A Traveling Wilburys tour could have been one of the greatest tours of all time. You can picture it: They each do a short solo set to start, two or three songs apiece, maybe with a few duets thrown in. Then it builds to the main event, all five of them together onstage doing eight or nine songs from their two albums. The show ends with, inevitably, “End of the Line.”
It almost happened too. “There were plans,” Wilburys drummer Jim Keltner (a “Sidebury”) told me. “Big plans. We were going to go on a train tour. We were going to take a train across the United States.” Everybody thought Bob would nix it, but he didn’t. George did.
So, in lieu of any actual Wilburys shows, I wanted to know, what Wilburys songs have been played live by actual Wilburys? Which Wilbury has performed the most Wilburys songs? Let’s count up, starting with…
Roy Orbison: 0 Wilburys Songs Live
Orbison died a month and a half after Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 came out. He was only 52 years old. Had he lived longer, you can imagine him absolutely crushing “Not Alone Any More” every night in concert. It wasn’t to be. RIP Roy.
Bob Dylan: 1 Wilburys Song Live
Sadly, Bob has never done “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” live (yet!). In the early days of the Never Ending Tour, though, he did “Congratulations” a few times. Toad’s Place is probably the most famous, but I prefer this version, from Birmingham, England. He’d just finished a hits-heavy run of “I Shall Be Released,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “One Too Many Mornings,” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” But when he sings the opening line of “Congratulations,” a huge cheer goes up from the crowd. As if they’re like, finally, a song we know!
George Harrison: 1 Wilburys Song Live
Harrison did one Wilburys song live, in 1997 at his final public performance before his death. He appeared on a VH1 show with sitar master Ravi Shankar to promote Shankar’s new album Chants of India. The vibe is very loose, with George just strumming whatever song he thinks of. “A bit of busking on here,” he jokes. Friend-of-the-newsletter John Fugelsang, who’s hosting the show, asks George, “One of yours?” George answers: “Well, sort of.”
It’s “If You Belonged to Me,” a Dylan song from Volume 3. Despite the casual setup, Harrison sings it beautifully, nailing all the words and even doing a tricky little acoustic run to end it. Either he remembers it perfectly from almost a decade prior or he’s been practicing it at home.
More “Wilburys By Wilburys” after the jump!