My Road To 100 - Part 2

2012 | Berlin to Lyon, Rail to Rail: Six Summer Shows And A Sense of Belonging

For the second part of this series, I originally wanted to cover 2012 and 2013 together, but since 2013 was such a crazy year of Bob Dylan touring for me, I needed to split it into two.

In 2012, I followed Bob Dylan across Europe — Berlin, Bonn, Bad Mergentheim, Barcelona, Bilbao, Cap Roig, and Lyon. It started with a delayed flight and a football final, and turned into a summer full of concerts, travel, and memorable moments. My girlfriend saw her first Dylan show (now my wife), I made a spontaneous trip to Bilbao, and Tempest was announced.

This post covers the full story — the shows, the setlists, the travel, and the people along the way.

👉 Paid subscribers get access to the full article, including photos and personal notes from the road.

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I was originally scheduled to land at the brand-new Berlin Brandenburg Airport — the long-awaited Hauptstadtflughafen (capital city airport). But due to massive construction delays that dragged on for years (it finally opened in October 2020, another great timing), my arrival was rerouted to one of Berlin’s older airports instead.

Schedule of the 2012 Summer Tour

The night I arrived, the European Championship final was on, and Spain beat Italy in a surreal 4–0. The next morning I headed early to the venue, Zitadelle Spandau, determined to make the rail. I reached the site around nine and realized I was the very first person there. Nothing was set up yet and nobody seemed to know where a line should begin. Eventually the barriers appeared, familiar faces joined, and the long wait turned into that patient rhythm every rail-chaser knows. The sprint to the front when doors opened was a long one, but it worked. The question of the night was whether the grand piano — spotted during the previous tour-opening show at Hop Farm — would make another appearance on stage, potentially becoming a permanent fixture in Bob’s live setup. And indeed, it did.

The Grand Piano on stage in Berlin

Bob walked on without a hat and with sunglasses, a small detail that felt huge in the moment, and the show was terrific.

Bob in Berlin 2012 - Photo by sigge-rocktours.de