Bob Dylan Rocks Beijing (Carefully)

(ChinaFotoPress/Getty)

What kind of songs can you perform for your first gig in China if you’re Bob Dylan, and Government officials have demanded that there be no lyrics that might offend the people’s cultural and political sensitivities? Apparently, “Like A Rolling Stone,” “All Along The Watchtower,” and “Ballad Of A Thin Man.”

Dylan unveiled these songs, and 14 more, including the Slow Train outtake “Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking”, at the Worker’s Gymnasium in Beijing yesterday, where 5,000 young people and foreign visitors lucky enough to score tickets undoubtedly had their minds blown (we can’t wait to study the bootleg to this one.)

Whether or not he played “Chimes Of Freedom” or “With God On Our Side,” the truth is, Dylan’s legendary lyrics can be interpreted any way you want; “something is happening here, and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones” can be pointed in any direction you choose.

Check out the full set list below to see what made the cut, and read reviews of the show as they come in here:

Gonna Change My Way of Thinking
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
Tangled Up in Blue
Honest With Me
Simple Twist of Fate
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
Love Sick
Rollin’ and Tumblin’
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Highway 61 Revisited
Spirit on the Water
Thunder on the Mountain
Ballad of a Thin Man

Like a Rolling Stone
All Along the Watchtower

Forever Young

Read our review of Bob Dylan’s 2010 Nashville show.