Bob Dylan – Farm Aid 2025 Review

A few months removed from Bob Dylan’s Farm Aid 2025 show is the best time to talk about it. His days on the road this year are coming to an end. A stellar Rough and Rowdy Ways tour will be rounded off in Dublin, Ireland. But before this October and November tour schedule came a chance to hear Dylan perform a streamlined set of songs which featured prominently in his Outlaw Music Festival show. His Farm Aid 2025 show is not just a tribute to farmers, as is the case for appearances from Neil Young and Willie Nelson, but a chance to transition back into playing with a shy resolve. Many may have noted the hoodie and twinkling light tree obscuring his face on the final shows of the Outlaw Music Festival tour. Whatever the reason for it, be it the cold or a desire for crowds to focus on the music, it’s a little footnote of interest compared to what Farm Aid 2025 offers the dedicated fan.  

Brutal cuts to the Outlaw Music Festival show as a way of fitting five songs into an appropriate, twenty-minute set is what you get from Dylan here. Contrast the stage design with is previous Farm Aid appearance. No stool, no guitar, the man is behind his piano and hammering away at a wonderful version of All Along the Watchtower. Those veterans of bootleg tapes, official or unofficial releases, will know the song off by heart in numerous variations. This version is exceptional. Likely because of the official recording and the clean mix compared to audience recordings ripped from previous shows this year. You can hear Dylan’s flourishing piano work at play that little bit better, the percussion backing him is a treat, too. That slower drawl when Dylan hits the “there must be some way out of here” is nothing short of perfect. A career-best interpretation of the song.  

To Ramona and Highway 61 Revisited are given similar, appealing renditions. I Can Tell is a neat cover which makes the transition to this Farm Aid set, somewhat surprisingly. This is a sampler of what Dylan can do with an hour opening for Willie Nelson, though. A cover was bound to make its way into the set. A nice song popularised by Bo Diddley it is, too. Part of the charm to these shows is not the longevity of Dylan as a performer, but those backing him. Tony Garnier has been a crucial part of the live line-up for decades, and you can see him guiding the tone of the show here. Dylan may be the centrepiece, the instrumentalists around him following that lead, but Garnier sets the tempo, lays the foundation, of some tremendous work. Those guitar riffs and solid improvisations must tether themselves to that cool bassline.  

As much as those instrumental moments are fantastic, giving Dylan some space to flex those vocal skills is crucial, too. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right has a brilliance to its stripped-back feel. That softer touch offers an inevitable but necessary reflective tone, a must-have and a strong close to the set. A tremendous five-song set which has all the boisterous thrills of modern-day Dylan, while also featuring a sliver of him at his very best. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right has some brilliant harmonica work to it. No wonder people cheer when he whips that free wind instrument out. Dylan is the free wind for a Farm Aid show, that expectation from the audience could not be higher. But true to form, he has no care for expectation. There is only a desire to continue finding new meanings in classic songs, and that’s what he does here. A phenomenal performance is what he gives, a little glimpse at what he’s capable of during a full set.