Last Night in Raleigh (by Jon Wurster)

2024-06-23, Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh, NC

The third show of the Outlaw Tour took place last night in Raleigh, NC. After two nights of insane setlist surprises—reported on here and here—things seem to have settled (for now). Friend-of-the-newsletter Jon Wurster, drummer for The Mountain Goats and Bob Mould and beyond who helped me interview Bob’s new-old drummer Jim Keltner last summer, was on the ground and sends in today’s report.

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Full honesty: I was firmly on the fence regarding these Outlaw Festival shows when they were announced. Me in ninety-degree heat, surrounded by thousands of other people who are also uncomfortably hot, is not my ideal situation. But when confirmation came during Dylan’s Friday night’s tour kickoff that legendary session king Jim Keltner was behind the kit, my decision was made for me. Keltner has been at the top of Dylan’s studio call sheet for decades but has not done an extensive Dylan tour in many years. The hot ticket gods were with me Saturday afternoon and I ended up scoring two superb seats for me and my friend Adam for Sunday’s show at Raleigh’s Coastal Credit Music Park (finally, credit and music can live together as one).

When we last spoke back in March, the band was nearing the end of its multi-year tour performing the Rough and Rowdy Ways album almost in its entirety each night. Even though several great drummers (Matt Chamberlain on the album, Charley Drayton and Jerry Pentecost live) flowed in and out, the fairly ironclad setlist resulted in the band being incredibly on point when it came to song arrangements and feels.

All that was out the window on Sunday night. Not a single song from Rough and Rowdy Ways was performed. The fourteen-song setlist consisted of four covers (Chuck Berry, Fleetwoods, Dave Dudley, Grateful Dead) and originals that, for reasons known only to him, Dylan chose to play. This is a fascinating layer for me: Why “Shooting Star,” “Under the Red Sky” and “Soon After Midnight” now? Tempest’s “Early Roman Kings” must scratch some kind of itch for Dylan. If it stays in the set, by the end of the tour he will have performed it almost six hundred times in the last eleven years. The Time Out of Mind warhorse “Can’t Wait” returned to the set, but now as a drumless, piano-heavy sound swirl that would not be out of place on a Nick Cave album. Dylan’s voice was no doubt feeling the stress of three very hot nights in a row, but he delivered the songs with passion and conviction.