Still On The Road
He also unveiled a radical rearrangement of “Trying to Get to Heaven” that evokes his 1976 Desire classic “One More Cup of Coffee”
Bob Dylan‘s Lights of Autumn tour reached the OVB Arena in Bremen, Germany, on October 25, and near the end of the set he broke out the Time Out of Mind classic “Million Miles” for the first time since 2014. There’s no video since fans are forced to place their phones in pouches for the duration of the show, but a remarkably clean audience recording has emerged.
“Trying to Get to Heaven,” also from Time Out of Mind, has been a regular part of the rotation in recent months. But in Bremen, Dylan unveiled a stunning new arrangement that evokes the Desire classic “One More Cup of Coffee.” They played the song just two days earlier in Flensburg, Germany, but it sounded nothing like this. It’s another demonstration that even though Dylan’s setlist remains somewhat static on paper, he continues to radically rework the songs in unpredictable ways.
The Lights of Autumn tour began October 19 in Oslo, Norway. Dylan surprised fans that night by debuting covers of Randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927” and Guy Clark’s “Dublin Blues.” He also dug out “Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood)” for the first time since 2005, and the first “Tangled Up In Blue” since 2018. He added two new verses to the latter song, and played it on the piano with minimal accompaniment.
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The Newman and Clark covers disappeared after that first night, along with “Crash on the Levee (Down In The Flood),” but the new “Tangled Up In Blue” has stuck around. He’s also brought back a tender take on “Girl From The North Country.”
These European shows have also featured the debut of guitarist Mike Seal. It’s the latest move in a bizarre game of guitarist musical chairs that’s played out on Dylan’s stage over the past several months, beginning in June when longtime members Doug Lancio and Bob Britt left the group with no warning. In the months that followed, Julian Lage, Joel Paterson, Jad Tarik, and now Seal have stepped in to fill the void in various permutations. As of now, Paterson and Seal are sharing guitar duties, but that could change at any point without notice.