The 10 Must-Hear Bob Dylan Tapes of 2025

The best of the best (including soundboards!) from another year of Rough and Rowdy and Outlaw

Photo by Heather Gardner

With Bob Dylan’s setlists fairly (though not entirely!) static, I imagine most of you do not listen to every single tape of every single show. I admit, I don’t either—but I do listen to quite a few. So, like I did last year, I’ve pulled out my ten personal favorites to share. If you need a primer, or want to experience some of Dylan’s best live moments this year in one place, here it is.

My criteria were simple: Great show, great recording. Most of the tapes I selected offer both in spades. However, a good-enough tape of a highly notable show could slip in, whereas I wouldn’t bother including a sterling tape of a crummy performance (though getting a few of Bob’s shall-we-say-eccentric electric guitar intros in soundboard quality might qualify).

Yes, that is the big word for this year: Soundboards! The first since 2009, covering both the Outlaw and Rough and Rowdy Ways tours. Half the tapes below are audience recordings—which have their own special magic, presenting the experience as it would have felt in the room—and half are soundboards.

I’ll be going chronologically through the year’s three big tours: Rough and Rowdy: U.S. in the spring, Outlaw Tour in the summer, and Rough and Rowdy: Europe in the fall. (Funny: I wrote that exact same sentence to introduce LAST year’s list. He’s a man of habit—and 2026 seems to be off the same start again.) Each show includes a download link. Thanks as always to the tapers, the secret heroes without whom none of this would be possible!

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1. 2025-04-01, Orpheum Theater, Omaha, NE
Taper: gravenb
Master: JB

The first tape on this list happens to be a show I was at! In fact, it’s the only show on this list I was at. Of the two spring tour shows I attended, Omaha was by far the better, so it’s lucky it boasts what some have called the best tape of the spring. The show also boasted the tour’s only setlist change, albeit arguably a downgrade: swapping out the opening number from “All Along the Watchtower” to “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight,” which has remained to the present.

Since I already wrote about this show in depth the morning after, I’ll excerpt my three highlights I noted in that piece:

Highlight #1: “When I Paint My Masterpiece.” Its “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” arrangement has shifted this tour. A few nights ago (embedded below), that distinctive riff was almost gone, replaced by flamenco-sounding guitar riffs from Doug Lancio. I call it the “Spanish stairs” arrangement. Last night’s blended the two. Britt played the “Istanbul” riff, while Lancio added flamenco guitar. On top of that Bob delivered his best harmonica of the night on the intro, and one of his best piano solos later on.

Highlight #2: “My Own Version of You.” This song has gone through so many iterations. Last night started minimalist, ambient, just Bob, Doug, and Tony. Bob sang-spoke the lyrics like Leonard Cohen. By the end it built, with Bob playing a percussive and funky repeated two-note piano riff starting with the “cypress tree” verse. Another fun moment: After Bob sang “then I hit the wall,” Fig gave two loud thumps on a bass drum. Like hitting a wall.

Highlight #3: “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” More upbeat than some of the spare and spooky ones last fall, with some of the best vocals of the night plus another beautiful harp solo. Bob’s piano solos were a mixed bag last night, but every time he picked up the harmonica it was great. Well, not literally every time he picked it up—he picked it up for “Every Grain of Sand” then didn’t play a single note.

2. 2025-04-12, The Embassy Theatre, Fort Wayne, IN
Taper: ironchef
Remaster: Bennyboy

Another crystal-clear audience tape came a few weeks further down the road in Fort Wayne. Friend-of-the-newsletter Noel Mayeske—the ace graphic designer who designed Pledging My Time, my Rolling Thunder booklet, and the Flagging Down logo—listens to every show and he suggested this tape to me, so I asked him to share why he digs it so much:

A performance in some ways so punchy, so visceral, you’d be forgiven for thinking it an Outlaw Tour set at first. Out of the gate, “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” sounds the way the cover of Rough and Rowdy Ways looks: time to grab your gal and boogie, boys. (Wild, considering the original from John Wesley Harding is a wistful soliloquy by comparison.) It’s the sound of a band playing its 14th show of a new year, released from winter doldrums and ready to plow a deep furrow in early-spring soil. Because it’s really a Rough & Rowdy Tour set, you know things will get ruminative. But there’s plenty of rowdy too, on this bootleg. False prophets lurk; the hunchback cackles; rivers roll.

A lot of that is down to ironchef’s tape—envision a “chef’s kiss” from me regarding its quality—that captures Dylan’s strong vocals, piano, harmonica, and the whole band in a physical way. A “field recording” (let’s employ some Alan Lomax lexicon here, we’re in the midwest) like this reveals why some people prefer a fine audience tape to a soundboard. It’s got dimension, it’s got the crowd, it’s got air. Part of this particular boot’s mojo is Bennyboy’s mighty remaster, his magic monkeys elevating ironchef’s tape into one of the best Spring 2025 shows we have.

3. 2025-05-13, Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, Phoenix, AZ
Taper: soomlos

Both years Dylan has played the Outlaw Tour, it’s followed the same trend: The first two shows have wild, unique setlists, before things settle in by show three. So those first two shows become mandatory listening by default, due to their unique songs. The best tapes I heard for both came from veteran taper soomlos, who tames the Outlaw elements—windy outdoor venues, chatty crowds—as well as anyone.

Night one in Phoenix kicked off with “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” and “It Ain’t Me Babe,” the same two songs that begin every Rough and Rowdy show these days. I wonder if the superfans who traveled there were worrying, “Uh oh, will this just be Rough and Rowdy: Cliff Notes Edition”? If so, their fears were assuaged in slot three: The first “Forgetful Heart” in a decade.

You can hear “Forgetful Heart” in every subsequent Outlaw show though, often in better sound quality. The reason to dive into Phoenix is the songs he didn’t stick with. That included two shocking covers, both songs he’d never played in concert before: the rhythm and blues oldie “Route 66” and The Pogues ballad “A Rainy Night in Soho.”

Bob topped those with an even bigger surprise though: The first “Mr. Tambourine Man” in 15 years. He played it almost solo piano, the band adding the subtlest of accents. It’s a beautiful performance, though perhaps one that would better fit the vibe of Rough and Rowdy than the (ironically) rowdier Outlaw crowds. He dropped it after this one-time-only outing.

That would already be more than enough to recommend this tape, but there were two additional unusual songs too: The first “It Takes a Lot to Laugh” in four years. That one he kept for two more shows, then dropped. Plus the only “Scarlet Town” of the summer, and only the third since 2019.

4. 2025-05-15, North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre, Chula Vista, CA
Taper: soomlos

The surprises continued at the next show in Chula Vista. Bob jettisoned the opening “Baby Tonight”/“It Ain’t Me” duo, replacing them with “Things Have Changed” and “Simple Twist of Fate.” Neither a super-rarity, admittedly, but an early sign he would continue mixing things up. Soon after, “Route 66” was gone too, replaced by…“Early Roman Kings.” Damn.

He redeemed himself in the back half. Several of the shockers that first popped up—first “Blind Willie McTell” since 2017, first “Don’t Think Twice” since 2019—remained all summer, so they don’t seem as unique any more. But some surprises did not get repeated. The first “Lonesome Day Blues” since 2017 rips, and I’m surprised he didn’t stick with it. The blues-rocker would have been an Outlaw crowd-pleaser (it’s like a much better “Early Roman Kings”). His energetic piano solos are a highlight.

Then, the big one, a contender for the best cover of the entire year: Rick Nelson’s “Garden Party.” Dylan sings the hell out of this '50s-style rocker, clearly having a lot of fun with it (I love the “or try to” he adds after the chorus “ya got to please yourself”). Plus, of course, in doing this he ends up singing in his own name: “Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan’s shoes wearing his disguise.”

As always, though, the smaller moments shine too. At the end of “Watchtower,” when he repeats the opening verse, he adds a little parenthetical I didn’t hear on other tapes: “There must be some way out of here…I hope.”

5. 2025-08-01 Northwell at Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, NY
Tapers: Psymphony Del Sid & Zentralbürokratie
Master: subtr

We skip a few months down the road to The Outlaw Soundboards. The first soundboards in 16 years! I wrote quite a bit about these tapes here, so I’ll just briefly highlight a bit from each for the three entries here (I’m skipping the Mansfield/Camden combo because neither is a complete show). If you haven’t, I urge you to read my full piece about these tapes.

My favorite ten seconds of the year came from this first Jones Beach tape:

He should have made that a nightly call and response. “What kinda pie?” The whole audience responds in unison: “Cherry pie!”

When I asked subtr, who spent 70 hours (!) mastering this tape, for his favorite moment from all the Outlaw Soundboards, the first he mentioned also came from Jones Beach:

“Til I Fell In Love With You” on Jones Beach. I cannot get enough of it. On the face of it, it doesn’t seem like anything remarkable but I love the looseness of the band around Dylan, and how that little choppy guitar chord takes up after every other line in the second half and helps the song build; I think Dylan’s in ‘preacher’ mode on it and gives a different kind of performance to a traditionally ‘sung’ song. The guitar work gives me a similar feeling to a moment in the studio take of “Crossing the Rubicon,” where the playing seems like nothing remarkable but to me is so perfect in its interplay with the vocal - about 5:20 to 5:25, the ‘oh Lord’ aside, bookended by each guitar repeating the same riff. When things like that gel and feel so effortless, it’s pure magic. On later dates, he tightens it up as an arrangement and it loses some charm for me, and edges its way towards an old “Cold Irons Bound” arrangement.

I disagree about the song losing its charm though—“‘Til I Fell In Love With You” was maybe my single favorite song of the year, every time I saw it.

Five more after the jump…