Never seen no place like this before — Bob Dylan Fall ‘99

Bob Dylan’s fall ‘99 tour was one of his great and surprising runs. I can’t think of any other performer that I’ve seen who can pull that little trick off.

Saturday 6 November, Penn State

There must be some way out of here I thought to myself as downtown Philadelphia was completely gridlocked and every road heading West was a parking lot.  “Big trouble on Philly highways,” said the guy on the traffic report.  For some reason on a preposterously warm November Saturday afternoon, a bunch of different people in various key locations decided to crash into each other.  10 minutes later the traffic guy said, “What is going on today?”  And I tried all the roads and every shortcut and no matter where I went I ended up sitting taking almost an hour to drive what should take 20 minutes.  Finally I made it to the meeting place in Valley Forge and picked up my friends the double-D couple who had come from even farther from somewhere in the middle of New Jersey.  We hopped on the Pennsylvania Turnpike which prides itself on being the oldest such road in the nation.  About the only thing that’s changed since it was built sometime in the beginning of th…