Bob Dylan live: Will the songs remain the same?

Once upon a time, when starting out on what became known as his Never-Ending Tour, the most contentiously unpredictable thing about Bob Dylan was his set list. Today and tomorrow, and yesterday, too.

Sometimes, sooner or later in the show, Dylan might strum a few chords before breaking into a song which at first seemed unrecognisable even to his own band. “Handy Dand-eeee…”

Other times he might introduce a song which to the audience seemed recognisable, only for Dylan to mangle the lyrics and the structure and play it beyond all recognition. “Tangled Up In B-Loooo…”

As his Never-Ending Tour kept on keeping on, beginning in June 1988 and soon averaging around 100 shows a year, things changed and his set list settled down, particularly after the release of Time Out Of Mind in 1997, then Love and Theft in 2001. Later, armed with his Nobel Prize in 2016, he shifted between moods and songs, sometimes playing the crooner, always capable of the odd surprise.

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[ Bob Dylan at 80, by Declan Kiberd: He was so much older then, he’s younger than that now ]

Like when Dylan last played here, in Kilkenny in July 2019, co-headlining with Neil Young, it seemed as though he had just not expected to share the stage. Midway through his set list, Dylan suddenly introduced Young, and together they swapped verses and performed a duet on the chorus of the old hymn Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

When that ended, Dylan slow hand-clapped Young off the stage, then went straight into Like A Rolling Stone, the stop-start delivery of the famous chorus both beautiful and befuddling. “How does it f-f-f-eeel…?”

In his now 65 years of performing live (he first played Hibbing High School in Minnesota in 1957), Dylan has rarely been the same act twice. That much stayed true in my more than 25 years and at least as many times seeing him live, beginning at the old Point Depot in 1995.

Then everything changed. His Never-Ending Tour was scheduled for 15 shows in Japan, beginning in April 2020, followed by 25 summer dates at small theatres across the US, from Amarillo to Saratoga Springs, before the pandemic took care of all that.

So out of the proverbial nowhere, that March 2020, in tune perhaps with that set list of old, Dylan dropped an entirely unannounced song titled Murder Most Foul, free via his own social media platforms. At 16 minutes and 56 seconds it was also his longest song, turning the assassination of John F Kennedy into a stream-of-conscious thoughts on American political and cultural history, interspersed with requests for the late Wolfman Jack to play on his long-lost radio hour.

Assumed to be another unreleased song, it was recorded the month before, to be part of his 39th studio album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, due out that June – a Friday. I remember that because I bought it on compact disc that morning, and well within the loosened Covid-restrictions, played it while driving across the Wicklow Mountains to visit an old neighbour in Luggala.

[ Murder Most Foul: Bob Dylan’s strange, meandering, comforting 17-minute new song ]

Influenced by nothing easy or obvious, straight away it sounded unlike anything he’d released before, his first original work since Tempest in 2012, among his wordiest and worthiest with enough repeated turns of phrase to do the great philosophers proud.

From I Contain Multitudes, about Songs of Experience and William Blake, to False Prophet and Crossing the Rubicon and then Key West (Philosopher Pirate), all before the Murder Most Foul, the first and lasting thought was that he might have painted his masterpiece. These are songs that give and take close listening: Black Rider, My Own Version of You.

Suitably unpredictably, in September 2021, he then announced the Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour/2021-2024, under the tagline: “Things Aren’t What They Were”. Or indeed ever were: his Never-Ending Tour, after 3,066 shows, had ended. This is the first tour he’s named after one of his albums, and also the first where his set list comes almost entirely off that same album.

After opening in Milwaukee last November, he moved east to a brief residency at the Beacon Theatre on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where, thanks to a dear friend who happens to live two blocks away, we got ground-floor seats, or “one step away from the great beyond”, as Dylan sings on Crossing the Rubicon.

Like most in attendance that night, hearing the new songs live for the first time, Dylan seated behind his upright piano, just right of centre-stage, repeatedly looking to his five-piece band to ensure they didn’t miss his cue, it was as if he was singing the new songs for the first time too, trying to figure out the exact placing of every word and meaning.

“It’s awful nice to be back in the Big Apple,” he said at the end. “Visiting Broadway, Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, Times Square, all of it… Empire State Building, Fifth Avenue, glad to see it’s coming back alive…”

Dylan turned 81 last May, is as naturally frail as he’s ever been on stage, but still seems to be coming back alive as a performer with Rough and Rowdy Ways, finding a fresh gruffness and softness to his utterly ageless voice.

After another US leg over the summer, he played his first European date in Oslo on September 24th, moving through some old theatres such as the Grand Rex in Paris and the London Palladium, the 3Arena in Dublin being his last stop for now.

He’s coming up to 100 shows on this tour already, and of the 17-song set list, more than half – nine to be exact – are from Rough and Rowdy Ways. Dylan only plays piano now, no guitar, maybe a blast of harmonica at the end.

He’ll open with Watching The River Flow, later playing When I Paint My Masterpiece, neither of which appeared on any studio album release, the light not shining from anywhere above but from the stage floor below, and for some in the know maybe the most delightfully predictable thing now being his set list.

Bob Dylan plays the 3Arena on Monday, November 7th. The phone-free show starts at 8.0pm sharp (no support)

What is a phone-free show?

Just as it sounds, use of all phones/digital devices will not be permitted in the performance space. Please take note of your block, row and seat number from your digital ticket before your arrival at the venue.

How does it work?

Upon arrival at 3Arena, Yondr (the phone-pouching company) will have staff available to help you put your phone in a lockable pouch which you keep throughout the night.

What if I have an emergency and need to access my phone?

You can unlock your phone from the pouch at any time by going to the clearly marked “phone use area” located on the ground floor.

What about cashless bars or merchandise?

Please bring your physical credit/debit card with you as 3Arena is a cashless venue.