Last Night in Clarkston (by Caryn Rose)

2024-09-15, Pine Knob Music Theatre, Clarkston, MI

Dylan and Mickey Raphael one night earlier in Burgettstown PA, photo by Duncan Hume

After three months, on and off, the Outlaw Tour is almost done. Last night in Clarkston, MI, marked the third-to-last total show—but the second-to-last show Bob will be a part of, since he bailed on Friday’s Gilford, NH finale.

I was gonna write up that one up myself, but since he pulled out, now this will serve as our final Outlaw dispatch (find all ten previous ones here). And a great way to go out it is, with the return of one of my favorite music writers, Caryn Rose. Over to Caryn…

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When I heard that John Mellencamp had added a version of “All Along The Watchtower” to the Cleveland date of the Outlaw Music Festival last week, and that Bob had countered by adding “Watchtower” to his set the same night, I have to say I was not surprised, but I also didn’t know that needed them to keep the bit going, per se. While I’m not exactly a huge fan of “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” the most recent opener (and thus the one I was most likely to get at my show outside of Detroit, to borrow from Ray’s review of the Chicago-area date), I guess I wanted something—less obvious?

And then he came out onstage and went into “Watchtower” and I immediately stood up with a giant smile on my face and greeted it like a long-lost child. Every cell in my body vibrated with welcome. Bob Dylan singing “All Along the Watchtower”? It is history, it is legacy, it is home. I mentally apologized for wanting something else. It was great that this happened. It was a dialogue, it was a hat tip, it was a respectful nod. (I think Willie should play it, too, for all of those reasons. That would be fucking righteous.)

(As an aside, I realized during Mellencamp’s set that violinist Lisa Germano getting the solo in his “Watchtower” is probably one of the few times a woman has gotten that honor. I had to sit with that for a minute.)

Welcome to the Outlaw Music Festival at Pine Knob. Pine Knob, located at 33 Bob Seger Drive, is a 1970s-era outdoor amphitheater about 45 minutes up I-75 from Detroit. It changed back to its original name about a year after I moved here (although I would have been one of those people who continued to call it that, just like I won’t call any venue that’s not on the corner of Geary and Fillmore “the Fillmore”). Unlike most of the other shows in the back half of the Outlaw run, this one was sold out not long after it went on sale, and by the time we figured out how Bob was gonna handle this outing, there wasn’t even an affordable ticket left on the lawn. After reading the Tinley Park review, I was ready to drive to Buffalo when I pulled a miracle ticket in the 16th row. 

This is the Outlaw tour, but the stage setting is entirely still Rough and Rowdy Ways, down to a red curtain along the back. As soon as they got the lights set up onstage and turned them on, it was serious deja vu. The one thing that concerned me about my ticket was how much of a view of Bob I was going to have based on my angle at medium-hard stage left. I’m used to him being back up against the drum riser or as close to the back as possible, but he was more center and my angle was perfect. Jim Keltner was over Bob’s left shoulder. Tony is closer, while Bob Britt and Doug Lancio are still on auto-lean/hover, far less than they did when I saw those shows in Nashville, but it will never cease to amaze me that even in a situation like this, where he could just pick his most obvious hits and play them the exact same way every night and the audience would be thrilled, he still makes the guys onstage work their asses off.