You can find an incredible show from every year Bob Dylan took to the stage in solid quality. Recent times have led to a boon of great material from bootleggers attending shows across the globe. Hearing the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour in its early moments, just a year on from the show starting and two from the album release, is a treat. You can hear where these songs are going, what they’ve meant to Dylan and his capable collection of instrumentalists. Those who have been playing with him for decades, like Tony Garnier, are well-placed on these never-ending Rough and Rowdy Ways tour dates. What becomes clear on Slow Coming Home, a bootleg of autumn shows from 2022, is that Garnier is a guiding force for the instrumental flow. Dylan may be keen to have his band fall in line, but Garnier makes sure there’s a freedom to the performance. It’s beneficial to the songs, the artist, and the audience. A triple bill that comes through frequently on this compilation. Â
Some marvellous decisions are made by the bootleggers responsible for Slow Coming Home. Those October and November shows were filled with fanciful instrumental work on great hits like Watching the River Flow and Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine). Two impressive performances from the Bournemouth show are what Slow Coming Home opens with. It’s a focus on the older material, inevitably deconstructed and fitted with a whole new message, that comes through here. Dylan has always been keen to observe changes in his old songs. These are not static instances. Once a song is written, once the instrumentals are down, that doesn’t mean it’s set in stone. Little nuances will always make a difference, so why not go for what Dylan does and change it all up? A new meaning can easily slip through, as is the case for Gotta Serve Somebody and When I Paint My Masterpiece, both of which feature later in this compilation.
Even the contemporary material sounds changed up enough to bring on that ever-necessary reinterpretation Dylan seeks out. Goodbye Jimmy Reed and My Own Version of You are given some excellent, slowed, grand piano treatment from Dylan here. While not as strong as the album version, To Be Alone With You has some wonderful range to it, while I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You is nothing short of staggering. It’s the instrumental overlap, that blur of guitar and piano, which gives the song a fragile quality. That suits the Rough and Rowdy Ways style, and with a broader range to what can and cannot be played out, the impact it has on Dylan and the instrumentalists backing him is clear. They’re rising with his piano, throwing in a few extra notes here or there, they really do pull out all the stops on this performance.
Slow Coming Home is just a delight. It’s always nice to relive memories of a strong show, but for those who didn’t get the chance to attend any of these shows, then they’re in for a treat. I Can’t Seem to Say Goodbye is that nice, final flourish from a bootlegger walking the line of writing their own narrative and sharing what Dylan is doing. He truly cannot say goodbye. We’ve had a further three years of the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour after these 2022 performances, and we’re set for another leg of shows in 2026. It seems, above all the instrumental interest and emotional range found in songs old and new, that Dylan is enjoying the continuation of this tour. You can hear the quality throughout this bootleg, the work speaks for itself, and will speak again in further bootlegs.
