Peter Viney's Blog

Bob Dylan
Rough & Rowdy Ways 2024 Tour

Bournemouth International Centre
Friday 1st November 2024, 19.30

Bob Dylan – vocals, piano, harmonica
Doug Lancio – acoustic guitar
Tony Garnier – bass guitar, double bass
Jim Keltner- drums
Bob Britt- lead guitar

SETLIST
All Along The Watchtower
It Ain’t Me Babe
I Contain Multitudes
False Prophet
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Black Rider
My Own Version of You
To Be Alone With You
Crossing The Rubicon
Desolation Row
Key West (Philosopher Pirate)
It’s All Over Now Baby Blue
I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You
Watching The River Flow
Mother of Muses
Goodbye Jimmy Reed
Every Grain of Sand

I had to think. A ticket for this (in the worst seats, all that was available) cost me almost as much as the 27 CD set of the Before The Flood 1974 tour. Listening to the 1974 tour, which took place fifty years ago now, has been instructive. The Dylan tours start playing with material, seeing what works then setting it in stone. This is year three of Rough & Rowdy Ways on tour. I saw it in the same venue in 2022 (review here). That set list also does the Rough and Rowdy Ways album. Three of the older ones were on that show too. I’m not going to repeat the 2022 notes. The system is set. A sequence for the Rough and Rowdy Ways songs is established. Old songs are interspersed. We are one too many mornings (Ed: don’t go into dropping in song titles, please) from the Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers tour. They were told to expect any of 130 songs to be called, and were confounded when Bob started an unfamiliar one, which turned out to be Da Doo Ron Ron. There are no calls, no signals now. Everyone knows the running order and one song starts right after another.

There is no dynamic lighting plot. As in 2022, there is fixed stage lighting as if a movie set and it never changes.

The set starts at full volume. Jim Keltner on drums is still a power house, a reminder of the days when Ringo Starr’s All Star Band had the three greatest straight rock drummers: Levon Helm, Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner. There’s two or three minutes of instrumental, before we realise there is a face behind behind the baby grand piano and that it is Bob when he starts singing All Along The Watchtower. The next song maintains the volume and power. I knew it was It Ain’t Me Babe but I had started to think it would be done entirely as an instrumental. Then at last Bob started singing. He was still a dot behind the piano. At my distance from the stage I wondered whether it was black hair or a hat on his head. I recall that Leonard Cohen used video screens at large venue, as so many do. I think it would be too ‘tech’ for Dylan.

He eventually stood for I Contain Multitudes and walked round the piano. He is very wobbly indeed on his pins, one hand often on the side of the baby grand … I assume it’s an electric baby grand by the tone. He looked safer with an upright piano. I sympathize. He mainly stays on his feet from this point, though walking round (staggering round somewhat alarmingly) to play the keys.

The sound is much better than 2022 on the vocals. No, it’s not at Leonard Cohen, or James Taylor or Paul Simon’s level of vocal clarity, but I don’t think he has that in him. After the first two, Tony Garnier tends to use double bass, and everyone is playing quieter than on the opening two. False Prophet follows.

When I Paint My Masterpiece was dire in 2022. I might be getting used to it now and the altered tune and lyrics. It was much better. Harmonica brings massive cheers … there will be no guitar from Bob this evening. It’s one of two of the five ‘new’ songs on Greatest Hits Volume Two, but he has never ever got near Levon Helm’s ultimate interpretation on The Band’s Cahoots. However, Jim Keltner drummed on the original Dylan recording in March 1971. Fifty-three years of collaboration.

Black Rider and My Own Version Of You takes us back into the album the tour is named for.

To Be Alone With You brings in harmonica again. The audience love him on harmonica. We’re into Nashville Skyline territory. We even get an intro assuring us that Bournemouth is a beautiful town. I bet he never said that about anywhere else.

Crossing The Rubicon is meaty and powerful.

For me, the song of the night was the rethought electric Desolation Row. Jim Keltner storms in with fast solid drumming that makes me think of The Surfaris. That’s not a frequent reference. It’s totally different but works. The song was always aggressive. Here the music suits.

The long Key West stands with I Contain Multitudes as a favourite track from Rough and Rowdy Ways.

I could guess It’s all Over Now Baby Blue from the chiming guitar part. Not The Byrds version, but in the same ballpark. The vocals were harder to match up.

I’ve Made My Mind Up To Give Myself To You was outstanding. It has the melody. It’s a beautiful song.

I never really got Watching The River Flow, the second from Greatest Hits Volume Two. The original was Leon Russell propelled but while it has a groove, it’s a dull tune. Again, Jim Keltner played on the 1971 studio version. Bob plays more and more piano as the set progresses. It’s loud and very clear too.

Two more. A thoughtful Mother of Muses and a straight solid boogie 12 bar for Goodbye Jimmy Reed.

As last time, the closer is Every Grain of Sand, another lovely song. Jim Keltner played on the original version on Shot of Love too, a mere forty-three years ago. No surprises. They leave the lights down for a few minutes, but regulars know Bob doesn’t do encores.

On the way out a busker is doing a loud vigorous The Times They Are A-Changing to the departing throngs, and doing it very well too.

I left the car park, and as I reached the back road exit from the venue, found myself sandwiched between the two black Nightrider buses. Two buses? Twenty minutes after the end? But the sound and light crew would still be dismantling the set. One for Bob, one for the band? They headed for the dual carriageway and out of town. An out of town hotel? Straight to Liverpool? Somewhere else?

SEE ALSO:

• Bob Dylan – 2022
• Bob Dylan 2002
• Bob Dylan 2006
• Bob Dylan 2017