This song is very special for me as I started listening to Bob Dylan in 1979 (I even believe "Slow Train Coming" is the best studio album in history). I had seen Bob perform "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" in 1981 (Cincinnati), in 1987 (Frankfurt) and in 1991 (Bad Mergentheim). In June 1996 I had a most interesting conversation with Winston Watson near the Old Opera House in Frankfurt. He told me that he also started listening to Bob in 1979 (he is about my age) and that he was hoping some years already for Bob to put "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" back on his list. It was to be Winston Watson's last tour with Bob. Sadly he never got to play it.

Knowing however that anything can happen when Bob is on stage (having witnessed "I BELIEVE IN YOU" both in 1994 and in 1995) I was hoping for overt statements about his faith as I went to three Dylan concerts in 1998. Between songs I flashed a cloth sign reading "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY", which definitely was visible from the stage on May 30th and June 14th, as I was pretty much up front (wishful thinking, I thought, since he had not performed it since 1991). When I heard that Bob started with this song in Belfast a few days later, I could hardly believe it. He did use this challenging opener 55 times in the following months.

After Bob began opening his concerts with the acoustic set in April 1999, he started to use equally challenging cover songs as openers quite frequently. "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" however he had performed only seven times since then (six times in 2000), when I took my cloth sign back on the road in September 2000. And at my ninth show in ten days Bob did perform a great and rocking (you might be Bono, you might be Sting) version of this great song, while I was sitting in the center of the third row on the balcony at the Guildhall in Portsmouth. I had not witnessed it since June 1991. As Bob did not pull out "EVERY GRAIN OF SAND" the following date, it probably was the peak of my two week ten show trip from Vicar Street to Portsmouth.

After this song had taken a rest for nine months, Bob pulled out "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" during his second European show in 2001, in Bergen, Norway. One reviewer on Bob Dates commented: "... then something happened. Dylan caught fire. Or something. Gotta serve somebody was wonderfully played in the later rocking arrangement. Dylan was definitely ON, and now he seemed to enjoy being on the stage, and playing this peculiar song." It was not the last time he presented "this peculiar song" in Europe this summer. Three days later in Gothenburg Bob performed this rocking gem again, this time as the first electric song in slot number four. Another two weeks after Gothenburg "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" appeared on the fine setlist of the concert in Stirling, Scotland; and another week later it was performed in La Spezia, Italy. Five days after that it appeared on the same setlist as "SOMEBODY TOUCHED ME", in Perugia, Italy; another day later in Napoli, Italy, it appeared on the same setlist as "HALLELUJAH, I'M READY TO GO".

The show in Des Moines a few weeks later featured the first US-performance of "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" since June 2000 (the third US-performance since March 1999). Further performances of "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" followed soon in Oklahoma City and in Pueblo, Colorado. Five days later in Sun City West, Arizona, Bob Dylan for the fifth time chose to include "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" within a setlist starting with "SOMEBODY TOUCHED ME", as he did already in Perugia, in Portsmouth, in Reno, and in Berlin. In Lancaster two days after that Bob Dylan performed the first "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" in California in almost three years. Two months later a large audience in Chicago saw the first appearance of "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" during the fall 2001 tour. Eight days later in Cincinnati Bob performed it again (exactly twenty years to the day after he sang it for the first time in front of a Cincinnati audience). In Manchester, New Hampshire, seventeen days later, it was performed again in the same show as "HALLELUJAH, I'M READY TO GO" (twenty years to the day after his last concert of the 1981 "Shot of Love" tour).

In Florida, during the second show of 2002, "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" was the first electric song in a setlist, which began with "I AM THE MAN THOMAS". Another very strong statement. Four days later "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" was included once more on the same setlist as "HALLELUJAH, I'M READY TO GO". After almost 18 months, in July 2003, Bob Dylan performed "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" again in Florida, this time in a Dead Set with Bob sitting in. More than five years later, in New York City in November 2008, Bob Dylan, on harp and center stage, chose "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" as the opening song of his last concert of the year. It was quite an intense performance of this gem [mp3 link below]. In 2009 "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" opened three European shows in the spring on consecutive Sundays in Denmark, in Germany, and in The Netherlands; and then once more on a Sunday in July 2009, in Syracuse, New York. In 2010 "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" was not performed at all in concert, but in April 2011, in Taipei, Taiwan, Dylan chose to open his first concert of the year with this gem.

It was to be the only appearance of this song until July 2018, when Dylan chose to perform "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" in Seoul, South Korea, and then also in August 2018 in Singapore, as well as nine times in Australia, and twice in New Zealand. During the two months long US fall tour of 2018 Bob Dylan continued to close his main set with these amazing versions of "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY", at all 42 concerts from October 4th to December 3rd. This continued in 2019 during the spring tour of Europe, where "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" also appeared as the main set closer in all 24 shows from March 31st to May 7th. It was the first European tour ever where Bob Dylan chose to sing "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" at each and every single concert.

During the European summer tour of 2019 from June 21 to July 14 "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" was performed at all 14 locations, making this the second European tour where Bob Dylan chose to sing "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" at each and every single concert. The last two of these shows were double bill events with Neil Young also on the ticket. The first one was on Friday July 12th in London's Hyde Park, where 65.000 audience members witnessed the first "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" in London since 1998, which also was the first "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" in England since Portsmouth 2000, or the first "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" in the UK since Stirling 2001. The Kilkenny show on Sunday July 14th, in front of 28.000 audience members filling a large Hurling Stadium, included the first appearance of "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" in the Republic of Ireland since Dublin 1991, which also was the first performance of "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" on this (sadly still divided) Emerald Isle since Belfast 1998. The video [at the top of this page] of this Kilkenny performance I have captured standing 8 meters behind the rail.

Bob Dylan also chose to include "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" into each and every one of the 39 shows of his US fall tour from October 11 to December 8 of 2019. The next appearance of "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in November 2021, during the first concert of the fall 2021 US tour. Really great versions of "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" were performed also during all 20 of the other shows of the tour. During the US spring tour in March and April of 2022 "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" continued to be included in all of his 28 concerts, and during the US tour in May, June, and July of 2022 "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" was also performed in all 25 concerts, sometimes singing the first verse (or even more) without the band.

During the European fall tour in September, October, and November of 2022 "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" appeared also in all 29 concerts; and I got to see Dylan perform this gem another six times, in Paris, in Glasgow, and then at the final show of the year in Dublin. In 2023, during his April tour in Japan, Bob Dylan also performed eleven more blistering versions of "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY", six of which I had the privilege to witness myself, on my first ever journey to the far east. During the European tour in June and July of 2023 "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" appeared as well in all 24 shows; and the North American fall tour of 2023 included another 40 performances of "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY".

After touring resumed in the US in March of 2024, "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" was performed during the first four shows in Florida; but the song did not appear during the fifth show. [So from August 2018 in Singapore until March 2024 in Clearwater Bob Dylan chose to sing "GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY" during 313 consecutive concerts.] The song appeared again during the sixth show, and then was omitted again during the next three shows, before being played again at every of the remaining fifteen concerts of the spring tour, with various stunning arrangements.