A return to the stage for Bob Dylan this month offered audiences a blur of big hits and cover songs.
The veteran performer will start his European tour in October, but has five more upcoming dates on the Outlaw Music Festival tour first. Dylan’s performance in Bangor, Maine, on September 5 featured a stacked set of seventeen songs, including four covers, Masters of War, and a few songs which have been staples of Dylan’s set irrespective of the tour. The veteran performer’s decision to bring back Masters of War surprised dedicated listeners, with the song performed just once between 2010 and 2024. Masters of War has since been used as the opening song for four shows on the Outlaw Music Festival tour, and European fans will have to wait and see if it’s a featured song on the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour next month.
A selection of songs from Highway 61 Revisited, Time Out of Mind, and John Wesley Harding were included in the Maine show. A full setlist can be found below.
- Masters of War
- I Can Tell (Bo Diddley cover)
- Forgetful Heart
- Axe and the Wind (George Butler cover)
- To Ramona
- Gotta Serve Somebody
- Under the Red Sky
- I’ll Make It All Up to You (Charlie Rich cover)
- All Along the Watchtower
- ‘Til I Fell in Love With You
- Desolation Row
- Love Sick
- Share Your Love With Me (Bobby Bland cover)
- Blind Willie McTell
- Soon After Midnight
- Highway 61 Revisited
- Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
The sole change between this performance and Dylan’s August 10 show in Syracuse, New York, is Gotta Serve Somebody. The Slow Train Coming song was absent from Dylan’s final New York show, where he performed Early Roman Kings instead.
Dylan’s tours this year have featured a series of rarities including Positively 4th Street and Rainy Day Women #12 & 35. The Times They Are A-Changin’ and Mr. Tambourine Man were also reintroduced to the set on earlier dates of the Outlaw Music Festival show. A setlist from the June 25 show in Franklin, Tennessee, can be found below.
- Gotta Serve Somebody
- The Times They Are A-Changin’ (First performance since 2010)
- Forgetful Heart
- Axe and the Wind (George Butler cover)
- To Ramona
- Early Roman Kings
- Under the Red Sky
- I’ll Make It All Up To You (Charlie Rich cover)
- All Along the Watchtower
- ‘Til I Fell in Love With You
- Desolation Row
- Love Sick
- Share Your Love With Me (Bobby Bland cover)
- Blind Willie McTell
- Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
The setlist thrilled fans when the Outlaw Music Festival began earlier this year, with listeners initially unsure of which song Axe and the Wind was. The first performance of the show had dedicated Dylan fans spend hours working out what the song was. They eventually discovered it was a cover of the Butler number.
Dylan’s first Outlaw Music Festival show setlist of the year is rather different to the songs which are now recurring in his summer set. A list of songs Dylan performed on the May 13 tour date can be found below, with the likes of To Ramona and Scarlet Town performed.
- I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
- It Ain’t Me, Babe
- Forgetful Heart (first time live since 2015)
- Axe and the Wind (George Butler cover)
- To Ramona (first time live since 2017)
- Route 66 (Bobby Troup cover – first time live since 1986)
- All Along the Watchtower
- I’ll Make It All Up to You (Charlie Rich cover)
- It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
- Mr. Tambourine Man (first time live since 2010)
- Under the Red Sky
- Scarlet Town
- A Rainy Night in Soho (The Pogues cover)
Wish we could have seen him. We loved his singing but it felt sad to not be able to connect with a visual. Why didn’t the two side screens get closeups. How awsome that would have been
Totally agree. At a concert you expect to see prtformers as well as hear them. I’ve been a fan of Bob Dylan since 1962 and would have loved to have seen him as well.