Bob Dylan is on tour. Technically speaking, though, the Nobel Prize-winning songwriter has been on the road since June 7, 1988, when his “Never Ending Tour” began—the kind of thing you’d only expect Bob Dylan to do. Now the year is 2018, the endless tour is already 30 years old, and the artist himself has turned 77 this May.

That being said, one may expect the tour to “get old” and become slightly repetitive, if not tedious. Yet the “Never Ending Tour” is not tedious; it is a fresh breath of air from an aged master and perhaps one of the most daring performances in the world of music from the last few years. And this fall, the show is coming back home—back to America.

(Here are the tour dates. The North American leg will begin on October 4th in Phoenix, Arizona.)

The Setlist

Looking at the setlist itself, nothing seems that unique about this year’s shows, and that goes for the particular Seoul concert that I attended last July. Dylan started the gig with the ultra-popular classics “All Along the Watchtower” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” This trend basically dominated the entire setlist, with four songs from “Tempest,” three songs from “Highway 61 Revisited,” two from “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” etc. The repertoire itself was certainly nothing new—it almost reminded me of the stereotypical “Golden Oldies” band that plays their decades-old hits over and over again.

But herein lies the twist. Read on, listen on—don’t just yet start commenting on how he’s too old, his voice too broken, and he mumbles too much.

(You can find the full setlist for the Seoul concert here.)

The Music

Here’s the good part: the music. The music made the rather predictable song repertoire the opposite of predictable because the tune changed the songs and made them almost unrecognizable. Bob Dylan had fooled us all.

While the title and selection of the songs were nothing new, the music actually was. For most of these classic Bob Dylan hits, it takes a while for one to absorb the lyrics and figure out what song he is singing; from the instrumentals to the way he said the words, Dylan had tweaked and revised even his most popular tracks so that they felt unfamiliar, different, and original.

At the concert in Korea, songs like “Thunder on the Mountain” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” went almost completely unrecognized by the rather confused audience until world-famous Dylan lyrics like “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind” caught us all by surprise and helped us realize that this was neither recent material nor a cover. Instead, it was that song we’d been forcing our old record players to play for decades now.

So don’t expect a comfortable, nostalgia-inducing experience, despite the fact that seeing Dylan will bring out the sentimental side of most of you, especially the older audience members.

Your warm, snug bubble is about to break by none other than the very source of that nostalgia. Bob Dylan will walk onstage, throw a cursory glance around the venue, and challenge you all with his daring and refreshing take on his oldies. He will force you to strain your ears and listen hard; he will force you to make an effort to familiarize yourself with the melody, find out what the song’s about, and make your mind on this completely renewed material.

Ultimately, you’ve actually got to think about the songs and judge them all over again. You’ve even got a choice to make—whether or not to enjoy them—which is simply absent in many of Dylan’s peers’ performances in which the band knows the audience’s favorites, and the audience knows which songs are the “unforgettable” ones that they should stand up and dance to.

The Man

Dylan was nothing but understated. The stage and lighting, while quite beautiful, made it almost impossible for the audience to see his face clearly. There was no spotlight (or if there was, it wasn’t very effective), and under the shadow of his hat, Dylan held everyone at a distance. This was felt more strongly because of his status—a universally praised songwriter, now with a Nobel Prize by his side. Everyone wanted to get a glimpse of this great, genius figure, yet no one was really getting it.

And while such demeanor prompted some complaints (a man sitting behind me, for example, went as far as to call it “a waste of money,” saying, “I didn’t come for this. This is just strange. I came here for Bob Dylan,”) I felt that it made the performance most effective. Bob Dylan wasn’t here to give us “Bob Dylan”; he was here to give us his music, which had nothing to do with the much-admired wrinkles on his face.

Perhaps it was even a conscious choice—an attempt to keep the audience from being distracted by “Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize winner and legendary singer” and instead focus on the music. And, perhaps, this never-a-crowd-pleaser aspect of the show was actually what made it “Bob Dylan”: anyone who knew him well enough would not be surprised by just how unpredictable and uncooperative Dylan can get.

The Show

The simple truth is that not everyone is going to be pleased. Some may find it hard to follow and boring; some may find it disappointing, given all the hype and name value that kept stacking up when Dylan was named as a Nobel laureate.

Yet, I still highly recommend you to give the “Never Ending Tour” a go. You may not clearly see Dylan’s same old face, but you will very clearly hear fresh music. You may not recognize your favorite song from the radio, but you will, in its place, get one that no old radio station has played before. Dylan refuses to repeat himself. And in doing so, I believe he is giving us the best gift he can give: a unique concert that no folk festival or no 60’s crowd has witnessed before. A concert that belongs to us—the crowd of 2018—and is entirely up to us to either like or dislike.