Summer Tour 2024!
What a great time it is to be a Bob Dylan fan! He just wrapped up his Summer Tour with 26 appearances in 3 legs throughout the US, now we are only 15 days away from the Fall Tour and the (probably) last part of the Rough And Rowdy Ways Worldwide Tour!
Not to forget the rumors concerning some East Coast shows to conclude the year, even after the conclusion of the Fall Tour at the London Royal Albert Hall.
Plus the new movie “A Complete Unknown”, airing on Christmas… Oh boy…
For the next three days, we want to give a last look back at the Summer Tour shows.
Today: Part 2! Seven shows through the West!
If you want to check out part 1, you can do so by clicking here!
With only seven shows, this was such a short leg that it’s even worth adding a little map:
Bob kicked off the 2nd leg of the Summer Tour in Chula Vista with the exact same setlist as when he finished off the first leg in Hershey. Mickey Raphael was also there on harp again during “Simple Twist of Fate”.
The first real “news” we’ve got from Mountain View, CA, where Bob suddenly was wearing a wig, crowned by a beanie (read a nice little review from Rechi Van Lehen here!)!
It was also in Mountain View that Bob invited a guest guitar player on stage for a nice rendition of “Early Roman Kings”. It was Elvin Bishop who (officially) last played with Bob at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival as part of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
Here is a great 4k video from the performance:
Check out Elvin’s little solos at 3:50 and 5:16 min!
But that was not the only special thing about the Mountain View show. Not only was Mickey Raphael absent (and was not to come back for the rest of this second leg) but Bob was also playing around with multiple harmonicas during “Simple Twist”.
Setlist Dynamics
From this point onwards, Bob changed the setlist from time to time. In Wheatland, he brought back “Scarlet Town” for “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”. It was Scarlet Town’s first appearance since the Alpharetta show. He also constructed a new order for the last 4 songs of the setlist, but kept the total number of 15 songs. It was since that Wheatland show that “Ballad Of A Thin Man” had the honor to close the show.
BUT: For most fans, there was another real highlight in Wheatland: The return of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, just shortly after THE TRAILER was released…
And forevermore it stayed in the set…
After Wheatland, a break of two days gave Bob enough room to keep the changes coming. In Nampa (Boise), Idaho he
suddenly opened the show with “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” instead of “Highway 61 Revisited”
brought “Spirit On The Water” back for the first time since Madrid 2018
brought back “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”
kicked “Soon After Midnight” and “Can’t Wait” out.
In Spokane, Bob kept “Spirit” for one more show, but suddenly raised the bar with the total number of songs from 15 to 17!
For George, WA, Bob kept the same setlist but left out “Spirit".
But we also saw Luke Nelson, Willie Nelson’s son, join Bob and the band for five songs!
It was quite a ride during those seven shows, but he left us with anticipation for the third and final leg of the Summer Tour.
Stay tuned for this final wrap-up tomorrow!