Positively Bob Dylan

Happy 2008, Bob! This time it was probably Scotch and not Champagne Bob was drinking at his New Year’s party.- He and his brother David are said to have spent the time in Bob’s new $4 million home in the Cairngorms Mountains of the Highlands – west of Aberdeen.
After one year of renovating the Scottish castle it seems that finally it’s ready for moving in. Bob mentioned his passion for Scotland on several occasions, the last track on his 1997 “Time Out Of Mind” album is “Highlands”. In 2004 he accepted an honorary degree from St. Andrews University – he had only done this once before (Princeton, 1970). He his also regularly performing live in Scotland, and his classic song “The Times They Are A-Changin’” from 1964 is based on an old Scottish folk song by Hamish Henderson.

A clip of Todd Haynes’ upcoming biographical Bob Dylan movie has leaked on YouTube. The 90 seconds long video features Cate Blanchett (!) in the role of Bob Dylan driving in a car with Mike Bloomfield in 1965, when Alan Ginsberg drives by for a short conversation. The clip was shot in authentic “Don’t Look Back”-style B&W and you can even see the time code below.

The Harvey Weinstein production shows episodes out of Bob Dylan’s life from the early 1960s onwards. Dylan is embodied by 7(!) different actors, including Cate Blanchett (1960s) and Richard Gere (1970s).
The movie is named after a song recorded in 1967, “I’m Not There” from the legendary “Basement Tapes”. It will open in cinemas in autumn 2007.

> Official trailers

It was a unique experience for 800 lucky fans to be privileged to see Bob Dylan play a rare club gig at the Debaser in Stockholm. Dylan and his “Modern Times” touring band (Tony Garnier, Stu Kimball, Danny Freeman, George Recile, Donnie Herron) are currently touring Europe for a number of concerts in Sweden, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and France.
While the live audience is happy to see Dylan playing his Fender guitar again, those fans who did not have the chance to grab a ticket are being surprised by a number of good-quality bootleg audience recordings of the first shows. So far it seems that Dylan performs more new songs than usual after having released a new studio album. Apart from the always very loose selection of classics and live rarities (”Cat’s In the Well”, “Country Pie”, “Tears of Rage”), this time Dylan’s setlists also included the new “Rollin’ and Tumblin’”, “Thunder On the Mountain”, “When the Deal Goes Down”, “Nettie Moore”, and “The Levee’s Gonna Break”.
It’s the simple fact that every live performance differs from the previous one, and the audience never really knows what to expect both in terms of the setlist and the way of interpretation of that wild selection from the Dylan repertoire, that still entertains and keeps the audience coming and coming again. Just like a bottle of good red wine, the fascination with Bob grows everytime you experience him – live or on record.
In June 2007 Dylan and his band will return to the US and Canada.

> Official Tour Information