When Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson return to Louisville Slugger Field Wednesday for the second time, bringing John Mellencamp along for kicks, they also bring a shared obsession with performing spread over a combined 100 years. That’s 100, as in a century.
Dylan has been doing shows regularly since about 1960 or ’61, minus a break from ’66 to ’74, while Nelson started gigging in the early 1950s. Oddly enough, they both began tours near the end of the 1980s that have yet to end. So we’re probably talking 10,000 or more shows combined.
Things diverge a bit from there, especially where set lists are concerned.
It’s safe to say that a good 60 percent of Nelson’s shows have begun with “Whiskey River,” and probably all of them since he recorded the song in 1973. Dylan largely avoids routine as if it’s toxic.
Other than a tendency to end his shows with some combination of “Like a Rolling Stone,” “All Along the Watchtower” and “Blowin’ in the Wind,” there is no such thing as a discernible pattern to a Dylan show. You don’t even know what key he’ll sing in, or if he’ll have a voice beyond a booming croak.
Given the wildly disparate approach to concerts favored by the old friends, it seemed like a fun waste of time to try and predict the core of their set lists — an exercise made even tougher by the fact that Dylan has performed only a few shows since the excellent “Together Through Life” was released in April. As of earlier this week, he had performed exactly one song from the album, but surely things have changed.
Think you can do better? You’re probably right. Post your set list as a reply — and remember, this isn’t what you’d like to hear, but what you think you’ll hear.
