Last Night in Detroit (by Caryn Rose)

2026-04-04, Masonic Temple Theatre, Detroit, MI

Last night, Bob Dylan played the final of his three Michigan shows this tour. Veteran music journalist and Detroit resident Caryn Rose attended all three, and reports in on the final night.

Rose is the author most recently of a great Patti Smith tour zine which you can get in print here ($1 off with code ROWDY) or as an ebook here. And, if you’re a Bruce Springsteen fan, she’ll be covering his just-begun tour over at Radio Nowhere. Bringing those two people together, she interviewed Bruce about Patti for her last book; read an excerpt with that interview here.

Here’s Caryn Rose on last night’s show in Detroit, and how it compared to Saginaw and Grand Rapids:

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The Never Ending Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour rolled into the Motor City on Saturday night after previous stops in Grand Rapids on Thursday and Saginaw on Friday. If the room wasn’t officially sold out, it was close to it, and there was a definite big-city energy vibrating through the crowd in the hour or so before the show.

In a subjective, highly visual survey, demographically the audience was a solid cross-generational mix; special shoutout to the 20-something gentleman in the front rows who was rocking a solid Robbie Robertson ’74-era cosplay. (In the interests of full disclosure, I really have no ground to stand on here because I was wearing my Bob polka dots and my biker jacket.)

As he had the previous few evenings, Bob’s appearance onstage was prompt, after Anton, Tony, Bob Britt, and Doug had come onstage in the darkness and begun the opening vamp of “To Be Alone With You.” Dylan walked onstage to a warm ovation and delivered a brisk and energetic rendition of the tune while we in the audience had to listen to it through loud static coming through the speaker stacks. I feel bad for Detroit, because while I had two static-free evenings where I got to enjoy the 2026 version of this Nashville Skyline track, for everyone else here, this might be their only opportunity. The static got fixed by the next piano solo but issues with the mics remained. (More on this later, or it would end up being all I talk about.)

The stage lighting seemed like it was getting brighter as my shows progressed. I sat in about the same basic location every night (6th or 7th row, mostly center or just right of center) so it’s not that it seemed brighter because I was closer (which would be a logical conclusion). I mention the lighting because both tonight and the previous evening, the additional illumination made it easier to observe Bob’s face while he was singing, the expressions he would make, and the various turns (and glares) at the various band members. And it’s weird, because he’s coming out sporting the hoodie-over-a-ballcap combo (I decided tonight that he reminds me of a beekeeper in this getup) so you would think it would be harder to see him and yet somehow you’re still able to closely observe this essential activity you’re here for. It’s really such a gift after having his visage deliberately obscured in various ways over the years.

“Man in the Long Black Coat” has been an absolute treat to hear and, although I’m sure this has nothing to do with its appearance, I’m still giving props to Patti Smith who spent the spring of 2024 teaching herself how to play the song on guitar (and demonstrating her progress for her Substack subscribers) before introducing it to her setlist that summer. There’s something about the song’s simplicity that makes it fascinating and at times, electrifying. Tonight it fell somewhere in the middle, and that’s about where this show falls on the continuum of Bob Michigan Week. The same setlist, the same arrangements, the same basic performances, and yet, three definitely different experiences. But this is why we do this.

It’s always fun to hear the different responses to those opening notes that herald the reconstructed “All Along the Watchtower.” People know what it is and it’s not just the frequent fliers; the shouts and cheers come from the back corners and up in the balcony, the people who are not spending their spring vacation following Bob Dylan around the Midwest.

I was also considering how “‘There must be some way out of here,’ said the joker to the thief” is one of the great opening lines of popular song, how it works so well because we are immediately brought into not just the action of the moment but brought into the heart of the conflict, and because we know who the main actors are in the story. Just the immediacy of it will never not strike me as genius no matter how many times I hear it.