Bob Dylan is packing in the dates tightly on this summer’s segment of his Never Ending Tour, hardly pausing a single night to travel or take a day off.
From July 24 to August 20, 2011, Dylan is scheduled to perform nearly every night.
One of the very few nights that Dylan is not scheduled to perform sticks out in particular, and that is the evening of August 8, upon which this year falls the Jewish fast day of Tisha B’Av, a holy day of mourning that is akin to the better-known holy day of Yom Kippur. Music of course is forbidden on Tisha B’Av, as is eating, and observant Jews will generally spend the night and day in reflective contemplation, studying the Book of Lamentations and the Book of Job, and refraining from washing and marital relations.
The fast of Tisha B’Av commemorates the destruction of both the First Temple and Second Temple in Jerusalem, which occurred about 656 years apart, but on the same Hebrew calendar date (the ninth of Av, which is the literal translation of “Tisha B’Av). Many other significant calamities have befallen the Jewish people on this date throughout history, giving it the moniker “the saddest day in Jewish history.”
“Bob Dylan turns 70 on May 24. So what? Well, for one, let’s see you continue to perform two-hour concerts 100 nights a year, as you’ve been doing practically nonstop for the past quarter-century or so, all over the world, keeping things new and fresh, while the music industry around you falls apart; your body is battered by so many aches and pains that you can barely hold a guitar, and your singing voice — never the greatest to begin with — is nothing but a hollow shell of what it once was. You’re lucky if you can even spit out the lyrics of songs from throughout your 50-year career in a talking voice, much less even remember them.” 
