Two Nights in Edinburgh, and One in Liverpool (by Adam Selzer)

2024-11-05/6, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland + 2024-11-03, M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool, England

The Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour is almost over! I know I’ve said that before. But the tour posters all along have had “2021–2024” printed right on them, and here we are near the end of 2024. Rumors of a short East Coast run around Thanksgiving have come to nothing. So it appears the Royal Albert Hall shows next week will be the tour’s last stand. I’ll be there!

I’ve run next-day dispatches on 53 shows from this three-year tour (I just counted). A handful I wrote myself; most came from guests who attended shows I wasn’t at. And, as we enter the final week, I’ve got a few more lined up. In fact, I’ve got dispatches coming from every stop on the last run: Liverpool and Edinburgh today, then Nottingham, Wolverhampton (still can’t believe that’s the name of a real place), and, the grand finale, London.

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Kicking off this final run is friend-of-the-newsletter Adam Selzer. He’s just begun a trip following this final UK run, and reports in today from two nights in Edinburgh, last night and the night before, as well as Liverpool this past Sunday. Adam last wrote in from the Outlaw Tour back in June, a very different vibe than Rough and Rowdy Ways (ironically, those Outlaw shows were rougher and rowdier).

Adam is a Chicago historian, author, and tour guide; find more info at adamchicago.com. Now I’ll turn it over to him for his show reports mixed with a travelogue of an American following Dylan around the UK for the first time. Read his dispatch below.

Cue sheets photo via @False_Prophet44

As long as I’ve followed the setlists, I’ve envied the people who travel the world and follow tours for long stretches. Now and then in my younger days I was able to go to a few in a row, especially if he was playing around my town, and in recent years I’ve been able to do several more. I’ve determined that, whether it’s financially wise or not, there’s nothing I’d rather spend my money on than going to more Bob Dylan concerts. But I’d never ventured overseas for one. When rumors swirled of a fall UK tour, I decided that I’d do it.

I’d fly out Election Day, and stay for the rest of the tour. Two weeks of just wandering, with no itinerary but the concerts. I’d always heard how much I’d like Edinburgh, and I always wanted to hit those little English towns that you never think to go to as a tourist, like Nottingham or Wolverhampton. Brits thought it was hilarious that I was interested in Wolverhampton, but, hey, one of the best shows I ever saw was in Dalton, Georgia. This was to be two weeks of adventure! After the Prague recordings went around, I even moved my flight up a couple of days to add Liverpool and the first Edinburgh show. I didn’t want to be over the ocean on election night anyway (there aren’t enough sedatives in the world), and one day less of swing-state canvassing probably wouldn’t be the deciding factor in the election, after all.

So I flew into Liverpool….

Liverpool

Liverpool! Just like I pictured it. Brick row houses and everything.

Social media posts remind me that it was three years ago this week that the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour began in Milwaukee, a night that will be hard to top for sheer excitement. And now, here I am, heading to another joint as the tour becomes, in its final stretch, Rough and Rowdy 2.0.

I found myself fascinated by Liverpool. The city is a strange mix of Pullman, the “fancy factory town” an old robber baron built in Chicago, and Brooklyn. It’s bustling, and feels far larger than Milwaukee, a town with a similar population and working-class reputation. I had something called a sausage barm at a shop with a surly owner and listened to the chimes of an enormous church. As I was walking around to see where The Cavern was, my Tempest shirt was spotted by a few fans who hustled me into a pub, where we chatted, watching a Dylan tribute act that did songs like “Is Your Love In Vain,” and guzzled beer. Too much beer. As we walked to the venue they showed me sites like the old White Star Line offices, where the people gathered for news of the Titanic. As I walked to the long security line, I heard an astonished Ian Gallon call out my name—what a swell hobby this is, where we can fly 3000 miles, make new friends, and run into old ones! 

I hadn’t followed the recent tapes too closely, and jet lag hit me right as the show began, so I experienced my first Rough and Rowdy 2.0 show through a haze of beer, sleepiness, and a distinct need to pee. “Watchtower” was such a new arrangement that I almost thought it was going to be “Things Have Changed.” It sounded like Bob was playing guitar in the early songs. There was no audible piano, just a Bob-like guitar bit, though I couldn’t see him behind the piano (later reports confirm he was indeed playing guitar back there).

In a “full circle” sort of thing, now that Bob is seemingly on the last leg of Rough and Rowdy Ways, he’s back to doing several songs center stage, like on the very first leg, though he’s not quite as animated as he was in the beginning, when he would walk in a crouch like a cartoon character going on safari. And the “center stage” parts don’t seem to last as long; after a verse or two he’s back at the piano, and often leaning his elbow on it as he sings. I was reminded of those Charlie Brown comic strips where he and Linus wax philosophical while they rest their elbows on some random chest-high brick wall.

The leaner, rougher band (and somewhat rougher voice) makes for a very different experience than the tight, spooky spring shows, and takes some getting used to. So did the venue; the arena in Liverpool is by far the largest venue in which I’ve seen a RARW show. Between the huge hall and the jet lag, I felt like I was watching the show from a far greater distance than I really was.

There were some clear highlights. A sparse and gorgeous “Key West” stood out, after which Bob said he wrote it at Ernest Hemingway’s house (and something like “I think there’s a bit of him in that song, I don’t know but I suspect,” though the words were lost in the echo of the hall.) “Baby Blue” abandoned the recent arrangement that called to mind the guitar in The Beatles’ “In My Life,” and instead went into an arrangement similar to the summer “Can’t Wait” but more like the version from Shadow Kingdom. The show continues to evolve! What a fascinating progression it’s been, as these songs reveal layer after layer over these three years. Of course, leave it to Bob to abandon a Beatles-like arrangement as soon as he gets to Liverpool.

Bob moved to center stage and nearly danced for the beginning of “Desolation Row,” with Jim Keltner laying down a barrelling drum part. The percussion on the great Unplugged version sounds like a pony clip-clopping across cobblestones as it leads you through Desolation Row in a carriage. Now it’s a whole team of horses charging through. I thought of Dylan’s ‘97 interview in which he said the “slow train coming” was still on the way, but going like a freight train now.

The crowd was mostly sedate, certainly not as enthusiastic as they were singing along to the busker doing “Like a Rolling Stone” outside afterward, which made me think that many of them had come expecting a show like you’d get from Paul McCartney, or Mike Love and the Beach Boys of Theseus, recreating the old hits so you could sing along. In a large arena, it’s a given that thousands of people expected that sort of show, and were bound to leave disappointed no matter how great the show was on its own terms. But they were brought to their feet by the harmonica solos in “Every Grain of Sand.”

Edinburgh Night 1

After a much-needed sleep, I took a four-hour train ride into Edinburgh, passing small towns, sheep farms, and misty mountains. I could have stared out the window all day. Part of me expected that the UK would really be “Just like here, only it’s there,” but there was hardly a moment that I couldn’t tell I was in another country. I had a pleasant day and a half of just wandering Edinburgh, which (being a cemetery tour guide by trade) everyone has always told me I would love. It’s the kind of town that names strip clubs after old time murderers and grave robbers, which I have to admit makes it seem like my kind of town. It must always seem like autumn here. The few hours when the sun was shining, it seemed out of place. This is a town that should always be overcast.

In one of the churchyards I found a gravestone with a variation on the quote Dylan said in 1997 he was repeating to himself, but unable to place, when he was working on Time Out of Mind: “Work while the day lasts, for the night of death cometh when no man can work.” The wording was a bit different, but the sentiment the same. It’s on the grave of John Stuart Hepburn Forbes, a baronet who died in 1866 and is remembered mainly for being a baronet. Being an American, I’m not sure what sort of work you do while the day lasts as a baronet, and looking it up now is only puzzling me further, but it seems like a pretty easy gig.

That first evening, as there was no show, I met up with Ian Gallon, Viktor, and Angus at a pub called The Joker and The Thief for some very peaty scotch. The next night more of us gathered at a pub called Shakespeare’s, across from the venue. Great to run into Nancy and Susan from the States! And Federica from Italy, who I hadn’t seen in about twenty years, but who hasn’t changed a bit; she still looks and talks exactly the same as she did all those nights outside the Auditorium in Chicago.

Photo by @pekibuzz

But for all the fun, it was hard for me to avoid the anxiety of it being Election Day back in the States. Most of the signs were encouraging going in, but who knew? We’ve said that before. Again and again. And, meanwhile, the tickets I bought on Viagogo for night 2 were appearing to be a mirage, though they said they wouldn’t confirm it and replace the tickets until late the next day, so that was another thing to be stressed about.

All in all, I was eating and drinking a lot, just trying to keep my nerves in check, but switched to shots that would keep me from having to pee during the show. This has to be a sign that I’m getting old.

But the show successfully took my mind off the anxiety, for the most part (with the help, I admit, of the Yondr pouch). I’d met up with with Nathan, who had my ticket, and took a seat in Usher Hall next to him and his gran, Maryanne, who told me she’d been a big fan ever since she heard Dylan’s version of “House of the Rising Sun” on a jukebox about sixty years ago. She’d never managed to see him live until Nathan took her two years ago, and she was thrilled to be seeing him again.

Sitting next to Maryanne was an absolute delight. She loved the show and reacted to Dylan’s various vocal tricks and twists in a way you often just see from those of us who see enough shows to get excited about subtle nuances. I would see a show with her any time!

Dylan opened on the bench, playing guitar with his back to the crowd, facing the band, a setup he’d repeat for the opening of “It Ain’t Me Babe.” It was nice to be able to see that he was on guitar this time, and turning his back on the audience to play was just one more way that seeing Dylan is like seeing Miles Davis, a favorite comparison of mine.

After a strong opening four songs, something clicked at “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” with Dylan finding a rhythm cadence for the vocals early on and sticking with it. From there the show hit another level. “My Own Version of You” still saw him trying to find a rhythm and not quite landing on one (and saying “bones” instead of “brains,”), but “Rubicon” had particularly strong vocals, “Desolation Row” thundered along with great piano, and the new, stripped down (but sung with great force) “Key West” was amazing. You might not have quite been able to hear a pin drop, but it was at least quiet enough that I could hear a door open on the far side of the theater.

After it, he said something I couldn’t quite make out, leaving me with that age old problem of spending the rest of the show wondering what the heck he said. It turned out to be something like “Great to be back here in Edinburgh. Some people say it’s the center of the world.”

On “I’ve Made Up My Mind,” Keltner was doing some interesting things building a rhythm out of seemingly random light hits of the cymbal and drums, calling to mind a Matt Chamberlain part to me (and possibly earning him the intro he got at the end). As often happens at shows, I suddenly noticed something in the lyrics: right after “take me out traveling you’re a traveling man” comes “I’ll go far away with her.” Does he mean “take US out traveling?” Is this a “Tangled Up in Blue” thing of mixing up pronouns? Finding new ways to engage with the text is a great advantage of seeing the songs performed live, even when you see them again and again.

“Mother of Muses” had vocals that, like “Key West” tonight, seemed insistent - not sung so much as declaimed. And, of course, “Every Grain of Sand” is a highlight every night.

After the show I fielded texts that voter turnout was high, and signs were encouraging. Met up with the group from the night before, plus Matt, Tully, Nightly Moth, and Madeline, at the bar, and had several drinks as I checked the news. I reminisced about how much fun it had been to set up the “Dylan Fans for Harris” show and explained the nuances of the electoral system at the bar. My “I voted” sticker and Harris button attracted a lot of attention and drink offers from bar patrons. At one point several of us walked about 5000 steps, through alleys and alongside churchyards, castles, and the place where they used to hang people, before ending up an arcade bar on the same block where we started, where we blew through a bucket of tokens on the old Simpsons Arcade game. It was honestly one of the best nights of my life.

Then I went home and started watching the election go very, very wrong. All those weekends of door knocking in swing states, the fund raisers…it had all been for nothing. People had already made up their minds months before, and my country had given a veritable mandate to a racist pig who’d promised to use the office for revenge and put Austin Powers villains into positions of authority, all apparently because they thought he’d make gas cheaper.

I had not purchased enough alcohol.

Edinburgh Night 2

I didn’t want a repeat of being too tired to enjoy the show in Liverpool, but I didn’t manage to get any sleep until about 7am. I woke up an hour or two later, feeling like my country had been pulled out from under me. But I was in Scotland; my friends and family at home would be asleep for hours to come, so there was no one to commiserate with, and to worry about how much trouble we were in. When a TV was showing the news people expressed disgust, but otherwise seemed to be just going on with their day. It wasn’t their election, after all. Theirs turned out a lot better. I couldn’t decide whether I was glad to be away from it all or if I would feel better back with friends and family.

I wandered over to the National Museum but couldn’t focus, and ended up back in the churchyards, looking at tombstones with carved images of people dancing on skeletons and naked babies playing with skulls. At least the tombstones still knew how to party.

What do you when you don’t know whether the world is flat or round and you have the worst taste in your mouth that you ever knew? Going to a Bob Dylan concert is about as good as you can do, I suppose.

But Viagogo still hadn’t been able to get me the tickets I’d ordered. They kept telling me they’d contact the seller, and if I still couldn’t get the tickets a few hours before the show, they’d get me an alternate. I tried to just walk around the city morel going in the opposite direction of the nice but too touristy Old Town, I found a more residential area with a cafe called Throat Punch where two large, lazy dogs sat around on the leather armchairs and regulars chatted amiably. That was nice.

Around 3, Viagogo conceded defeat, then sent a link to select an alternate ticket, but there were none to pick. I had to get the refund, and wander to the venue, where I stood around with one finger up in hopes of finding one for sale, facing a distinct chance of not getting in. It was a dizzying swing from one of the best nights ever to one of the worst. I must have looked like one forlorn sight. Some friends from the night before came to offer hugs and good wishes, and to say “At least you’re going to Wolverhampton,” which I understand is a sentence that people don’t say very often. I’ve noticed that people here talk about Wolverhampton the way Americans talk about Gary, Indiana.

Finally, by checking the box office every five minutes, a ticket was found—and a better one than I’d had, and for far less money. So I had that going for me. Which was good. And it happened with enough time to scarf down a burger, the first food I’d really been able to eat all day.

Bob again opened the night playing guitar on the first two songs with his back to the crowd before turning to sing. He seemed tired. Everyone in the band did, really. One shouldn’t try to read too much in Dylan’s reaction to current events by his mood (though I spoke to people outside who based entire global conspiracy theories on cover song choices), but there was a good chance everyone in the band had been up all night with election results as well, and this was definitely not a night when Bob would be described as “all smiles” or “having a blast.” There were few humorous asides, and less standing to sing than previous nights.

But tired or not, he gave the show his all. “False Prophet” roared, and Bob continued to put a Spanish-tinged, Bossa Nova-like cadence on “Masterpiece.” (Well, maybe it isn’t Spanish-tinged at all, really, but that’s the image I got in my head from the way he was singing: some old “Music of Spain” record that you find in a thrift store bin. Maybe it wouldn’t make sense for anyone else.) Great harp on “Masterpiece,” as well. There was a particularly menacing “Black Rider,” and a killer “Rubicon.” “Desolation Row” had the crowd on its feet with great piano and harp. And oh, that “Baby Blue,” with Bob wailing and bending notes to the “new” Shadow Kingdom-like arrangement, which is nearly solo piano and sheer vocal gymnastics. I needed someone to tell me to “strike another match, go start anew” this forcefully tonight.

“My Own Version of You” continues to seem like a work in progress lately. Both Bob and the band seemed to be looking for a new groove to hit, and would occasionally touch on one, but then it would fall back apart. Of course, sometimes these “not quite there” versions are fascinating to watch: we’re seeing the creative process in action. The “least good” performances can still be the “most interesting.”

My seat was the first I’d had that really gave me a chance to see Keltner in action, wearing his shades the whole time. It may have just been me being able to see him, but he seems to be getting more creative, especially with the use of the cymbals. And, as a non-drummer, this may be like one of those things where the most impressive tap dance moves are actually the easiest, but the barrelling drums on “Desolation Row” seem like they’d be a real endurance test. After it’s done, he might need the break in the new, sparse “Key West,” which was more tender tonight than last night’s insistent version. Jim mostly sits sipping from a cup, only adding the tiniest of cymbal towards the end.

“Watching the River Flow” has been pointed out as a highlight on this leg, but I found it as just a good version compared to when it was an opener and often seemed like a warmup. I heard better versions occasionally (Milwaukee ‘23 night 2, Austin ‘24 night 2), but it was solid.

There were some moments of levity. “Black Rider” featured a rueful laugh (“Every step of the way, heh heh, another stumbling block.”) After “My Own Version Of You,” he said “Tony Garnier on bass. Tony’s brought a lot of things to life. Lot of people.” (Other people heard “Not people, though.”) 

After “Made Up My Mind,” Britt began playing the riff to “Jimmy Reed” instead of “Mother of Muses,” then stopped. In a tense second, people chuckled, and Britt took off his hat and fanned himself. After playing the correct song but turned and looked at Keltner, who shrugged.

“Mother of Muses” was excellent, and “Jimmy Reed” was one of the better outings I’ve seen, though the mic didn’t seem to be working the first few lines. After it, as the first notes of “Every Grain” played, Bob said “We could play here every night, actually. Maybe we can come back.” Perhaps it was a comment on not wanting to go back home after the election and perhaps it wasn’t. But I know I’d spent the day walking into places and thinking “What if I just stayed here? Think they need a Chicago historian on staff?” Maybe I can get a job as a baronet.

“Every Grain of Sand” is an automatic highlight these days, but on my watch recording I can hear myself saying “wow” after multiple lines, and the crowd applauded after each verse. In a trend I’d noticed lately, the house lights seemed to stay down for a long time after the band left the stage.

Was it just what I needed? Well, I still feel pretty crappy this morning, but it was just what I needed for a couple of hours, and I finally got some sleep. I have another day in Scotland ahead, and then onto Nottingham and the rest of the tour. It’s the wonderful thing about being a Dylan fan. I may be thousands of miles from home, but I’ll always be with friends, and I’ll meet new ones every night.

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Thanks Adam! Amazingly, we’ve already got tapes of all three shows. Huge thanks to tapers nightly_moth and Bucketsorain and to remasterer Bennyboy,

2024-11-03, M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool, England

2024-11-05, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland

2024-11-06, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland

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PS. I’ve got more dispatches coming this month from all the other last Rough and Rowdy Ways tour stops too (including my three shows in London). Those will be sent to paid subscribers only. Hop onboard if you want ‘em.

UPDATE: Here’s a review of the next night: