Ballad of a Thin Man

Absolutely Sweet Marie

Girl From the North Country

Cold Irons Bound

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

Summer Days

Encore:

Like a Rolling Stone

All Along the Watchtower

On This Day 11/5/1966 Bob Dylan/Johnny Cash

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On this day, 11 May 1966, two music greats appeared in Cardiff on the same evening with Bob Dylan playing the Capitol Theatre whilst, just down the road at the Sophia Gardens Pavilion was Johnny Cash.

Backstage at the Capitol Theatre Cash and Dylan played some songs together, just before Dylan was due to go onstage.

Filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker shot Dylan on the 1966 tour and filmed Dylan with the country legend who was at the height of his well-documented pill addiction. He was swallowing Dexedrine and Equanil like candy, and it nearly killed him.

Pennebaker shot Dylan and Cash playing some Hank Williams classics, and it seems like both of them are on the verge of collapse.

It is said that Dylan arrived on stage 30 minutes late looking sharp in a new suit and proceeded to perform a solo acoustic set for the first hour which no doubt went down well with the Welsh folk fraternal but things changed when he and his band plugged in for “new” electric versions that divided opinion amongst his now bewildered audience, some of whom up and left on disgust.

On This Day 27/3/1995 Bob Dylan

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On this day, 27 March 1995, American music legend Bob Dylan played Cardiff International Arena on his Never Ending Tour.

The Never Ending Tour 1995 started in early March in the Czech Republic. The tour moved on to Germany, the Netherlands, France and Belgium.

Dylan performed a large number of concerts in the United Kingdom performing three concerts in London, three in Manchester, two in Edinburgh, one in Glasgow, one in Birmingham, one in Cardiff, one in Brighton as well as one concert in Belfast.

The tour finished the following day in Dublin.