In 1991, Charlie Sexton played with Dylan for the first time. I wrote about that show here.

In 1995, Charlie Sexton played with Dylan for the second time. I wrote about that show here.

And now, by subscriber request, we get, in 1996, the third time Charlie Sexton played with Dylan. Like the first two, it took place on Sexton’s home turf of Austin, Texas. …

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When I was researching my piece on Dylan’s only concert in Córdoba, Argentina, one of my local correspondents noted that Dylan did some boxing at a Buenos Aires gym two days later and sent me that magazine image above (thanks Pablo!). I wanted to learn more. It turns out several articles have subsequ…

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Last night, Bob Dylan played Horsens, Denmark, for the first time since 2000. That was a famous club show, one of the smallest venues he ever played in the Never Ending Tour. This was a sports arena. But the setlist continued to evolve, with one big surprise, and big musical surprises at both the start and end of the show.

R…

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Night two of Bob Dylan’s “Lights of Autumn” tour came to Gothenburg, Sweden last night. It followed a very dramatic opening night in Oslo. A few questions got answered. Would he keep most of the surprises from night one? No! Would he add new surprises in their place? Heck yes!

Here to tell us all about it are Daniel Seaton and João Amorelli. Daniel Seaton is a writer and historian. His latest book is Truth Under Fire: Australia’s Second World War Correspondents (sounds like a book a certain 85-year-old history buff might like!). Over to Daniel first, then João, plus some photos, video clips, and a full tape!

Daniel Seaton:

Unlike the Oslo Spektrum, where Bob Dylan kicked off his 2026 UK/EU tour two days prior, Gothenburg’s Scandinavium is, as far as arenas go, quite a pleasant place to watch a concert. While the Spektrum is undergoing a swathe of messy-looking construction work, the Scandinavium is by comparison sleek, spacious and more efficient in terms of getting people in and out of the venue. Of course, the seasoned Dylan fan would always choose an atmospheric theatre over a soulless and cavernous arena, but they will have no such luck on this tour: Dylan is sticking to the arenas until he reaches the UK.

Coming off the back of the Oslo show, where Dylan surprised by returning to an old favourite in “Tangled Up in Blue”—the first since 2018—(with the addition of several completely new verses), alongside other unexpected inclusions like “Crash on the Levee” and an encore of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” (not to mention never before played covers of Randy Newman and Guy Clark songs), the Gothenburg concert continued to defy expectations.

Upon taking my seat, I quickly realised that standing only a couple of metres away from me in the auditorium was Dylan’s longtime bass player and band leader, Tony Garnier. Wearing a black hoodie, he was leaning against a railing, happily chatting away with a couple he clearly knew somehow. I didn’t want to eavesdrop, so entertained myself by looking at the stage setup and studying the arena’s seating configuration. Remember, phones are locked away in pouches for Dylan shows, meaning that the audience has to entertain itself the old fashioned way ahead of the performance: either with conversation or by quietly staring into space. The nosebleed seats at the Scandinavium, which is most commonly used for ice hockey matches, are terrifically high, the seats’ occupants looking tiny off in the distance. After five minutes or so Garnier, looking perfectly relaxed, said his goodbyes to the couple, acknowledged a few fans and disappeared backstage.

At 8pm sharp, Dylan’s four-piece band (minus their leader) took to the stage, playing an extended opening to “To Be Alone With You” in a laid-back, country rock style. After two or three minutes, Dylan stepped on stage to huge cheers from the crowd, his face shrouded by the black cap and hood combination he has recently taken to wearing. Who knows why Dylan does this? My best guess is that it helps to block out any bright lights and helps him to focus on his piano playing, though, with this being Bob Dylan, it is entirely possible that he’s simply doing it to defy expectations. Back in 2019 at a concert in Vienna in the pre-Yondr phone pouch days, he admonished the audience: “Take pictures or don’t take pictures. We can either play, or we can pose.” Perhaps by shrouding himself on stage he hopes the audience will focus on the music to a greater extent.

The opening number was messy, with numerous lyric flubs (standard practice, as any avid Dylan concert-goer will know) and the band not quite clicking yet. The same was true for the second song, “Man in the Long Black Coat,” and the third song, “It Ain’t Me Babe,” which was the first deviation of the night from the Oslo setlist. The third song, though, being recognisable for the more casual fans, attracted a great response from the audience, some of whom clapped along at various points. The music, however, was still quite messy at this stage and the band didn’t appear to be particularly in sync.

Dylan leads and guides his band with a combination of subtle nods and glances to the band members, as well as not-so-subtle hammering on his piano. Indeed, at various points in the show, he hit the same notes on the piano repeatedly in an effort to establish the rhythm that he wanted the band to follow. His frustration during these early stages of the concert seemed clear, with a few tutts and mutterings being audible through the microphone which appeared to be directed towards the band’s drummer, Anton Fig (more on that later).

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Last night, Bob Dylan kicked off his fall tour—dubbed “Lights of Autumn”—in Oslo. There were some big surprises. The first “Tangled Up in Blue” in eight years (with two new verses, no less)! The first “Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood)” in 21 years! Plus two cover songs he has never played before, by Randy Newman and Guy Clark.

Tom Wilkins is here to report in. This opening-night recap is free to all subscribers, but most of these “Last Night In” reviews are for paid subscribers only. There will be many more to come all fall, leading up to Dylan’s first shows at the Royal Festival Hall in London since 1964 (I’ll be at those!). Sign up if you want them all delivered straight to your inbox:

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Okay, over to Tom…

The unique qualities of an opening night are the complete unknowns: guitarists; stage set-up; the setlist; Bob’s attire; and the tour merchandise. Having hotfooted from London to sunny Oslo for 24 hours, let me attempt to fill in the blanks.

At 8.01pm, on strode Tony Garnier, Anton Fig, Joel Paterson and a final guitarist that some were speculating was Nashville-based John Hiatt collaborator Mike Seal. All were smartly attired in black suits and black shirts.

They were immediately joined from stage right (audience left) by Bob who for a brief second was capless and hoodless as he walked out before donning his cap/ black hood combo and launching into “To Be Alone With You.”

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As you have no doubt heard, this year marks the 50th anniversary of Rolling Thunder 1976. To celebrate, I have published a 74-page zine called Rolling Thunder ’76 Day-By-Day, only available here.

If that title sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because last year I published Rolling Thunder ’75 Day-By-Day. I printed 500 copies of that, and they sold out in six hours.

The good news is, for this one, I printed twice as many. So hopefully it will last a little longer. But still, I wouldn’t wait! I expect this one to sell out too. It costs $20 plus shipping, and it’s ready to be sent to you right now:

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

The additional good news is I printed a few more of the 1975 edition for everyone who wasn’t quick enough on the draw last year. I’m not going to print any more after this. So if you missed out last time, you can buy them both as a pair—while, as they say, supplies last. [Update: 1975 zine is sold out. 1976 is still available.]

Ok, but what is this thing? Good question! I write about every single Rolling Thunder 1976 show, from opening night in Lakeland, Florida all the way to the grand finale in Salt Lake City. What happened onstage, what happened offstage, what made each show unique. Alligator BBQ in the bayou! Subpoenaing Willie Nelson! Pissing off Tom Waits! And—oh yeah—Dylan playing some of the most incendiary music of his career.

The booklet is an expanded version of the newsletter series I did in the spring. But there’s even more in this booklet, because, since I wrote that series, I’ve interviewed more band members about that tour (for a new MOJO cover story, on stands now) and listened to the entire giant 1976 box set. Yes, all 39 discs of it. So I have even more to say about these shows than I did before.

Speaking of that giant box set, my goal is to get this thing into everyone’s hands in time for release day, November 6. If you’re buying the box set, the booklet will make a great listening companion. But even if you’re not, it works equally well on its own, with a ton of great behind-the-scenes yarns and anecdotes. Here’s an 18-second video tour:

Shoutout to designer Noel Mayeske, who also did Pledging My Time, for making it look so great. Get it while you can!

BUY ROLLING THUNDER 76 DAY BY DAY HERE

Bob Dylan live in 2011 could be a divisive proposition even among his biggest fans. Here’s a review of today’s subscriber-requested (thanks Peter!) Cardiff concert that one fan sent in to Bill Pagel’s site:

This wasn’t so much a concert as it was a physical assault. I left the concert feeling as if I had been through some sort of North American Indian ri…

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Today, the second installment in my new “Only Passing Through” series about cities Dylan has only played once. We started in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and now we journey further south—much further south—to Córdoba, Argentina.

Dylan has played Buenos Aires, Argentina’s biggest city, a handful of times—a three-night stand in 1991, a tour opening for the Rolling Stones in 1998, another short residency in 2012—but he has only ever ventured out to other Argentinian cities once, on his Spring 2008 tour. In addition to his usual Buenos Aires stop, he played the country’s second and third biggest cities, Córdoba and Rosario.

Córdoba, Argentina—not to be confused with Córdoba, Spain, where Dylan has played twice—is, according to a couple Argentinian readers I consulted with (thanks Patricio and Pablo!), known for its nightlife. That’s due in part to a famous local cocktail: fernet con coca.

The New York Times wrote in an article about the drink, “The combination of Coke and fernet—a pungent, dark-amber liqueur that has a black licorice flavor—has emerged as one of this city’s cultural trademarks, making the drink the latest illustration of the city’s desire for distinction from Argentina’s influential capital [Buenos Aires] and its push to influence the nation.” One musician they interviewed said of the fernet liqueur, “It’s horrible on its own, but with Coke, it’s something else.” (Another interviewee—someone not from Córdoba—said “It’s the most disgusting thing in the world. I don’t understand how people drink it.”)

Did Dylan drink any fernet con coca? No idea. He did want to learn about Argentinian history though. One of his local minders told the newspaper (in a quote I’ve Google-Translated from Spanish):

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“Ballad of a Thin Man” is Bob Dylan’s sixth most-played song in concert. 1,361 different live versions between 1965 and 2024. So tracking its different live arrangements for this series seemed daunting. However, given how often this song got played, there actually aren’t that many. He’s played “Thin Man” more or less the same way for years at a time.

Whi…

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In The Philosophy of Modern Song, Bob Dylan included a chapter about Marty Robbins’ 1959 country hit “El Paso.” Dylan wrote:

People talk about message songs, starting with Woody Guthrie and right up through the sixties. But “El Paso” is the ultimate message song, and reflective words would only hope to scratch the surface. It is so complex, yet it is so simple in its construction—this is a dark tale of indescribable beauty and death.

He spun “El Paso” on Theme Time Radio Hour once too—Season 1, Episode 20, “Musical Maps”—calling it “a song of rare beauty and elegance” and “a vivid western saga laden with drama, violence, and romance.” On his radio show, in addition to praising Robbins’ writing and delivery, he praised the “beautiful guitar figure” of guitarist Grady Martin.

Dylan has performed “El Paso” twice—both times at the same show! And I mentioned that Grady Martin guitar figure because, despite all Dylan’s praise for Robbins’ lyric writing, he played it instrumentally.

The occasion for the double “El Paso” was a 1989 show in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and it kicks off a series I’m starting on places Dylan has played just one time. I’m calling the series “Only Passing Through.” It’s an excuse to look at shows in out-of-the-way places (out-of-the-way for Dylan tours, that is—the next city I’m going to do has a population of 1.5 million). Think of it like a virtual tour to cities you may never go to in real life. What are those places like? Do they have any interesting music history? Were people there excited for Dylan? Why didn’t he ever return? And did Dylan acknowledge the location at all?

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I began this entry thinking that there weren’t as many posters for Bob Dylan in the 1980s as there were in the 1970s and the 1960s. Turns out, that’s only partly true. He did a number of big tours in the 1980s. While some of those tours didn’t have many posters, others had a ton.

As usual, I’ll start with the standard poster formats—the ones that Dylan used for many shows—then share some favorite one-offs at the end. (Credit as always to DylanStubs, where most of these come from.)

Disclaimer: I’m using the term “poster” a little loosely. “Printed concert advertising material” is more accurate, but makes for a cumbersome headline. Working off digital images of these decades later, it can sometimes be difficult to determine whether these were posters hung up on walls, flyers handed out, or even ads in magazines or newspapers. Where I do know, I’ll say.

The gospel tours of 1979, 1980, and 1981 seemed to be mostly sold via newspaper advertisement, but I found a couple standardized posters used sporadically. The one on the left was used a few times in November 1980 on the West Coast, then the one on the right was used fairly often in Summer 1981 in Europe. Love that Annie Leibovitz photo, taken in 1977 during his Rolling Stone cover shoot. If it looks familiar, it’s because he also used that photo for a bunch of 1978 posters.

Here’s a photo of that second poster in action that was printed in the Bob Dylan Songbook (thanks Ian Woodward for sharing):

Update: Summer 1981 also included the following design in France. Thanks to Jan for sending!

Then, in Fall 1981, they switched to this template. Which I like in terms of design (it has a Never Ending Tour flavor, especially that “SEE LIVE!!!” tagline—like a precursor to “Don’t You Dare Miss It”), but that’s kind of a ghoulish drawing of Bob, no?

His next tour, 1984, proved a rich one for posters. No surprise, maybe: Dylan was playing giant stadiums with Santana, and they had a lot of tickets to sell. Joan Baez was on the first batch of dates too, and they used this design, which looks great.

Both of the alternate poster designs below got used a few times too. I like them slapping on the tiny “BOB” in the one on the left, in the little box above “DYLAN.” Like it might not otherwise be clear which Dylan they were referring to. Was Dylan McDermott touring with Santana?

When the 1984 tour came to the UK—promoted by superpromoter Harvey Goldsmith, who I interviewed here—they switched to this design. No Baez anymore, but a variety of openers. As you’ll see, those openers are the primary difference between these two examples:

Note the red-white-and-blue theme around the Fourth of July, and the American and British flags too.

Now for a personal favorite tour, the first Dylan/Petty run—“True Confessions” 1986. I wrote a whole series on it earlier this year. A couple standard poster templates across Australia, Japan, and the U.S.:

There was also this horizontal variant, which included their photoshoot together:

A few of those summer shows featured the Grateful Dead on the bill too (Dead scholar Jesse Jarnow recently wrote about them here). The Dead people came up with this excellent Dylan+Dead graphic for the occasion:

Strangely, the next summer, when Dylan was (in)famously using The Dead as his backing band, they didn’t bring back that logo. Then again, they did have a great new photo to use. Posters looked like this. You’ll notice they repurpose the phrase “Alone + Together” from the Petty tours.

In the fall, Dylan was back with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers for one more round. The tour name changed for this final run from “True Confessions” to “Temples in Flames.” The poster designs mostly changed too, though a few places used variations on the 1986 version. Here are some designs that popped up a lot in Europe:

Which brings us to…drumroll…the Never Ending Tour!

The 1980s only have two Never Ending Tour years, but three primary poster designs. The first two, which seemed to get used interchangeably for 1988 and the first part of 1989, were these. There are many design variations on them for different shows, but these are the two photos that come up over and over again:

I do love on these early Never Ending Tour posters that they list the band members. G.E. Smith might well be known to Saturday Night Live viewers. You can find early newspaper ads that list Marshall Crenshaw too, who was hired and fired as Bob’s bassist before playing a single show.

Then, in fall 1989, all of a sudden the posters and promo materials switched to this blown-out live photo where you can’t really see his face.

And with that we reach the end of the 1980s. BUT, as usual, there are a ton of cool one-night-only posters. More than ever, actually (those Deadheads sure do have a way with art design). Bonus posters below.

Custom One-Night-Only Posters

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Bob Dylan mostly recorded his first two standards albums, Shadows in the Night and Fallen Angels, with his road band. The only other players on the albums are a small horn section, who appear on a few tracks on each. Today, we hear from a few members of that horn section.

They operate in a different recording world than Dylan: working off charts, union-scale pay, strict three-hour contracts, knocking out multiple sessions a day for different artists. That’s the old-school system of Frank Sinatra, who recorded most of these tunes first—and often in the same historic room Dylan did, Capitol Studios in Hollywood. And that’s how they worked with Dylan too, who seems to have adapted: Quick and efficient, with minimal small talk or wasted time.

Here are three of the horn players’ recollections of recording on Shadows in the Night (the same sessions also yielded Fallen Angels, effectively an outtakes album).

Dylan Skye Hart — French Horn

One of other guys told me you were actually named after Dylan. Is that correct?

That is correct.

It was kind of crazy. I didn’t know who we were playing for. I just knew that we had a session at Capitol Records. I was running late, barely making it by the skin of my teeth. So I just got in there, put my stuff down, we started practicing—like, “oh, cool, we’re doing some Great American Songbook stuff.” Then Bob Dylan showed up like 30 minutes later. My heart stopped.

We were recording Frank Sinatra charts in Capitol Records. That’s where Frank Sinatra recorded those charts. And my teacher, Vincent DeRosa, was Sinatra’s first horn player. Sinatra had so much respect for Vince DeRosa that he used to call him Maestro. He’d be like, “Maestro, how’s the kids?”

So there was already that connection, and then it was Bob Dylan, the person I was named after. My mom was obsessed, she absolutely loved Bob Dylan. I’ve heard all of his albums thousands of times. So having that kind of cosmic coincidence happening just felt crazy, crazy special.

I remember after one of the sessions, we were saying goodbye, and I shook his hand. Then I held my hand and I didn’t touch anything and I drove straight to my mom’s house. I was like, “Mom, you gotta shake my hand!”

What do you remember about the sessions themselves?

We were in Capitol Room B, which is the smaller of the two rooms. They had the brass in the hallway that’s in between the booth and the room. In the room itself was the band in a circle, and then Bob Dylan stood in the center and sang. It was very intimate, very small. Four or five people, plus maybe four of us on brass.

For me personally, it was high-pressure. Like, I really felt like this was important. The weight of the situation made itself known to me. And there were a lot of horn solos that I had to do and some kind of high, tricky stuff. I remember pulling myself together and having to go through that.

You mentioned the handshake. Did you have any other interactions with Dylan himself?

No, he’s a pretty private person. I spend a lot of time backing up big names, and some people are more friendly than others. Like Michael Bublé just wants to be part of the group, one of the cats. Then people like Barbra Streisand, she has her own world where she has the people that she talks to. And that’s fine.

I always call what I do being secret-famous, because everybody’s heard me, but nobody knows who I am. Like I can walk through an airport and I know every single person at that airport has heard me play, and not one person can identify me. That’s kind of cool.

Did any part of you debate whether to tell him that you were named after him?

Yeah, I figured if I got in a conversation with him that went beyond the formalities, I would tell him, but I wasn’t about to try and barge in and be like, “Oh, I’m so glad to meet you. I was named after you!” I don’t think generally that’s what people want when they’re working with you, you know?

I’m trying to imagine how that would go. I’m not imagining anything good.

I always try and treat people like normal people. I try not to treat them famous.

So you’re watching him work. What are you observing? What is his demeanor?

He was very quiet in terms of feedback or criticism. I mean, his band was just so good, and they knew it. He would just stand in the middle and kind of absorb it all and sing. He didn’t really have to say much.

It must have been quite a moment when you don’t know who it is, and then your namesake walks in the door.

Yeah. I mean, we do a lot of anonymous sessions. Then you show up and you’re like, “Oh, there’s Snoop Dogg” or “There’s Dr. Dre.”

Are those real examples?

Yeah. Dr. Dre is super nice.

The spread from Michael Bublé to Dr. Dre is a wide one.

One of the most amazing experiences I had was playing with the Wu-Tang Clan for Coachella. In between rehearsal and show, we were having lunch. The whole band, like all of the Wu-Tang Clan, were at a table like next to me. After lunch they started talking business.

It was the most fascinating thing I’ve ever heard, because they were speaking, you know, in slang and however Wu-Tang speaks. But if you translated it into like Fortune-500-executive-room-speak, it would be the same exact language. Think of Method Man and Redman and all of them sitting at a table, all talking. It was really mind-blowing to listen to.

Any other memories or stories we haven’t hit on yet?

I can so see myself there. I remember the lighting. I remember where I was sitting. I remember looking down at the floor to gather myself before playing a solo. For me, it was such a banner moment in my career and in my life, and I’m so grateful to have been able to be there for it.

Andy Martin — Trombone

Do you remember how you got involved in that session?

I did two sessions, I believe, and they were quick. I got called by the contractor. His name is Dan Savant. He put out a call for a small horn section. He wouldn’t tell us the artist.

The funny thing I remember about it is they set us up in the drum booth. As you enter Capitol B from the hallway, you enter into the drum booth, and then you either take a right turn into the recording booth or you go straight through the drum booth into the main studio. So we’re sitting there facing the main studio, the glass door between our drum booth and the studio, then we hear the door swing open behind us. Sure enough, there’s Bob Dylan walking by us to get to the main studio.

Is this the first time you realize who the session is for?

Exactly. I forget if he even said hello. He seems really shy. He might have grunted out a hello or something, then went into the main studio where his band was and where he was going to be.

Al Schmitt was the engineer for everybody for decades and decades and decades. He’s got this scratchy voice, but super sweet guy. I remember that he was very impressed with Bob Dylan, which takes a lot for Al Schmitt to be impressed with an artist, because he’s worked with everybody from Sinatra on down. I recall he loved the professionalism and the ears and the attention to detail that Bob had.

The other detail I remember is they would invite the horns in for one listen back in the booth where everybody was. They’d say, “OK, guys, just listen one time and then leave the room. That’s what Bob wants.” So we just go have our one listen and then leave the room so they could have their privacy. During a listen back when we were allowed into the booth, I just remember him listening very intently to the track and leaning over the soundboard, really checking things out closely.

The two songs I have you on in the credits for the first album are “I’m a Fool to Want You” and “Lucky Old Sun” but I know sometimes these things are not complete. Does that sound correct? Or is there more? Or different?

Yeah, probably just two tunes.

Are you doing a bunch of takes?

We did four or five takes on each tune.

When you’re recording with someone like that who’s in the legend status, is the pay any better, or does that not correlate?

If it’s a union session, the pay’s probably the same for anybody. We get paid according to, like, if we’re playing first chair. I probably got paid extra for being principal trombone. And we get paid twice as much if we overdub to tracks. Certain specifics like that are in the contracts. It just depends on who you’re working for. I’m sure Dan Savant being our contractor probably got us some extra money somehow. He’s always good about that.

I talk to a lot of musicians who’ve played with Dylan and usually it’s loose and you show up and they mess around for hours. Very casual. Lord knows there aren’t any charts. This is sort of a different world.

That’s correct. They probably warned Bob, “We’re on a time schedule here. We got union musicians; we can’t go past three or four hours.” That’s probably why they hired DJ Harper to write the charts, so we’re not just making up horn parts. We have something specific that they thought about before we got there.

It’s sort of appropriate that when he’s doing these Sinatra songs, it’s in this more old-school way where it’s a union gig and there’s charts. A little more formal. If it’s a union gig and you go over the allotted time, do you have to say, that’s it, we’re done?

No. You have an hour specifically allotted to go overtime, but if it goes past that the musician has the option to leave. Past that fourth hour is really on the musician. If they want to keep paying overtime, I’m more than happy to stay if I have nowhere else to be. That means we’re making a lot more money.

Alan Kaplan — Trombone

How did you get connected with this session?

It’s not unusual for us to get calls kind of last minute. These were all evening sessions, and I got called that day. It was late, like three o’clock the first time I did it, for a session at seven. I believe I did three of the sessions on this project. When I show up at Capitol, I don’t know what it is. He just said, “It’s a record date, 7 o’clock at Capitol.” I walk in and there’s Bob Dylan and his band.

Those things happen quite a bit. I got a call from a different contractor one time to show up in the same room, Capitol B. I walk in and there’s Paul McCartney playing bass.

Back to the Dylan one. I walk in, and there’s Dylan in the room with his band, and a handful of us were in an iso [isolation] room. They generally use it for the drum sets, but it’s big enough to have like four people, so that’s where we were. Bob Dylan walks by, shakes our hands—kind of a meek one, I’ll say. Kind of a soft handshake.

“Dead fish” is the phrase that gets thrown around.

That’s exactly right. It was a dead fish handshake.

And there’s Al Schmitt, who was one of the top engineers for years at Capitol. I noticed he was very hands-off. I’d never seen an engineer just sit there with his arms folded like that. They normally do a lot of micromanaging and tweaking, you know. I was kind of surprised. But we just played our parts, and they played theirs.

What I believe was happening was Bob’s band was rehearsing during the day, learning the tunes. I have a feeling they might not have been readers, just from the way they were doing it.

When you say “readers,” you mean sheet music?

Yes. If you can read, you can play it right away, but if you need to learn it, that takes time. That’s what they were doing.

The arranger was the son of a composer-arranger that I’ve worked with for years. His name was DJ Harper. He had come up with takedowns. These were all mainly Sinatra recordings, and he had made arrangements for a very small horn section with Dylan’s band. Those were very quickly scratched out. Probably that’s why we got called the same day. Dylan probably selected which tune to do and [Harper would have to] make the arrangement. I have a feeling everything was hot off the press.

People said that a lot of the Dylan arrangements were basically the Frank arrangements, but pared down. Not with a giant orchestra, but a small band and maybe a couple horns here and there.

That’s exactly right. DJ Harper came up with a very reduced arrangement for those tunes. Which wouldn’t take that long. Al Schmitt was telling me that they were just cranking out tunes. Then they sort of decided, which one are we going to record tonight? Which one are we going to have horns on?

Each session we only did one tune. I remember running it through maybe once, and then the band on their own ran through some things, and then we made two or three takes.

This is all live, everyone together, or are you overdubbing?

Yes, Bob was singing live. That’s what was nice about it. The whole band was set up with Bob singing in the main room, and we were in that one iso room.

If you listen to the album, it’s all a pretty consistent sound of his band. I personally would like to have heard the horns a little louder, but it wasn’t up to me.

You’re very prominent on “The Night We Called It A Day,” but do you remember what the other songs you might have recorded on?

That’s the thing. I have the disc in front of me, and these credits aren’t exactly correct. I know that I played on three tunes, and it only shows me on one. I’m positive I played on “I’m a Fool to Want You,” and I know I worked with Dan Fornero on trumpet. He’s not listed. I know I did “I’m a Fool to Want You” and “The Night We Called It A Day.” I have a solo on “The Night We Called It A Day.” I could have been on those tracks and “Lucky Old Sun.”

Bob pulled a second album out of the same sessions, Fallen Angels. There’s some horns on there, too, but not much in the way of credits. Maybe one of your tracks is on there.

That may be what happened. Maybe the other tune I did was on that album. I know I did three, and possibly they’re on the other record.

This was a really special thing for me too because I’m a real fan of the Sinatra ballad albums. I even did my own album of ballads, mostly Sinatra songs, about 20 years ago. “I’m a Fool to Want You” is one of the tunes I did, and also the one that I played the solo on, “The Night We Called It a Day.” So I’m very familiar with those arrangements because I’ve listened to the Frank albums so much.

Did you have much direct interaction with Dylan other than that dead fish handshake?

None at all. Just when he went through the room and shook our hand and said thanks at the end. Our interaction, as far as what we did, was totally with the conductor, DJ. Bob pretty much stayed in [the main room]. Whatever discussions he had were with his guys. He left DJ to deal with us.

Are you there for hours, or are you in and out pretty quick?

We were called for three-hour sessions, and we got done early. We did the one tune, and that was it. There’s time to do more than one on a three-hour session for sure, but I remember it being a very slow pace, very relaxed. Do a take, listen to it, whatever. It was not a high-pressure situation as far as time goes.

Since you played on the song, have you ever seen the music video Dylan made for “The Night We Called It A Day”?

No! I didn’t know there was one.

Not only is there one, but it is great. Like a violent film noir. Robert Davi is in it, who was the villain in a Bond movie years ago.

I backed up Robert Davi. He does the Sinatra songs, too. Besides doing the album, I backed him up on a few live gigs, doing his act. He’s a pretty good singer.

As far as the sessions, I was just amazed that Dylan was doing this kind of project. It was so not his thing. I liked to see him keeping that material alive. They’re such great songs.

Thanks to all three of these great horn players for talking! You can find out more about them at their respective websites: dylanskyehart.com, drewbone.com, and alankaplan.org.

Today’s show 37 years ago has a unique distinction: It is the only Never Ending Tour show I know of where Bob Dylan only performed songs from the 1960s! Look at this setlist:

1. Visions Of Johanna

2. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

3. Positively 4th Street

4. I Want You

5. Ballad Of A Thin Man

6. Highway 61 Revisited

7. Love Minus Zero/No Limit

8. Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (Trad.)

9. It’s …

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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!

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Bob Dylan just announced his first shows at London’s Royal Festival Hall since 1964! Inspired by that, I’ve dusted off a draft I started a while back, looking at a similarly-named iconic London venue he’s played much more often…

The Royal Albert Hall looms larger in Bob Dylan lore than it perhaps should. As you may already know, his most famous “Royal Albert Hall” show did not, in fact, take place at the Royal Albert Hall. Fans misattributed the famous “Judas” show to the wrong location for years, when in fact it took place in Manchester. The fourth Bootleg Series was even titled Live 1966, The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert—that’s why “Royal Albert Hall” is in quotes. They should have subtitled it The Manchester Free Trade Hall concert, but that’s not how most fans knew Dylan’s most famous show.

When I went to research this, I also discovered he’s played the Royal Albert Hall fewer times than I expected. I’d considered it the UK’s equivalent to the Beacon Theatre for Dylan, but he’s played the Beacon 47 times and the Royal Albert Hall just 15. Not even close. It’s not even the venue he’s played the most in London; that would be the Hammersmith Odeon (now the Hammersmith Apollo), primarily due to several long residencies there in the early 1990s.

This is not a knock at the iconic venue—I went there in 2024, and it’s truly stunning. Just a note that I’d associated it more with Bob than I maybe should have. He’s played Vorst Nationaal in Brussels as many times as he’s played the Royal Albert Hall, and I’ve never heard anyone waxing rhapsodic about whatever that is.

In fact, Dylan has visited the Royal Albert Hall on just five occasions. Interestingly, every single visit was for a residency, at least a short one. He has never played a single stand-alone show at the venue. Two nights minimum every time. Even the Beacon had a one-off the last time he played it. The Beacon, though, he didn’t play until 1989 (surprising, right?). Dylan’s Royal Albert Hall run started all the way back in…

1965 — May 9, 10

In 1965, on the tour we all know from Dont Look Back, Dylan played two shows at the Royal Albert Hall. The day before the first show, outside the Savoy Hotel a couple miles away, he filmed a short video to include in the movie. Perhaps you’ve seen it before:

It’s an amazing juxtaposition comparing that clip to the songs he played the following night. You’d never know he already had “Subterranean Homesick Blues” in the can. This is Bob’s final solo-acoustic tour, and most of the songs he plays come from his solo-acoustic repertoire. He’s already “gone electric”—Bringing It All Back Home came out the month before these shows—but his shows won’t reflect that fact until the summer. To the fans attending these shows, the first half of that album might have felt like a studio lark. Okay, he tried something weird with his latest album, but clearly that’s not the real Bob Dylan. The real Bob Dylan is still up there, alone in the spotlight, strumming on his acoustic guitar, singing “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and “With God on Our Side.”

Backstage though, he was pushing forward. This clip from Dont Look Back was filmed in the Royal Albert Hall green room:

In the crowd for the first show: All four members of The Beatles, who would famously name-check the venue a couple years later (“now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall”). As author Jim Windolf details in his excellent new book Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other―and the World, the Fab Four filmed a scene for their movie Help! during the day, then headed to the show.

Afterwards, all four Beatles went back with Dylan to his hotel, the Savoy. Windolf reports a conversation from the Dont Look Back outtakes. “Lovely gig, man,” Lennon tells Dylan. “They didn’t dig ‘It’s Alright, Ma,’ ” says Dylan. “Maybe they didn’t get it,” John responds. “It’s the price of being ahead of your time.”

Dylan retorts: “Maybe, but I’m only twenty minutes ahead, so I won’t get far.”

1966 — May 26, 27

The following year, Dylan returned to the Royal Albert Hall for another two shows, again in May. Anyone expecting more of what they’d seen the previous year would have been quite surprised. Though these weren’t, as people long believed, the “Judas” shows, they were plenty confrontational.

Dylan, for once, tried to turn down the temperature. In one of several long, rambling monologues the second night, he tells the audience, “I realize it’s loud music but if you don’t like it, well, that’s fine.” He added later, “You can take it or leave it. It doesn’t matter to me, it really doesn’t. I love you all.”

It didn’t work. Boos mixed with applause throughout. Documentarian D.A. Pennebaker recalled later, “Albert Hall was the wildest. People were really shouting at him and he was screaming back.” It’s more like drawling back, not screaming, but the point stands. “You’re talking to the wrong person, man,” he tells the crowd after someone shouts during his “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” song intro. “I’m the last person in the world to explain any of these songs, but I wanna do this because this is the last concert here. You don’t want me to do it, just say so, I won’t, I don’t care. I couldn’t care less. We’ll just play the music and leave. And you and you and you can just go out and read some books.”

Then he does actually shout, as the band starts playing: “Read J.D. Salinger!”

Once again, on hand were the four Beatles. In fact, the morning after Dylan’s first show is when the famous scene of Dylan and Lennon in the back of the car was filmed:

The Beatles attended the second show, where they reportedly shouted back at the hecklers. Windolf quotes George Harrison as saying later, “The people who walked out must have been idiots, and they couldn’t have known the real Dylan. It was all still pure Dylan.”

2013 — Nov 26, 27, 28

That 1966 was Dylan’s last concert for a few years. But, amazingly, it was last Royal Albert Hall concert for 47 years! He did not return until 2013.

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As I did with the 1960s entry, I’ll start with the standard poster formats—the ones that Dylan’s people used for many shows—then share some favorite one-offs at the end. (Credit as always to DylanStubs, where most of these come from.)

Disclaimer: I’m using the term “poster” a little loosely. “Printed concert advertising material” is more accurate, but makes for a cumbersome headline. Working off digital images of these decades later, it can sometimes be difficult to determine whether these were posters hung up on walls, flyers handed out, or even ads in magazines or newspapers. Where I do know, I’ll say.

Dylan didn’t tour until 1974, his so-called comeback tour with The Band (explored in depth here). Technically speaking, I don’t think there were any posters. Not that I can find, anyway. Everything seems to have been done through newspaper ads. Place a full-page ad in the local paper, sell out the show. It worked most nights. They looked like this. Simple, effective.

Both legs of Rolling Thunder did have posters, plastered up at the venue a day or two before. (See my interview with one of Rolling Thunder’s poster plasterers here for more info on that.) They all used a standard format. The box at the bottom was to write in the individual show details. Here’s the 1975 edition:

In 1976, they used a similar format, with two different variations. My guess is the first one—on the left below—was made earlier, before they knew the full lineup. Though I wonder why Kinky Friedman, who took over the Ramblin’ Jack slot, didn’t get Jack’s prominent poster placement next to Joan. Or, for that matter, why Roger McGuinn—surely a bigger draw than either Jack or Kinky—never did either. At least their names end up there eventually in the fine print below Bob Neuwirth.

Also note the Dylan photo changes between the two variants. The first shot comes from the Rolling Thunder rehearsals; the second is the famous photo later used on the cover of Live 1975.

Pretty straightforward so far, right? 1978 is where things get messier. In Japan, promoters must have had license to design their own posters. There are suddenly a lot of one-offs, which I’ll hit at the bottom. The closest thing I can find to a standardized format is this, which popped up for a few different runs of dates.

When the 1978 tour moved from Japan to Australia, the format changed. Now the posters typically looked like this:

That continued through the summer tour, with some variations. Then, for the Fall tour, there was a third standardized 1978 poster. It looked like this:

Again, seeing these out of context, it’s a little muddled what is a poster and which is a newspaper ad. I’m assuming the version above is a newspaper ad since it says “Tomorrow.” But from this Etsy sale it looks like the actual posters used the same design.

His final tour of the decade, the first Christian run in 1979, repeated it. Funny—1979 was a very different tour from 1978, but you’d never know it from the advertising!

And that’s it! I suspect the 1970s might be our shortest and easiest decade in this series.

Here are some of my favorite one-off posters. Some really wild stuff here!

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Two things struck me listening to this subscriber-requested show (thanks James!) from an era I haven’t visited in ages.

The first can be summarized in one word: Wolfman! You know how I sometimes write in reviews, “It took a few songs for his voice to warm up?” A common occurrence at Dylan shows for a long time (see: an endless parade of gravely “Watching…

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We’ve been deep into 1986 all year—first my Australia/New Zealand series in February, then Dead scholar Jesse Jarnow’s four-parter on Dylan & The Heartbreakers & The Dead ’86, plus a loosie subscriber-request in the mix too (catch up on all those here). But it’s the 40th anniversary of a tour I love, and I’m excited to dive in one last time. For now.

For those who followed my earlier series about the first leg of their tour together, I wanted to check in on the second leg, to compare how things have changed since all those shows I wrote about a few months ago. Dylan & The Heartbreakers spent the entire summer barnstorming the U.S. In some ways, it looked a lot like all those Australia shows I wrote about six months ago. In others, it looked very different.

The band hasn’t changed. At least, not much. A couple Queens of Rhythm have left, and a couple more have replaced them, most notably Bob’s new secret wife Carolyn Dennis—they were married just days before the summer tour began, though no one would know about it for 15 years. But Dylan is still backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers every night. So what has changed?

Well, speaking of Petty, the Heartbreakers’ two mid-show sets have doubled in length. They were playing only four songs each show in Australia. That seemed low, given that they were huge stars in their own right who got prominent billing on these shows (were they not that big in Australia?), so, appropriately enough, now they do eight songs a night. Here’s a fun “Heartbreak Hotel” they bust out at today’s final show, after Tom salutes the road crew:

And what about Bob? There are a few major changes to the standard setlist. The opening old-time-rock-and-roll number has changed. In the winter, it was generally “Train Of Pain” or “Justine” (which, as noted, are very similar). In the summer, it’s usually the 1950s Weldon Rodgers country obscurity “So Long, Good Luck And Goodbye” with an occasional swap of Little Richard’s rave-up “Shake A Hand” or Ray Charles’ 1961 hit “Unchain My Heart,” which Dylan had actually recorded during the Knocked Out Loaded sessions. The final night in Paso Robles gets the Little Richard number, the last time he ever played it:

Speaking of covers, “I’m Moving On” mid-show gets replaced by another country song, “We Had It All,” covered by a number of singers in the ‘70s, including Dylan’s buddy Bobby Neuwirth.

Among Dylan songs, “Shot of Love,” performed only a couple times the first leg, becomes a set regular in the summer. More notably, though, so does the new original song Dylan and the Heartbreakers recorded in Australia: “Band of the Hand.” It gets debuted the opening night of the summer tour and played almost every night after. This Paso Robles performance is the last time he played it.

Meanwhile he dropped, mostly or entirely, some first-tour staples like “Trust Yourself,” “Lenny Bruce,” and his solo-acoustic staple “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).”

Maybe my favorite of all, “When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky” got an amazing new extended intro. I wrote last year, “Holy shit, those vocals. Bob somehow both belting and crooning, accompanied by Benmont Tench’s slow synths and the Queens of Rhythm. When it finally kicks into high speed, over two minutes into the runtime, it’s all the more effective.”

Some other intriguing summer setlist additions, though these songs never became regulars, were:

• Lay Lady Lay

• Union Sundown

• I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine

• I Want You

• Brownsville Girl

• Got My Mind Made Up

• Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Of those, “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” and “I Want You” are great. So is, surprisingly, “Union Sundown,” a generally fairly wretched song. And this was the only-ever live version of the Dylan-Petty cowrite “Got My Mind Made Up.”

And those were just the Dylan originals. If you read my 1986 series earlier this year, you know how much I love the covers he did with the Heartbreakers. All these got added to the rotation in the summer. For most of these, it was the first and last time Dylan ever performed them:

• So Long, Good Luck And Goodbye

• Shake a Hand

• Unchain My Heart

• We Had It All

• Rock With Me Baby

• Let The Good Times Roll

• Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache

• Bye Bye Johnny

• Good Rockin’ Mama

• Kansas City

• I Still Miss Someone

• All My Tomorrows

A few of those—“Red Cadillac,” “We Had It All,” “All My Tomorrows”—rank among my favorite live covers of his ever. Here’s the former:

It all culminated at this final show in Paso Robles, 40 years ago today. Dylan wasn’t done with surprises, either. He had one more song to add to the tour rotation. It was an original song he’d never played before, and he never played it again.

Yes, this show saw the one and only live performance of “Brownsville Girl”!

If you’ve never heard it before, let me recommend you close this newsletter now. As far as you’ll ever know, he played the whole thing, the entire crowd rose as one to applaud, it was a triumph. Go on, get outta here, you’ll be happier believing that!

If you have heard it, though, you’ll know that’s not at all what happened. On paper—magic. In reality—wildly disappointing. The band seems to have rehearsed it, but Bob never bothers singing any of the verses. He and the backing singers just repeat the chorus. Over and over again. No Gregory Peck, no Corpus Christi Tribune, no Henry Porter who’s not Henry Porter. I mean, is anyone’s favorite part of “Brownsville Girl” the chorus?

It feels endless, way longer than its four-and-a-half minutes. Gotta be in the running for his most disappointing live performance ever. Can you imagine how excited you’d be in the crowd when they started it? And then this is what you get.

Apparently he performed it for, of all things, an Entertainment Tonight segment. “That was an old song that I recorded,” he tells the crowd when they finish. “We did that for TV. Anyway, I’ll get back to the regular part of the program.” Very unlike Bob to play a song only so they can air a video on TV—especially on a cheesy Hollywood show like Entertainment Tonight.

Here’s what the resulting TV piece looked like. Facilitating this short news clip is apparently the only reason he played “Brownsville Girl.” Wild. (Thanks Dag Braathen for sending me this.)

But let’s not let this unbelievably half-assed “Brownsville Girl” sully a great end to a great tour. This tape, while far from a soundboard, features so much of what made the two 1986 tours wonderful, from the covers (“We Had It All” is the highpoint here) to the blasted-to-the-rafters originals (“Gotta Serve Somebody” rips) to the majestic takes on his new songs (man do I love that “When the Night Comes Falling” intro). Maybe next year I’ll do a Dylan/Petty 1987 40th-anniversary series too. There are some good performances in there. But the vibe wouldn’t be the same.

1986-08-06, Mid-State Fairground, Paso Robles, CA

Catch up on the entire True Confessions 1986 series here.

Last night, Bob Dylan played the final show of the Long Hot Summer Tour in Nashville. Though the setlist didn’t change, he had one last surprise up his sleeve: opening act Jimmie Vaughan, who last played with Dylan in 2024, sat in for three songs. You can see him standing next to Dylan in that grainy photo above.

On the scene was Henry Bernstein, who hosts the monthly Dylan podcast Songs of Experience. Henry reports in:

When I saw “August 1, Nashville, TN,” as the last date on the Long Hot Summer tour (which I had been calling the “Hot Bob Summer tour” until the shirts were revealed), I circled that in my mind as a must-go-to. Bob Dylan, in August in Music City USA, home of Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift and so many more. It would not be my first time in the Volunteer state, as I got to see Dylan sing “Big River” in Memphis just three short years ago.

After an incredible night in Atlanta, I was wondering how it could top Hotlanta? Would Bob acknowledge the last night or the city? Would any special guests come out? Would he add an extra song? Having been to several “Last shows,” I tempered my expectations. So let’s get into it:

The Venue

When I think of Summer Dylan concerts, my mind goes to giant soulless amphitheaters like Tinley Park, IL. However, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the venues on this tour. See my recap of Atlanta, for more on that. Just a two-block walk from “Kid Rock’s Honky Tonk” (a completely anachronistic phrase) on Broadway, in the heart of Bachelor Party Central, is nestled the beautiful Ascend Amphitheater. With sprawling seats that descend to have a perfect view of the stage, I was completely surprised by not only how close the lawn was to the pavilion but how open everything was.

The Crowd

There were good vibes all around. People on the lawn were having a ball. There were musicians everywhere, children, young adults, and folks of Bob’s generation. I didn’t detect any drunk assholes or yappers who used the night as a venue to have a conversation or get wasted. It seemed like everyone was there for music. What a novel thought! Although it was mostly a sitting crowd, for the most part, no one seemed mad when the few of us here and there got up to dance.

The Show

At 8:55, the lights went down fast and on came the band, getting started before Bob was even at his piano. You have to be in your seat, ready to go, when he comes on! One thing that was special was that most of Lucinda’s band and some of Jimmie’s band were all watching the show from the side. Even they didn’t want to miss their hero one last time. In the Pro Wrestling world, this is called a “Curtain Sellout.” Meaning that everyone backstage is watching the match—or in this case Bob Dylan.

1. Watching The River Flow

For the second night in a row, “Watching the River Flow” replaced “To Be Alone With You.” A welcome change, at least by me. What’s funny is “To Be Alone” is the one song from Nashville Skyline on the setlist—but got dropped in Nashville.

2. Man In The Long Black Coat

I love the irony of Bob singing this song in a long white coat. This was where guitarist Joel Paterson really started to get going. He utilizes the whammy bar on his hollowbody guitar quite effectively. Getting that “wah wah” sound on a spooky song like this is perfect. The band has gotten quite good at being in sync when Bob wants them to cut out, get quiet or come back in big. This song was the start of that last night.

3. It Ain’t Me, Babe

I don’t need the crowd pleaser songs, I’m happy to get one. Bob plays a song in a familiar arrangement, clearly singing each iconic, recognizable line. This was when I started to notice his enunciation tonight was crystal clear and intentional. The crowd loved singing along. Dylan’s voice seemed to get stronger and stronger as the song went on. Paterson’s guitar solo was just perfect and Julian Lage was smiling ear to ear (does he ever stop smiling? No. Dream gig for him).

4. Tryin’ To Get To Heaven

Like “Long Black Coat,” to me this is a deep cut. One of my absolute favorites from Time Out of Mind. We are lucky we got to hear it all summer long. Again, some really nice guitar work from Paterson. He sometimes follows Bob’s piano notes, almost like a call and response or lick trading.

5. False Prophet

Ok here we go. All of a sudden, the band started looking towards the back, including Bob, and they waited. And there appeared the opening act, and guest of Bob Dylan in 2024, Jimmie F’n Vaughan. If you listen to the tape you’ll hear someone go “WHOAAAA JIMMIE! HELL YES!” It’s me, hi, I’m the someone, it’s me. This is where I got my closing-show wish: a special guest.

In Atlanta, I had noted the arrangement shifted slightly. Here it was back, probably to accommodate Jimmie? Jimmie got very close to Bob, was playing to him and Bob was smiling, laughing and actually singing some pointed lyrics at Jimmie. Julian looked like all of us. Bob gave several approving nods. Vaughan started off quiet but then got more and more brave with his solos.

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A while ago, I had a question: What’s the best song Bob Dylan has never played live?

Attempting to answer that question quickly steers you into a semantic roadblock though: How do you define “best”? While I’ve been known to throw the word around in various lists, we all understand “best” is being used loosely. To paraphrase Tom Friend, that’s just, like, my opinion, man.

But I wanted an answer a little more definitive than just my personal favorite he’s never played live (though I’ll get to that too). What would be the consensus pick for his best song he’s never played live?

To figure that out, I looked at Rate Your Music. This long-running site lets users do just that: rate music. Thousands of people have rated every single Bob Dylan song, and all those thousands of ratings have been averaged on a five-star scale. This was as good a place as I could find to get a consensus read on what the world at large considers the “best” Bob Dylan songs. Reassuringly, the top few songs look like you’d expect among the general populace: “Like a Rolling Stone” #1, “Hurricane” #2, “Tangled Up in Blue” #3, etc.

Those top ones have all been played live though. I had to dig deeper. So I went through all the top 100 Dylan songs there. Amazingly, Dylan has played the overwhelming majority of them live. 96 out of 100, to be exact. For all the grief he gets for not playing the hits…he’s played almost all of the hits!

Only four songs on this top-100 list have never been played live. Here they are, in reverse order, leading up to the best “official” designation I can think of for The Best Song Bob Dylan Never Played Live (as determined by these thousands of Rate Your Music voters, at least).

#4. Black Diamond Bay

As noted in the recent Rolling Thunder 1976 series, there was one report he did play this at the lost Salt Lake City Show. But, for various reasons you can read about here if you’re curious, that intel is highly suspect. So, at #4, the one Desire song he never played live. Probably.

#3. John Wesley Harding

You can see why many Desire songs either never got played live or, if they did, never outlived their era. The sound was very specific to that album and that band. But John Wesley Harding’s title track is an odd choice to never play. That album’s spare folk-rock seems more adaptable to different eras. Indeed, many songs from that album he’s played for decades. But never this, or “I Am a Lonesome Hobo” (#194 on the Rate Your Music list) either. Understandably, but unfortunately, a lot of the songs he’s never played live come from that post-motorcycle crash period when he wasn’t touring.

#2. Murder Most Foul

No secret why he’s never played this live—it’s long as hell! Also I imagine the vibe would be near-impossible to maintain in concert. (He’s struggled at times with “Key West,” and that’s half the length.) Every time the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour played Dallas, people wondered, was tonight the night? It never was.

And The Best Song Bob Dylan Never Played Live is…

#1. Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

Again: A long song! Then again, he did play “Highlands” a few times, not to mention he’s played “Desolation Row” (which is two seconds longer on the record) a ton. Kinda surprising he never at least gave “Sad-Eyed Lady” a shot in the past 60 years. It was rehearsed for Rolling Thunder at least, so he apparently considered it. Renaldo and Clara include a short snippet of that rehearsal, which you can hear here (the talking over part of it is because this audio comes from the movie):

So there you have it, the best song Bob Dylan has never played live is officially “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” It lands at #16 on that Rate Your Music list, but he’s played all the Top 15, so it’s #1 for us.

But “Sad-Eyed Lady” is not my Best Song Bob Dylan Has Never Played Live. (Though, to be clear, I would hardly object to hearing any of those this summer!). So that’s the second half, after the jump. What’s the song I personally am most upset he’s never played live?

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