Two Nights Ago in Charlotte (by Bea MacDonald)
2025-07-26, PNC Music Pavilion, Charlotte, NC
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On Saturday night, the Outlaw Tour came to Charlotte, North Carolina. Singer and songwriter Bea MacDonald was on hand to share her report. MacDonald fronts the band Home Is Where, whose new album Hunting Season just came out a few months ago. Sonically she was inspired by Dylan’s famous description of Blonde on Blonde’s sound as “thin wild mercury music,” and her album has a fantastically wild concept behind it:
[Each song details] the dying thoughts of an Elvis impersonator consumed by fumes and flames in a car wreck. To be clear, these songs are not all sung from the perspective of the same dying Elvis impersonator, but from 13 different Elvis impersonators, all dying in a thirteen-car pileup. An unlucky number of imitation Elvises, each grasping at their final scraps of life as they all burn—stuck in separate cars, but together in wreckage and in death.
(Recall a few years back when Bob stopped his car to take a photo with a Spock impersonator. I think he would approve.)
But I digress. The Charlotte show featured the retention of new-to-the-set tunes “Positively 4th Street” and “Rainy Day Women,” which appeared in Alpharetta (read the piece on that here), plus Dylan brought “Blind Willie McTell” back. Best of both worlds, and the longest set of this summer’s Outlaw Tour so far. Bea MacDonald can tell us about it:
Turn up Martha and the Vandellas, it’s a heatwave! You could fry an egg on the hood of a truck in this kind of heat. Some folks can’t take it, drives them mad. It got hotter as my girlfriend and I drove down the mountain and into the city. Charlotte, North Carolina where the first declaration of independence against Britain was written and where Bob Dylan is playing tonight. The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence is interesting, it was supposedly written around the same time as Jefferson’s Declaration and the documents are so similar that even John Adams questioned whether Jefferson had acted as some kind of thief in the making of his document. Supposedly, the original Mecklenburg Declaration was lost when John McKnitt Alexander’s house burned to the ground.
We stood with the burning orange summer sun setting behind our backs. Bob opened the show with “Gotta Serve Somebody.” I think about this song often; up til the moment this song came out, an entire generation demanded Dylan for answers. “Don’t tell me it’s blowin’ in the wind, give it to me straight!” and in 1979 Dylan did. While Lennon was still hung up on “don’t follow leaders” Dylan saw the writing on the wall and said “it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” They killed Jesus for this and He wasn’t on Columbia Records. Today it’s not much different. That slow train’s pulling into the station now. I love hearing this song live; the record version is fantastic but the whole Slow Train record is very tight and it’s always a treat to hear Bob let these songs breathe a little live.
After a brief sermon, Bob really takes us to church with a Bo Diddley tune. Just like Christ Himself, Bo started out as a carpenter before he became an architect for Rock and Roll. In 1962, Bob Dylan released his self titled debut album and, later that year, Bo Diddley released a self titled album, and it’s not even the first time he’s done it! Bo Diddley has two albums called Bo Diddley, a true artist if there ever was one. Dylan covers “I Can Tell” and renders it tender and lonesome. Bob needs no crutch.
“Forgetful Heart!” I’ve had Together Through Life fever all summer. I just keep returning to this record over and over on night walks and stargazing. Bob wrote this with Grateful Dead poet laureate Robert Hunter. Hunter may be my favorite member of the Dead, he’s like the Mark Twain of Rock and Roll. It is here where I really notice the crowd. The pavilion is packed with seemingly a thousand sweating concert goers smiling and dancing with beer in their hands. I’ve been to a lot of Bob shows but I think this was the most receptive and open audience I’ve seen him play to. Maybe because it was the Outlaw Festival and it wasn’t a bunch of people putting their idea of Bob Dylan on a Bob Dylan show. Dylan could play anything and this crowd would’ve ate it up. A person behind me and my girlfriend kindly gave us free water during the song. If you’re reading this, thanks again.
Dylan rips into another cover. George “Wild Child” Butler’s “Axe and the Wind.” Lyrics by Willie Dixon who wrote many and most of the great blues songs. “Cause you can't never tell / Which way the wind gonna blow.” I can’t see too good from where I’m sitting, but I think Bob might be winking at us. Whether that’s true or not, the crowd still went wild. I could hear folks try to figure out what song Bob was playing then give up and get up from their seats to dance.
The Bob fans had no trouble figuring out Dylan’s next number. “To Ramona” echoed out, lovers swayed back and forth to Dylan’s piano. The lyrics stand out to me more than ever. A few years ago I moved out of Florida because of the anti-trans bills that the state government passed, but the whole time I was living in New York I longed deeply to return back south. “I can tell you are torn / Between stayin' and returnin' / Back to the South / You've been fooled into thinking / That the finishin' end is at hand / Yet there's no one to beat you / No one t' defeat you / 'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad.” Bob gets it.
After Bob pulled at my heartstrings, he tore the house down with “Early Roman Kings.” The arrangement here mirroring another Willie Dixon joint “I’m a Man.” The earth shook through the whole song. Bob has played this at almost every show I’ve seen him, but this one was a real powerhouse. Call the cemetery, make sure their dead are still in the ground.
The sky turned black and the stars started shining on the Outlaw Festival. After the thunder cleared from the speakers, Bob and his band went into what might be my favorite rendition of “Under the Red Sky” I’ve heard. This song and the album named after it get a bad wrap. The record might not be for everybody, I have a soft spot for it, but I’ll be damned if I haven’t enjoyed just about every live version of a song off this album that I’ve heard. Bob plays it so sweet it’s like pink lemonade dripping off the mic. You could see Tony Garnier smiling the entire song.
Not straying too far from the sweet road, Charlie Rich’s “I’ll Make it All Up to You” bellows through the night. It sounded like something that’d be on a jukebox in Twin Peaks. I like Charlie Rich, but I like Dylan singing Charlie Rich more.
It is without exaggeration that the audience went bonkers for “All Along the Watchtower.” Another song that Dylan has played at most of the shows I’ve seen him, but this new arrangement kick ass. This is my favorite time I’ve seen it and now that I’m thinking about it, this might be my favorite Bob show I’ve seen. I’m with the love of my life seeing the man himself. What more could I want? I think this is also the closest I’ve heard Bob play it like the studio cut. While not as skeletal, something about how he’s playing it now is how I’ve always wanted to hear it live. For the most part, at least in a lot of the bootlegs I’ve listened to through the years, it feels like Bob is covering a cover of his own song. Trying to find that magic that Hendrix touched on but making it his own. Almost always to great effect, but here tonight Bob is really on fire. I bet even from the nosebleeds you can tell he’s into it too.
After the two riders approached, Bob and his band went into a deconstructed version of “Til I Fell in Love with You.” Time Out of Mind is a top five Dylan record for me. Every song I’ve seen him perform off this record has a captivating experience and there's no exception tonight. It was so strange and wonderful, I was on the edge of my seat biting my lips waiting for what was gonna happen next. It was glorious, so weird, and effortlessly cool.
Then Dylan takes us back to “Desolation Row.” An upbeat and abridged rendition but world shattering nonetheless. This is one of the songs of all time. This is everything to me. This song changed my idea of what a song is when I first heard it in middle school. This version kept building and building until I thought the stage was gonna blow.
Another Time Out of Mind cut?! Hell yeah. “Love Sick” is sick. The band is rocking, they know they’re playing one of the coolest-sounding songs ever, but Bob is belting heartbroken over it. He comes in behind the beat a little, maybe to avoid being captured by heartbreak entrenched in the song. Fuck dude, Bob Dylan is so cool.
The last leg of the show is signaled with the best cover of the evening. “Share Your Love with Me” by Bobby Blue Bland. I’m familiar with the Aretha Franklin version, and boy howdy does Bob really make this his own. Bob and Aretha were both signed by John Hammond and Hammond produced both their debut albums (Aretha’s coming out just shy of a year earlier than Bob’s). Bob plays it close to the heart but not overly sentimental. I will absolutely share my love with you, Bob, say less.
A big surprise for me followed, “Blind Willie McTell.” This was the song I was most grateful to see live. It’s one of like a hundred masterpieces that didn’t make it to the studio album. McTell was a great Delta bluesman. Born blind in one eye, he lost sight in his other eye before he picked up a guitar. It’s no wonder Dylan is drawn to him. Aside from making some of the finest blues records ever recorded, McTell carved out his own history and his own identity. He went by many names: Blind Sammie, Georgia Bill, Hot Shot Willie, Blind Willie, Barrelhouse Sammy, Pig & Whistle Red, Blind Doogie, Red Hot Willie Glaze, Eddie McTier, etc. Willie made a handful of recordings before becoming a preacher much like another Georgia musical holyman, Little Richard. Blind Willie is buried somewhere close to Thompson, Georgia, under a blue marble gravestone.
It’s getting late, a soft and slow “Positively 4th Street” shocks the Bob heads in the crowd. I’ve never heard a version like this. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if on any of the many bootlegs and live records if I’ve heard a live version of this song very often. The only thing I can think of off top is Bob playing it at Farm Aid some time back with The Heartbreakers. This was a real treat for me.
Smoke up, it’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” time. Generally one of my least favorite songs to hear in a live context, but I’ll be damned if this version didn’t rock. A cloud of smoke descended from the nosebleeds down to where we were and good lord the band was burnin’ up there. Doesn’t matter if the song isn’t about reefer, everybody must get stoned!
Dylan closes the night with a deconstructed “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” Everyone stood at attention and hung on to every word pouring out from the speakers. Even the people who weren’t there for Bob knew this was the song to lock into. It was a fond farewell. The final notes rang out and the band posed. Bob said thank you and the lights were out. My favorite Dylan show I’ve been to was over. I did not notice how badly I had been sweating the entire time. Didn’t even know I was that hot! Hell you probably could’ve shot me in the back during the set and I’d’ve had no idea. I was truly mesmerized by the performance.
I didn’t want to stay for Willie. Love the redheaded stranger but there was no way Willie was gonna follow that up for me. I would’ve been thinking about Bob the whole time. My girlfriend was ready to go to. We gave our tickets to a father and daughter sitting on the lawn and made our way home. The first thing my girlfriend said to me after it was over was “we gotta see him again.”
Thanks Bea! Her band’s Home Is Where’s new album ‘Hunting Season’ is out now on Wax Bodega. Download it at Bandcamp and check out the single “milk & diesel” at the bottom of this post. They’re going on a big US tour this fall; see full dates at Pitchfork.
2025-07-26, PNC Music Pavilion, Charlotte, NC
Thanks to MattReading and Bennyboy for the tape!
Home Is Where — milk & diesel:
"Hell you probably could’ve shot me in the back during the set and I’d’ve had no idea."
Best concert review I've ever read.
Thanks for the rundown of the set. Two points on Willie McTell. He was not a Delta blues artist. He is generally considered a Piedmont style guitarist. He may have been able to detect some light but was likely born blind.