Live Report: Bob Dylan closes out Rough and Rowdy Ways world tour with freewheelin' 3Arena show

Dylan sits centre stage, behind a baby grand piano, facing his devoted audience (under house lights that never dim), clad in black suit and shin high cowboy boots, his band – guitarists Doug Lancio and Bob Britt, drummer Anton Fig and bassist player Tony Garnier fanned about him – in a set up that rouses the stuff of Otis Spann’s heavy left hand-boogie in Muddy Waters’ band, Professor Longhair’s New Orleans’ rumba blues, Dr. John’s voodoo funk in The Night Trippers, the psychedelic rock of Ray Manzarek’s The Doors, Memphis Slim’s Chicago blues and the carnival folk of Richard Manuel in The Band. Aye, this gig had the whole kit and caboodle.

John Wesley Harding cut ‘I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight’ opens proceedings, Dylan chortling and chuckling about mockingbirds before twirling around with guitar, his band leaning in to deconstruct ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe’, traditional structure of such hits, long since dispensed with. And then into ‘I Contain Multitudes’ they whale, the first of nine tracks aired tonight from Rough and Rowdy Ways, the magnificent mortality (yours and mine, ask not for whom the bell tolls…) record that Dylan has been touring since 2021. Indeed, ‘False Prophet’ – the blues stomp of it marvellous – follows, Dylan gleefully hollering –

I'm first among equals
Second to none
The last of the best
You can bury the rest
Bury 'em naked with their silver and gold
Put them six feet under and I pray for their souls

‘When I Paint My Masterpiece’ - a version of which appeared on 2023's Shadow Kingdom - Dylan’s tale of rambling a crumbling Rome, wonderfully moseys through jazz, samba, classical and surf rock before the band strip away on the slapstick horror hymn of ‘Black Rider’, the naked vocal like a merry man under your windowsill, wandering home under wet streetlamps, singing to the stars, unafraid of trailing Death.

Old chum ‘Desolation Angel’ follows two more Rough and Rowdy cuts – ‘My Own Version of You’ and ‘Crossing the Rubicon’ - and you sort of recognise him, although he’s much shorter now and speaks quicker. The tremendous ‘Key West (Philosopher Pirate)’, more epistle home than conventional tune, is brilliantly aired tonight, complete with tales of Ginsberg, Corso, Kerouac, Louie, Jimmy and Buddy and a quizzical gurgling of the waters sound, which my learned companion Johnny Cronin informs is some fine guitar tremolo. Dylan blows harmonica on ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ and the - to a person - riveted crowd howl their delight.

Before ‘Goodbye Jimmy Reed’, Dylan introduces his boss band, declares “I can see the Master’s hand in every leaf that trembles" on Shot of Love cut ‘Every Grain of Sand’ and then closes out the fantastic evening with a symphonic cover of Shane MacGowan’s Olympian 'A Rainy Night in Soho' which is a majestic touch. Thus, after 250 or so dates, the Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour closes…for now…