BOB DYLAN : SANTA BARBARA 2026

 

Disc One (39:10)

  1. To Be Alone with You
  2. Man in the Long Black Coat
  3. All Along the Watchtower
  4. Tryin' to Get to Heaven
  5. False Prophet
  6. I Can Tell
  7. Black Rider
  8. Share Your Love with Me

Disc Two (41:11)

  1. When I Paint My Masterpiece
  2. I'll Make It All Up to You
  3. Crossing the Rubicon
  4. Soon After Midnight
  5. Under the Red Sky
  6. I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You
  7. Nervous Breakdown
  8. I Shall be Released

Label : no label

Venue : Santa Barbara Bowl, Santa Barbara, California, USA

Recording Date : June 17, 2026

Quality : Audience Recording (A+)

Concert Review (Los Angeles Times) : Sixty-one years and a day after he laid down the epochal “Like a Rolling Stone” in a recording studio on Seventh Avenue in New York City, Bob Dylan shuffled onstage on the other side of the country dressed so fine in a dark jacket with the hood pulled over his head. The hood, which Dylan has been wearing even for shows without the cool coastal breeze that blew through the Santa Barbara Bowl on Wednesday night, has lately become an object of online fascination; one guy on X last year wrote that he was obsessed with the rock legend’s “new dripped out look,” and I have to agree: Though there are great hooded-Dylan photos going back decades, his current wardrobe — as seen nightly against a velvety curtain lighted from below — is a vibe through and through. (His Bobness forbade photographers from shooting Wednesday’s show, which means you’ll have to consult social media for a glimpse.) Dylan’s drip isn’t the only thing putting him into the viral bloodstream of the internet. In March, he launched a Patreon, where he’s posting short stories and apparently AI-assisted installments in an audio series called “Lectures From the Grave”; this week, he contributed his thoughts on aging to a widely shared New York Times op-ed pegged to President Trump’s 80th birthday. In my social feeds, at least, quotes from Dylan’s piece — “You’re an old king from some vanished country,” he wrote — kept turning up next to clips of Timothée Chalamet celebrating the New York Knicks’ NBA Finals win — an oddly poetic interleaving given their history. All this stuff is cool; I admire veteran culture-shapers who figure out how to adapt to a new information environment. Yet one of the reasons it’s fun to encounter Dylan on Instagram is because you can still encounter him in the flesh. And at 85, he’s absolutely cooking on the road right now. Advertisement Barry Manilow is photographed in Palm Springs on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. Music For Subscribers The life of a showman: Barry Manilow on cancer, coming out and cosmetic surgery May 27, 2026 Wednesday’s show was the first in a handful he’s playing around Southern California this week, including a gig scheduled for Saturday night at Palm Desert’s Acrisure Arena. For years after the release of 2020’s pulpy “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” Dylan said he was on the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour; this month, though, he started selling T-shirts that describe his latest run of dates as the Long Hot Summer tour — precisely the sort of taxonomical quirk to get Bobheads going in the comments. The concert, which ran about 80 minutes, mixed four cuts from “Rough and Rowdy Ways” with older Dylan songs like “All Along the Watchtower” and “To Be Alone With You” and covers such as Bo Diddley’s “I Can Tell” and Eddie Cochran’s “Nervous Breakdown.” But the whole thing felt like one continuous dream state, as Dylan — accompanied by a four-piece band dressed in dark colors to match the boss — croaked, gasped and crooned from behind an electric piano he played like somebody knocking the keys with his arm as he reaches for a drink. “False Prophet” was a raunchy blues while “When I Paint My Masterpiece” rode a luscious rumba groove; “Crossing the Rubicon” and “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You,” both from “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” got arrangements completely different from those on the album. To the astonishment of many a Bobhead, Dylan’s guitarist Doug Lancio was replaced in Santa Barbara by Julian Lage, the youngish jazz star known for his work with Gary Burton and John Zorn. (Dylan said nothing about the change, nor about anything else, from the stage; a spokesman for the singer said he had no word on whether Lage was a permanent addition to the band.) Lage’s playing was tender and spooky, not least in “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven,” where every 30 seconds or so the chords would go in some direction I could never have predicted. The result was a spectacle of emotion — you’d have to have tried not to get swept away by “I Shall Be Released,” which closed the show — but also of belief in one’s craft. Onstage as on your phone, Dylan was searching for new limits Wednesday — a lifer grinding toward the sublime.

Review (Santa Barbara Independent) : Bob Dylan is 85 years old, and SoHO threw the Nobel Prize–winning inscrutable artist the ultimate birthday party on Sunday night. Santa Barbara musicians Maxton Hunter and Roberto Johnson curated Positively State Street, an all-star tribute show featuring local artists doing their best Dylan impressions spanning a lifetime of songs. However, in true Dylan spirit, these performances were way more than impressions. Sure, there were plenty of velvet vests, ankle length pants, and boots of Spanish leather, but these songsters breathed new life into his songs, reinventing them in engaging ways. Lily Forte’s booming Amy Winehouse-esque vocals on “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” captivated the crowd and made it clear that Dylan’s music is living, breathing, and up for adaptation. After her powerful performance, a friend looked at me wide-eyed, noting with a smile, “Now I’m awake.” The dedicated house band held down the fort for every song while lead guitarists, singers, and multi-instrumentalists filtered in and out. Jackson Gillies’s endearing vocal tone and effortless guitar stylings were the perfect match for “When I Paint My Masterpiece.” Antonio Barret’s strong vocals and smooth piano playing in his cover of “The Man in Me” had the audience la-la-la-la-la-ing together in pure joy. A standout performer of the night was Ojai-based producer, musician Scott Hirsch. The New Jersey–born musician has more in common with Dylan than just his homebase. He recorded and played bass for many years in the band Hiss Golden Messenger and still mixes most of their albums. He has honed his Americana stylings through many tours, and his focused yet seemingly effortless performance entranced the audience as they swayed and hummed through his warm as pie covers, including the jaunty “Meet Me in the Morning.” Guitarist and singer Jacob Cole, donning a jean jacket, bolo tie, and dark Ray-Ban shades, more than looked the part; he sang it and played it with precision and heart. His cover of “Most of the Time,” had us all wistfully hypnotized. Jess Bush, who took command of the keyboards, soared through a luscious cover of “Make You Feel My Love,” sung in the style of Adele, but ultimately all her own. It wouldn’t be a party without a good old fashioned sing-along and the band more than provided. Fronted by the dynamic lead singer of Plastic Harpoons, Taylor Casey, and complete with a rollicking band shaking tambourines and filling the stage with passion, the closing group’s cover of “Like a Rolling Stone” was the ultimate tribute. For an artist who’s always recreating himself in every note, I have to think that Dylan would tip his hat to this tour de force of young artists proving that no matter our age, we’re always “busy being born.”