Last Night in Coventry (by Adam Selzer)

Plus Swansea two days before

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The Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour: 2025 Edition is nearing its end. But as of yesterday afternoon, Dylan has seemingly announced the tour will continue next year:

That announcement surely gave an extra jolt of excitement to last night’s show in Coventry, England. Another jolt of excitement: A pedal steel spotted before the show on stage! It turned out to actually be a lap steel (no pedals) set up on a stand, and was played not by a new person, but by guitarist Bob Britt on a number of songs. Can’t wait to hear the tape; it’s the first time someone’s been playing steel since Donnie Herron left early in 2024.

Adam Selzer, who last reported in from the wild Outlaw 2025 opening night, was on the ground in Coventry last night. He sends in this scene report and travelogue from the start of his run of UK dates, starting in Swansea the previous show two nights before. Here’s Adam:

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One of the great pleasures of following Dylan is ending up in towns you’d never think to visit. I hadn’t been to Wales before at all, and if I had, I wouldn’t have thought to go to Swansea, a charming seaside town with excellent ice cream and one of the castle ruins that seem to come standard in Welsh towns. Of course, all towns in the UK feel charming to me; they’re nearly all walkable, with populations clustered around a city centre. It’s a contrast to the spread-out nature of American small towns, where people drive for every single trip and seem to want to be as far from the neighbors as possible.

Before the Swansea show, I took my seat with Graham G, said hi to the other regulars such as Frederick and Ian (how cool to land in a new country and already have friends!), and watched Bob appear. He looked so different from the last time I saw him, now unhooded and looking like a badass in black blazer over a Welsh dragon t-shirt.

Photo via Daily Dylan

In the spring, there were a lot of “sounded like they were tuning but they weren’t” jams for intros, like primordial ooze out of which the songs emerged. They’ve expanded and gotten a bit more coherent now; “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” began with another jam that became focused around one riff which became the basis for the song. I was reminded of the clip of the Beatles writing “Get Back,” with Bob adding some not-bad guitar. He reached for the guitar a lot in Swansea.

I was a bit too jet lagged to properly judge the show, but Bob seemed to be experimenting a lot, looking for new melodies or hooks for the songs and not quite landing on one. These sorts of shows aren’t as compelling as nights where it all comes together, but can actually be more interesting, since it’s a fascinating chance to simply watch him at work.

And to be sure, there were times when it all came together, particularly in the second half of the show. “Black Rider” was back to feeling like The Doors, as it sounded to me a couple of years ago. It was one of the best “To Be Alone With You” performances I’ve seen in a while, possibly the strongest “Made Up My Mind” I’ve seen since the very first one, and the new “Baby Blue” arrangement took my breath away. “Crossing the Rubicon” was especially well sung. The newly upbeat “Mother of Muses” with its martial drum beat worked but sounded a bit … patriotic… for my taste, but I can’t say it didn’t work.

Doug seemed to be playing a bit of “I’ll Fly Away” on the electric guitar during “Every Grain of Sand,” a particularly inspired bit of interpolation.

However, having avoided listening to too many recent tapes, I wasn’t sure how much of this was really “new” yet. And one of the great benefits of following shows is being able to spot the little variations. Was that bit of “I’ll Fly Away” an every night thing, or what?

Jet lag aside, though, I was able to get myself to Queens Hotel with Graham, Graham, Nightlymoth, Maddy, Alison, Marielle, and Lili for a couple of Theakston’s Old Peculiars, which hit enough for me to read out a dirty unrecorded song I found in the Dylan Archives. I think a lot of interesting stories probably begin with “After a couple of Old Peculiars.” It became a night that ended up with a few of us absolutely sloppy in Graham’s (parked) car, listening to ten seconds of a watch recording of “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” over and over trying to make out a new line replacing the “like my head needs a noose” line (sounds like “I’ll play the fool, got no excuse”).