Over decades of being entranced by Bob Dylan’s art – from oil and acrylics to heavy metal welds, from poetry to rock’n’roll – I have understood his desire to keep changing direction to arrive at his definitive work.
And at the opening of his European Rough And Rowdy Ways Tour he changed again …
A stunning reworking of When I Paint My Masterpiece accompanied only by Donnie Heron on violin.
Bob himself was playing a jaunty acoustic guitar and pizzicato harmonica.
The voice Bob is using on the his latest 11 country gig is getting a bit more jazzy – and on this ‘masterpiece’ it’s all about having a brush with a foot-tapping good time.
His PR in Norway hasn’t always been the best – in fact, when Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, he announced he wouldn’t be at the ceremony.
It was due to ‘pre-existing commitments’ but was a major accolade to his career which seemed to get that old familiar Dylan snub…
The Oslo show marked the start of Dylan’s first European tour since 2019.
However, from my side, I’m waiting for our travelling troubadour hit Manchester, my home-town.
I missed the incendiary 85 tour – I was two young – and had to wait ‘til 1998 to catch him at the Arena where he did a workman-like, knee-bending show with a sullen Van Morrison.
It is good to hear a few weeks ago that Manchester’s demand for his live shows remains never ending and, anyway, his Rough and Rowdy world tour is being seen as a new pinnacle in journey to glory.
At 81 Bob is painting, writing a book on top songs, welding iron art, creating artful stage performances, playing piano like Manc hero Les Dawson, mugging to his audiences like a Cheshire cat and singing like he’s never sung before.
He has also added a new show in Oxford and Bournemouth after the original end dates due to “popular demand”.
Bob will now play 12 dates in the UK October and November 2022 as part of the tour which began in December in Milwaukee.
In July, he announced his first UK tour in more than five years.
He is playing four nights at the London Palladium before visiting Cardiff, Hull and Nottingham for arena shows, as well as two nights in Glasgow.
He will now also be performing at Manchester Apollo, Oxford New Theatre and closing at Bournemouth BIC.
All the shows are “non-phone events”, with the audience required to lock their phones in a Yondr bag for the duration of the performance.
Tickets for the new shows went on sale on September 5.
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