Expecting Rain

I'm liking the color coding Tommy boy! The 28th is on soundcloud too. See the 28th set list thread. Chambre is the man!

Thanks for the tip-off. Downloaded Rio and listened to Rio today. Sound quality seemed a little off on the first song or two. But then it was really good. Performance-wise, not bad either. On a par with waht I heard from last year. The absolute highlight for me was Simple Twist of Fate. I felt quite moved by it and that, for me, is as good as it gets.

Santiago, 2 May

The PI is now 0.638, the highest level yet this year. Although really, there has been very little movement apart from when it dropped to 0.555 for the third Buenos Aires show.

The set-list and the PM values are:

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (0.945)
It Ain't Me, Babe (0.264)
Things Have Changed (0.879)
Tangled Up In Blue (0.792)
Beyond Here Lies Nothin' (0.486)
Desolation Row (0.514)
Cry A While (0.093)
Tryin' To Get To Heaven (0.250)
The Levee's Gonna Break (0.411)
Simple Twist Of Fate (0.450)
Highway 61 Revisited (0.997)
Love Sick (0.262)
Thunder On The Mountain (0.996)
Ballad Of A Thin Man (1.000)
Like A Rolling Stone (1.000)
All Along The Watchtower (0.990)
Blowin' In The Wind (0.515)

Nothing really worthy of comment here. Well have you noticed the preponderence of T-songs this year. In this set are five songs whose first initial is "T". And three for "B". Sometimes I wonder if Bob has an alphabetical listing of the songs and selects from a few areas of the alphabet. I've been thinking about this for a while but, as yet, I haven't been able to come with a bias-free test to see if it might be true.

The overall list of songs ranked by decreasing PM value is now:

1.000 Ballad Of A Thin Man
1.000 Like A Rolling Stone
0.997 Highway 61 Revisited
0.996 Thunder On The Mountain
0.990 All Along The Watchtower
0.945 Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
0.879 Things Have Changed
0.792 Tangled Up In Blue
0.515 Blowin' In The Wind
0.514 Desolation Row
0.490 Honest With Me
0.486 Beyond Here Lies Nothin'
0.450 Simple Twist of Fate
0.431 Summer Days
0.411 The Levee's Gonna Break
0.325 A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
0.302 Forgetful Heart
0.292 Spirit On The Water
0.277 High Water (for Charlie Patton)
0.264 It Ain't Me, Babe
0.262 Love Sick
0.250 Tryin' To Get To Heaven
0.239 Mississippi
0.229 Blind Willie McTell
0.227 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
0.216 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
0.201 Man In The Long Black Coat
0.160 Not Dark Yet
0.137 Make You Feel My Love
0.128 Jolene
0.123 The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
0.121 Ballad Of Hollis Brown
0.104 Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
0.098 John Brown
0.093 Girl From The North Country
0.093 Cry A While
0.082 To Ramona
0.075 Visions Of Johanna
0.066 Rollin' And Tumblin'
0.048 Forever Young
0.040 Sugar Baby
0.036 Every Grain Of Sand
0.031 Cold Irons Bound
0.026 Shooting Star
0.023 Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
0.020 Nettie Moore
0.019 Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
0.017 Can't Wait
0.015 Gonna Change My Way of Thinking
0.014 Boots Of Spanish Leather
0.014 Watching The River Flow
0.011 Workingman's Blues #2
0.010 I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
0.010 This Wheel's On Fire
0.009 If You Ever Go To Houston
0.003 Just Like A Woman
0.003 Love Minus Zero/No Limit
0.003 I Don't Believe You
0.003 Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
0.003 Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)
0.002 The Man In Me
0.002 My Wife's Hometown
0.001 Masters Of War
0.001 When The Deal Goes Down
0.001 Til I Fell In Love With You
0.001 When I Paint My Masterpiece
0.001 Ain't Talkin'
0.001 I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
0.001 Lay Lady Lay
0.001 Shelter From The Storm


Those in green haven't been played this year. Every song not listed has a PM of zero or virtually zero.

Great, great work. Congratulations!

Costa Rica, 5 May 2012

Despite playing no new songs, the PI has come down to 0.556. This is due to there being four less frequently played songs: Jolene, Hollis, Hattie and Rainy. (All these have PM values below 0.2)

The full set-list and PM values are:

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (0.948)
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (0.256)
Beyond Here Lies Nothin' (0.512)
Tangled Up In Blue (0.803)
Summer Days (0.459)
Not Dark Yet (0.202)
Jolene (0.172)
Ballad Of Hollis Brown (0.165)
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (0.359)
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll (0.167)
Highway 61 Revisited (0.997)
Love Sick (0.299)
Thunder On The Mountain (0.997)
Ballad Of A Thin Man (1.000)
Like A Rolling Stone (1.000)
All Along The Watchtower (0.991)
Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 (0.149)
Blowin' In The Wind (0.539)

Next stop Monterrey

Thanks tompius! You make reading lists of numbers interesting. It's like a magic trick!

The data is interesting Tom, because I consider those songs very frequently played, as in VERY! Thanks for being diligent. Love your posts!

Those following this thread won't be surprised to see that the PI has risen to 0.638 following the concert in Monterrey. Cry A While qualifies as the rarest song in the set. (Still Go Barefoot, I know what you mean when you say that all these songs seem very familiar to you.)

The details for the set:

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (0.951)
Man In The Long Black Coat (0.232)
Things Have Changed (0.843)
Tangled Up In Blue (0.812)
Cry A While (0.134)
Spirit On The Water (0.313)
Summer Days (0.486)
Desolation Row (0.514)
High Water (for Charlie Patton) (0.300)
Simple Twist Of Fate (0.456)
Highway 61 Revisited (0.997)
Blind Willie McTell (0.257)
Thunder On The Mountain (0.997)
Ballad Of A Thin Man (1.000)
Like A Rolling Stone (1.000)
All Along The Watchtower (0.991)
Blowin' In The Wind (0.562)

Guadalajara, 9 May 2012

With ten songs from the Monterrey set, I expected the PI to rise further. But it actually decreased, ever so slightly. It is now 0.627. Cry A While is the least frequently played from this bunch.

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (0.953)
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (0.245)
Things Have Changed (0.851)
Tangled Up In Blue (0.822)
Cry A While (0.177)
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (0.374)
The Levee's Gonna Break (0.402)
Tryin' To Get To Heaven (0.264)
High Water (for Charlie Patton) (0.335)
Forgetful Heart (0.309)
Highway 61 Revisited (0.997)
Love Sick (0.320)
Thunder On The Mountain (0.997)
Ballad Of A Thin Man (1.000)
Like A Rolling Stone (1.000)
All Along The Watchtower (0.992)

Tom: Will you please ask your employer if it's ok to do this study for all the Led Zeppelin shows between 1969 and 1980?

How many concerts? I'm not that familiar with Led Zeppelin set-lists but I imagine they played more or less a fixed set-list for each tour. This would give a PI that starts low and rises steadily to peak at maybe 0.7 or 0.8 (depending on how long the tour was.) Then start low again with the next tour (and new album). This was how Bob's tours went as well in the seventies. I haven't posted anything on the pre-NET tours yet. But the essential difference is that then the PI would start low with each new tour and rise during the tour. For the NET on the other hand, it flutters about without any general trend. This year of course, and last year, it's been pretty much stuck around 0.62.

Once this leg of the tour ends, I'll post some PI tables for the seventies.

Mexico City 11 May 2012

No real changes to the set. Again ten songs the same as the previous night. And five of the other seven were played at Monterrey. from the night before that. That leaves just two relatively fresh songs: To Ramona and Rollin' And Tumblin', each get a second run-out. The PM values for the songs in the set are:

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (0.956)
To Ramona (0.117)
Things Have Changed (0.858)
Tangled Up In Blue (0.831)
Rollin' And Tumblin' (0.104)
Desolation Row (0.514)
Cry A While (0.218)
Spirit On The Water (0.333)
Summer Days (0.489)
Love Sick (0.354)
Highway 61 Revisited (0.997)
Simple Twist Of Fate (0.462)
Thunder On The Mountain (0.997)
Ballad Of A Thin Man (1.000)
Like A Rolling Stone (1.000)
All Along The Watchtower (0.992)
Blowin' In The Wind (0.557)

Taking the average of these PM values gives us a PI of 0.634.

We must face the reality that set variation is no longer one of the draws, more so, new arrangements.

Yes, the set lists this term haven't shown much variation. The last night (12th May, Mexico City) has a PI of 0.617. As usual I'll list the PM values of the songs played:

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (0.958)
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (0.258)
Things Have Changed (0.865)
Tangled Up In Blue (0.839)
Summer Days (0.514)
Not Dark Yet (0.215)
Jolene (0.190)
Ballad Of Hollis Brown (0.184)
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (0.387)
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll (0.186)
Highway 61 Revisited (0.998)
Forgetful Heart (0.329)
Thunder On The Mountain (0.997)
Ballad Of A Thin Man (1.000)
Like A Rolling Stone (1.000)
All Along The Watchtower (0.993)
Blowin' In The Wind (0.580)

And he went through Mexico without playing Senor. Weird.

Not so weird. Maybe too obvious?

It was quite Odd to see no Señor but it's obvious why he didn't play
It

Yeah, I thought about two shows into the tour, 'why on earth did you put 'Senor' as one of your picks?' 'Cry A While' would have been smarter! ('Senor' was 15 points)

Tompius, what are we up against in Europe? Thanks for your good work.

While we're waiting for new concerts, I'll post some PI values for earlier years.

As mentioned previously my analysis begins with 1974's Before The Flood tour. The PI values for the first concerts are necessarily low because, in my scheme, every song was given an initial PM value of zero. (Of course some had been played before, but the data from the sixties is too patchy to be used.) Here is the list of concerts and their PI values:

03-Jan-74 Chicago 0.050
04-Jan-74 Chicago 0.087
06-Jan-74 Philadelphia 0.120
06-Jan-74 Philadelphia 0.145
07-Jan-74 Philadelphia 0.171
09-Jan-74 Toronto 0.202
10-Jan-74 Toronto 0.216
11-Jan-74 Montreal 0.275
12-Jan-74 Montreal 0.289
14-Jan-74 Boston 0.323
14-Jan-74 Boston 0.341
15-Jan-74 Largo, Maryland 0.381
16-Jan-74 Largo, Maryland 0.399
17-Jan-74 Charlotte, North Carolina 0.433
19-Jan-74 Hollywood, Florida 0.455
19-Jan-74 Hollywood, Florida 0.485
21-Jan-74 Atlanta 0.505
22-Jan-74 Atlanta 0.515
23-Jan-74 Memphis 0.525
25-Jan-74 Fort Worth 0.576
26-Jan-74 Houston 0.597
26-Jan-74 Houston 0.617
28-Jan-74 Nassau, New York 0.636
29-Jan-74 Nassau, New York 0.631
30-Jan-74 New York City 0.637
31-Jan-74 New York City 0.588
31-Jan-74 New York City 0.636
02-Feb-74 Ann Arbor, Michigan 0.680
03-Feb-74 Bloomington, Indiana 0.669
04-Feb-74 St. Louis 0.630
04-Feb-74 St. Louis 0.687
06-Feb-74 Denver 0.626
06-Feb-74 Denver 0.685
09-Feb-74 Seattle 0.656
09-Feb-74 Seattle 0.708
11-Feb-74 Oakland 0.662
11-Feb-74 Oakland 0.705
13-Feb-74 Los Angeles 0.699
14-Feb-74 Los Angeles 0.707
14-Feb-74 Los Angeles 0.680

As can be seen, the PI values increased steadily until the beginning of February and, thereafter, levelled off. The total number of songs played in that tour was 45 (including 3 non-Bob songs.)

The list of songs ranked according to their PM values at the end of the tour was:

0.871 All Along The Watchtower
0.871 Ballad Of A Thin Man
0.871 Forever Young
0.871 Lay Lady Lay
0.871 Like A Rolling Stone
0.865 Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
0.865 Knockin' On Heaven's Door
0.862 It Ain't Me, Babe
0.857 Most Likely You Go Your Way
0.850 Ballad Of Hollis Brown
0.825 The Times They Are A-Changin'
0.778 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
0.767 Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
0.731 It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
0.651 Just Like A Woman
0.537 Highway 61 Revisited
0.475 Gates Of Eden
0.423 Blowin' In The Wind
0.335 Something There Is About You
0.253 She Belongs To Me
0.245 Wedding Song
0.124 Maggie's Farm
0.099 The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
0.094 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
0.082 I Don't Believe You
0.073 Love Minus Zero/No Limit
0.069 Nobody 'Cept You
0.059 Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
0.058 Mr. Tambourine Man
0.033 Visions Of Johanna
0.030 A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
0.030 Desolation Row
0.021 Tough Mama
0.017 Girl From The North Country
0.017 Fourth Time Around
0.015 Song To Woody
0.014 Hero Blues
0.013 One Too Many Mornings
0.009 As I Went Out One Morning
0.009 It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
0.007 Mama, You Been On My Mind
0.007 To Ramona
0.007 Share Your Love With Me (Briggs/Malone)
0.007 Stage Fright (Robertson)
0.007 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Robertson)

Are you going year by year or skipping around?

Bump. Tompius, you still around?

It's been ages since I've updated the PI record. One thing and another.

Anyway. The tour has ended for this year. In all there were 86 concerts. Here follows a list of these concerts with their PI values in patenthesis:

15-Apr-12 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (0.630)
17-Apr-12 Brasilia, Brazil (0.607)
19-Apr-12 Belo Horizonte, Brazil (0.618)
21-Apr-12 Sao Paulo, Brazil (0.600)
22-Apr-12 Sao Paulo, Brazil (0.604)
24-Apr-12 Porto Alegre, Brazil (0.618)
26-Apr-12 Buenos Aires, Argentina (0.616)
27-Apr-12 Buenos Aires, Argentina (0.589)
28-Apr-12 Buenos Aires, Argentina (0.555)
30-Apr-12 Buenos Aires, Argentina (0.621)
02-May-12 Santiago, Chile (0.638)
05-May-12 Heredia, Costa Rica (0.556)
07-May-12 Monterrey, Mexico (0.638)
09-May-12 Guadalajara, Mexico (0.627)
11-May-12 Mexico City, Mexico (0.634)
12-May-12 Mexico City, Mexico (0.617)
30-Jun-12 Paddock Wood, England (0.621)
02-Jul-12 Berlin, Germany (0.642)
03-Jul-12 Dresden, Germany (0.533)
04-Jul-12 Bonn, Germany (0.601)
06-Jul-12 Bad Mergentheim, Germany (0.627)
07-Jul-12 Salzburg, Austria (0.529)
08-Jul-12 Montreux, Switzerland (0.630)
11-Jul-12 Bilbao, Spain (0.657)
13-Jul-12 Benicassim, Spain (0.635)
14-Jul-12 Cap Roig, Spain (0.615)
15-Jul-12 Nimes, France (0.629)
16-Jul-12 Barolo, Italy (0.636)
18-Jul-12 Lyon, France (0.579)
20-Jul-12 Bayonne, France (0.629)
22-Jul-12 Carhaix, France (0.693)
10-Aug-12 Lloydminster, Alberta (0.663)
11-Aug-12 Lethbridge, Alberta (0.636)
12-Aug-12 Cranbrook, British Columbia (0.671)
14-Aug-12 Missoula, Montana (0.651)
17-Aug-12 Rapid City, South Dakota (0.677)
18-Aug-12 Sioux Falls, South Dakota (0.674)
19-Aug-12 Fargo, North Dakota (0.687)
21-Aug-12 Rochester, Minnesota (0.676)
22-Aug-12 Des Moines, Iowa (0.685)
24-Aug-12 Fort Wayne, Indiana (0.674)
25-Aug-12 Indianapolis, Indiana (0.705)
26-Aug-12 Cincinnati, Ohio (0.658)
28-Aug-12 Youngstown, Ohio (0.693)
29-Aug-12 Johnstown, Pennsylvania (0.634)
30-Aug-12 Salisbury, Maryland (0.652)
01-Sep-12 Big Flats, New York (0.625)
02-Sep-12 Bethel, New York (0.629)
04-Sep-12 Port Chester, New York (0.613)
06-Sep-12 Lewiston, New York (0.600)
07-Sep-12 Holyoke, Massachusetts (0.589)
08-Sep-12 Uncasville, Connecticut (0.616)
09-Sep-12 Hershey, Pennsylvania (0.646)
05-Oct-12 Winnipeg, Manitoba (0.662)
06-Oct-12 Regina, Saskatchewan (0.656)
08-Oct-12 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (0.658)
09-Oct-12 Edmonton, Alberta (0.611)
10-Oct-12 Calgary, Alberta (0.661)
12-Oct-12 Vancouver, British Columbia (0.649)
13-Oct-12 Seattle, Washington (0.643)
15-Oct-12 Portland, Oregon (0.655)
17-Oct-12 San Francisco, California (0.647)
18-Oct-12 San Francisco, California (0.669)
19-Oct-12 Berkeley, California (0.655)
20-Oct-12 Sacramento, California (0.611)
22-Oct-12 Santa Barbara, California (0.667)
24-Oct-12 San Diego, California (0.636)
26-Oct-12 Los Angeles, California (0.644)
27-Oct-12 Las Vegas, Nevada (0.614)
29-Oct-12 Broomfield, Colorado (0.629)
30-Oct-12 Broomfield, Colorado (0.617)
01-Nov-12 Grand Prairie, Texas (0.653)
02-Nov-12 Tulsa, Oklahoma (0.627)
03-Nov-12 Omaha, Nebraska (0.627)
05-Nov-12 Madison, Wisconsin (0.626)
07-Nov-12 St. Paul, Minnesota (0.618)
08-Nov-12 Milwaukee, Wisconsin (0.628)
09-Nov-12 Chicago, Illinois (0.622)
12-Nov-12 Grand Rapids, Michigan (0.645)
13-Nov-12 Detroit, Michigan (0.628)
14-Nov-12 Toronto, Ontario (0.623)
16-Nov-12 Montreal, Quebec (0.637)
18-Nov-12 Boston, Massachusetts (0.639)
19-Nov-12 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (0.643)
20-Nov-12 Washington, D.C. (0.639)
21-Nov-12 Brooklyn, New York (0.622)

The minimum value of the PI was 0.529 (Salzburg, 7th July) and the maximum was 0.705 (Indianapolis, 25th August).

Overall it was a year of very little variation in the PI, especially in the fourth leg of the tour. We can calculate the average PI and its standard deviation for the overall tour and for each tour-leg. Doing so gives us the following:

Full Year (86 : 0.633 : 0.032)
Latin America (16 : 0.611 : 0.025)
Europe (15 : 0.617 : 0.043)
North America-I (22 : 0.652 : 0.032)
North America-II (33 : 0.638 : 0.017)

The three figures in brackets are to be read thus (no. of concerts : average PI : standard deviation)

As can be seen, for the second North American leg, the standard deviation went way down to 0.017; thus the PI hovered around the 0.633 level for the entire leg. Even for the year as a whole the standard deviation was just 0.032 which is the lowest level since the NET began.

Let's hope things get a bit more diverse next year.

And let's remember that this is just a discussion about the variety or lack of it in the set-lists: in no way does it imply that the performances have become uninteresting.

Could Bob Dylan be the reason for the slow economic recovery??

Damn good point, Tompius!

Some more stats. Here is a listing of the most played songs ranked by PM (Persistency Measure.)

1.000 Ballad Of A Thin Man
1.000 Like A Rolling Stone
1.000 Highway 61 Revisited
1.000 Thunder On The Mountain
0.998 All Along The Watchtower
0.996 Things Have Changed
0.996 Tangled Up In Blue
0.985 Blowin' In The Wind
0.371 Visions Of Johanna
0.310 I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
0.295 Early Roman Kings
0.280 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
0.276 A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
0.272 Rollin' And Tumblin'
0.270 Desolation Row
0.255 Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
0.255 Watching The River Flow
0.250 Mississippi
0.250 Chimes Of Freedom
0.248 Summer Days
0.242 The Levee's Gonna Break
0.231 Forgetful Heart
0.230 High Water (for Charlie Patton)
0.212 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

This list really shows up the divide between songs that are more or less permanent on the set-list and songs that pop in and out. These in and out songs are on average, played less than once in every three concerts. There is nothing in the mid-range of PM values. Might be interesting to see how this picture varied down through the years. One of the notions that I toy with is that Bob is gradually coming to his definitive set-list. Only a notion though - I wouldn't take it seriously.