The first Rough and Rowdy Ways show on European soil in nearly a year took place last night (October 16).
Bob Dylan had performed several shows in the United States with the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour, though he paused these dates to carry out a series of shows with Willie Nelson on the Outlaw Music Festival tour. Dylan performed at the Veikkaus Arena in Helsinki, Finland, last night, for his first European date on the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour since a show at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Dylan’s previous show in Europe had him perform almost all of his 2020 album, along with a few reimagined takes on some of his classic songs. A full setlist for the show can be found below.
- I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
- 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)
- Watching the River Flow
- It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
- I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You
- Mother of Muses
- Goodbye Jimmy Reed
- Every Grain of Sand
The show comes nearly a year after Dylan performed in Europe on the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. Rough and Rowdy Ways celebrated its fifth anniversary earlier this year. Dylan has performed all songs from the album, except for Murder Most Foul, extensively since 2021. The album was recorded in “last-minute” fashion according to drummer Matt Chamberlain, who explained Dylan’s style when making the album.
Chamberlain said: “Yeah, well the Dylan thing is, the tour was very last-minute. I played for a couple of days, and he wanted me to tour, literally, it was like a three-day window, and he asked me to hop on this tour.
“So we did like six weeks and got back, and then after the first year, we started his record, and that was an education because he’s so last-minute, in-the-moment about the way he makes his records.
“It’s almost like playing with a poet jazz musician because he’s just always changing it up; anything can happen at any time, things can just get trashed, and we’ll do a whole new version of a song. He’s amazing. He’s Bob Dylan, so…”
Though it may seem daunting to play along with Dylan and find the right groove, Chamberlain suggested it was “pretty fun” to experience. Rough and Rowdy Ways would mark another critically acclaimed release from Dylan, and his first release of original music since the release of Tempest.
Chamberlain added: “Pretty much, yeah. He might have like a reference point for a groove or a feel, and then we’ll just kind of jam on that.
“And then he’ll start trying to sing over it, and then he’ll get on the piano and add some extra chords, and we’ll kind of work out the arrangement, and the next thing you know we’ve tracked the song. It’s pretty fun…”
