BOB DYLAN : GEORGE, OUTLAW TOUR 2024

 

  1. Intro
  2. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
  3. Shooting Star
  4. Love Sick
  5. Little Queenie
  6. Mr. Blue
  7. Bob Introduces Lucas Nelson
  8. Early Roman Kings
  9. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
  10. Under The Red Sky
  11. Things Have Changed
  12. Stella Blue
  13. Six Days On The Road
  14. Can't Wait
  15. Bob introduces Lucas Nelson
  16. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
  17. Simple Twist Of Fate
  18. Soon after Midnight
  19. Ballad Of A Thin Man

Label : Crystal Cat

Venue : Gorge Amphitheatre, George, Washington, USA

Recording Date : August 10, 2024

Length : 77:01

Quality : Audience Recording (A+)

Concert Review (The Seattle Times) : It’s an occasion any time two of the greatest living songwriters share a stage. When that stage happens to be one of the most beautiful venues in the country, there’s bound to be a little magic. Such was the case Saturday, when Willie Nelson’s always-stacked Outlaw Music Festival tour pulled into the Gorge Amphitheatre. The current run pairs the country icon with one of the few artists he can legitimately call a peer in Bob Dylan, uniting the two friends and kindred-spirit songsmiths with vastly different personas. We were one Joni Mitchell away from unlocking some sort of cosmic portal over the Columbia River, but there was more than enough supernatural alchemy in the air when Dylan took the stage as the scorching Central Washington sun was mercifully setting. There’s a never-know-what-you’re-gonna-get factor with a Dylan show, which has only added to the mystic and mercurial folk legend’s lore. Last night was a good night; the 83-year-old sounded even stronger than he did two years ago during his savory Paramount Theatre date on his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour, and he pulled out a handful of heyday crowd-pleasers — something the uncompromising artist isn’t always wont to do. A tousled “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35” to start the 75-minute set felt like an opening bone tossed to some of the more casual Dylan fans at the festival-esque tour stop, with the recognizable “everybody must get stoned” lyric befitting a night when he was touring with a guy who has his own weed brand. It also served as a nice transition for a good-time crowd that had just spent a blues-rocking hour nostalgically partying with a rougher and rowdier John Mellencamp, who was also on the star-studded bill. Dylan and his dressed-in-black backing band loosened up themselves a few songs later with a moody “Love Sick” from 1997’s “Time Out of Mind.” The Gorge wind whipped his curly tuft of hair and his note sheets flapped across his piano as he leaned in deeper, hammering the keys with gale-force gusto. His voice clear as can be these days, Dylan sounded downright spunky on the saucy slow-cooker “Early Roman Kings,” a classic blues walk that got spicier as it progressed, joined by Lukas Nelson (one of Willie’s sons) on guitar. Save for an ill-fated sing-along attempt on a spirited “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” the robust crowd (which filled the hillside early for new-school bluegrass ripper Billy Strings, who could probably headline the Gorge himself) seemed awestruck by the folk hero. That was especially true on a stripped-down “Simple Twist of Fate,” when Dylan’s words hung in the still twilight air, interrupted only by piano rumbles and delicate accents from the band, with Lukas Nelson again sitting in for Dylan’s closing run. Closing with another slightly reworked crowd-pleaser, “Ballad of a Thin Man” was sly, mischievous and smoky, with Dylan shaking up his staggered phrasing to keep the crowd hanging on every line. For all those classic Dylan treats, some choice covers made for some of the highs. A master interpreter, Dylan treated the Grateful Dead’s “Stella Blue” like a delicate jazz standard for one of the biggest stunners of the night. Early on, Dylan delivered a fanciful rendition of “Mr. Blue,” the late ‘50s chart-topper by Washington doo-wop group The Fleetwoods that’s been a set list staple for Dylan this summer.