Bob Dylan – The Mainz Box Review

Full show soundboards are the golden nuggets of Bob Dylan bootlegs. To receive nearly four hours’ worth of those shows, all from the same city, is staggering. This is what fans can look forward to with The Mainz Box, an outstanding collection of performances across a period which bassist Tony Garnier has called the “best” of Dylan’s live shows. Not just live shows, but the soundchecks, too. Those moments which test the waters of the venue, deciding which songs would sound better. Make You Feel My Love being checked but not performed at all on the 2015 tour is just one of the many small moments which build to make a bootleg like The Mainz Box a must-listen. We hear what could have been, what turned out to be irrelevant, irreverent, or even impossible, for the shows of the time. Dylan remains an ambitious artist, and this is reflected in the constantly changing setlist.  

Even now, Dylan is keen to introduce new songs, covers, and deep cuts to his show. Where the Outlaw Music Festival is taking place miles from Mainz, it is exploring the same energy as The Mainz Box. The first set, from June 20, 2015, features some of the best-ever tracks from his discography. Time Out of Mind track ‘Til I Fell in Love With You makes its return to the stage, as does a blistering A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall. Where some may not take to the sparse-sounding instrumental tone taken by this performance, there is still much to love about the variety Dylan is playing with. Things Have Changed remains a firm opener, his Academy Award-winning song a shot of life which carried on the Time Out of Mind momentum. Fifteen years after its release and Dylan still sounds fond of it, and he seems relatively interested in contemporary materials like Beyond Here Lies Nothin’ and Duquesne Whistle.  

Definitively strong setlists do not always mean the performance itself is great. Where the likes of Tangled Up in Blue, To Ramona, and a Willie Nelson cover, Sad Songs and Waltzes, are fascinating listens, they pale in comparison to the July 7, 2019 performance. Things Have Changed remains the comfortable opener, but you can hear the change in energy. From sparse sounds to piano-heavy, jam-like sessions, which would come to life once more on the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. This is a transition well worth hearing, best of all in the few overlaps between the two sets. Early Roman Kings keeps its place, a mysteriously consistent setlist feature, given that it’s a lesser Tempest song. Scarlet Town features, at least. So too do deep cuts, which would become staples of the Dylan live set in the years to come.  

When I Paint My Masterpiece is already taking shape in the final tour before the Rough and Rowdy Ways domination. The Mainz Box is a chance to hear Dylan contemplating the hits and heartbreakers of his past, the deep cuts which are brought to the stage, sometimes for the final time. His July 7 performance is much closer to the shape of the 2025 Outlaw Music Festival tour, with Love Sick and Simple Twist of Fate both featuring here. Later songs like Gotta Serve Somebody and Thunder on the Mountain highlight the instrumental change, too. Garnier was right in calling this the very best tour of Dylan’s career. There is a freedom in the instrumentals of the July 7 performance not heard in the June 20 showcase. That is not to say the 2015 performance is bad, not at all, but it pales in comparison to a set which has all the early blueprints of what Dylan would begin offering audiences with Rough and Rowdy Ways.