The first Rough and Rowdy Ways show of November saw an unchanged setlist from Bob Dylan and his backing band.
The veteran performer played the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany last night, continuing the European Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. The shows are set to conclude later this month in Dublin, Ireland. Dylan had performed several dates for the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour in the United States at the start of the year, and then joined Willie Nelson on the Outlaw Music Festival tour. The latter tour gave Dylan a chance to play some of his deepest cuts and most-loved songs like Mr. Tambourine Man, Things Have Changed, and Masters of War. Such songs were missing from last night’s performance, but typically so as Dylan focuses much of the show on his most recent studio album.
Rough and Rowdy Ways, which released in 2020, made up the bulk of the setlist in Cologne, as it did in Paris, Brussels, and Stockholm on previous dates from this tour. A full setlist for last night’s show in Cologne 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)
- 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…”
