My Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour Finale Series—Updated!
Deep dives into: The Arrangements, The Covers, The Harmonica Solos, and more
This past April, many of us assumed the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour was over. The posters had all along read “2021–2024,” after all, and Dylan had just announced his first non-Rough and Rowdy tour to follow the final Spring show in Austin. Surely he wouldn’t do three full months of the entirely different Outlaw Tour, then suddenly lurch back into Rough and Rowdy mode, right?
You know where this is going. And, to be fair, I kind of did too. After all, the very first words in my post the morning after that Austin show were:
Last night marked the end of the Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour.
Maybe.
That post kicked off a giant five-part Rough and Rowdy Ways tour finale series. If that Austin show was indeed the end, I didn’t want to miss the moment to commemorate the entire three-year run. And if it wasn’t? Well, I concluded that same post:
If, after all this, he does announce one more leg of the tour in the fall, I will update all of these with any new arrangements/covers/etc at the end of the year.
Here we are. As I’m sure everyone reading this knows, he sure enough did announce one more leg of the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour in the fall. It just finished at the Royal Albert Hall this month. So, as promised, I have updated my giant five-part series. This time, for the real tour finale.
Two parts I updated a lot: New Arrangements and Harmonica Solos. The final leg featured a ton of both.
Two parts I updated a little: The Tour-Basics Intro and My Personal Highlights. New bits here and there, but less dramatic overhauls.
One part I didn’t update at all: The Covers. He didn’t do any this fall.
Rather than re-running them each individually via email—which seems redundant since, if you read them in the spring, you’ve already read like 80% of what’s here (and 100% of the covers one)—I’m just linking all the updated versions below.
If you did read them already this past spring, I’ve clearly marked everything new with “Update Fall 2024:” in bold. So, if you don’t want to re-read everything, just scroll through until you see that label pop up here and there. (And skip Covers).
And if you didn’t read them this spring, grab a coffee, a comfy chair, and some headphones (there are a lot of audio samples)—you’re gonna be here awhile. Start at the beginning, or just pick the topic that most interests you and jump straight there.
Announcing the 'Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour' Finale Series
Today I’m kicking off a five-part series looking back at the entire Rough and Rowdy Ways tour, from the first show in Milwaukee on November 2, 2021 (I was there!) through last night (Lee Ranaldo was there!). Today’s introductory post will be an overview: What he played, where he played, with whom he played, etc. Much of which you may already know, but perhaps it will be helpful to look back at the big picture, the journey we and he have been on from Fall 2021 to here…
Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour Finale II: The Arrangements
“It used to go like that, and now it goes like this.” That was Bob Dylan’s famous line on the 1966 going-electric tour. That energy pervaded the entire run of the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. Though it was more like “It used to go like that, and now it goes like this…and in another week it’ll go like something else entirely.” Today, for part two of our Rough and Rowdy Ways tour wrap-up series, I’m tracking the many (many!) different arrangements the songs got as the tour continued…
Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour Finale III: The Covers
By my count, Dylan covered 30 different songs during the Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour. Over half of them he had never sung before. So today, I wanted to go through them one by one. Even if you’ve been following closely, it’s worth a look back at both the specific songs he did, and the themes that ran across them. The covers were a big part of what made the tour so special. With these songs, Bob honored his influences and peers, paid tribute to the cities he was in, and often delivered his best performances of the night…
Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour Finale IV: The Harmonica
I’ve gone through every song he played harmonica on, pulling out some particularly killer solos I’ve come across in my listening. The songs are in the usual setlist order, which works well because it builds to our big harmonica-frenzy finish, just as many shows themselves did. I’ve included clips so you can listen along too…
Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour Finale V: My Personal Highlights
Today, for the conclusion of our big Rough and Rowdy Ways tour finale series, I decided to get personal. The previous four posts looked back on THE Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour. Today I’m looking back on MY Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour…
Saw him with Willie and John and Robert and Allison in Somerset, WI and have been following the tour tidbits that people have shared. I am wildly in love with Bob Dylan.
Thank you Ray for being a gentleman (true to your word to update) and a scholar (incredible research and analysis)!