Never Ending Tour  The Never Ending Tour is the popular name for Bob Dylan's endless touring schedule which began on June 7, 1988. During the course of the tour, musicians have come and gone as the band continued to evolve. They amassed a huge fan base with some fans traveling from around the world to attend as many Dylan shows as possible. According to Swedish researcher Olof Björner Dylan played his 2,000th show of the Never Ending Tour on October 16, 2007, in Dayton, Ohio. He played his 3,000th show of the Never Ending Tour on April 19, 2019, in Innsbruck, Austria. Dylan has attributed much of the versatility of his live shows to the talent of his backing band, with whom he recorded each of his 21st Century studio albums: "Love and Theft" (2001); "Modern Times" (2006); "Together Through Life" (2009); "Christmas in the Heart" (2009); "Tempest" (2012); "Shadows in the Night" (2015); "Fallen Angels" (2016); "Triplicate" (2017) and "Rough and Rowdy Ways" (2020). The tour's name was cemented when journalist Adrian Deevoy published his interview with Dylan in "Q Magazine" no.39, December 1989. The critic Michael Gray listened to Deevoy's interview tape, and points out in "The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia" that though Deevoy's article put the phrase into Dylan's mouth, in fact the label came from Deevoy in the following exchange: Dylan has been dismissive of the Never Ending Tour tag. In the sleeve notes to his album "World Gone Wrong" (1993), Dylan wrote:  In a 2009 interview with "Rolling Stone" magazine, Dylan queried the validity of the term Never Ending Tour, saying: Critics should know there is no such thing as forever. Does anybody call Henry Ford a Never Ending Car Builder? Anybody ever say that Duke Ellington was on a Never Ending Bandstand Tour? These days, people are lucky to have a job. Any job. So critics might be uncomfortable with my working so much. Anybody with a trade can work as long as they want. A carpenter, an electrician. They don't necessarily need to retire. The tour was interrupted in 1997 when Dylan was forced to cancel dates after suffering a serious medical issue in May. CBS Records announced he was being hospitalized for a potentially fatal chest infection, histoplasmosis.