Bob Dylan just finished what could be his last tour 鈥� but remains a defiant artist forging new ideas
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This November, Bob Dylan performed the final concerts of his at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The tour picked up where Dylan left off just before the COVID pandemic 鈥� . But now at the age of 83, the concerts might well be Dylan鈥檚 last.
The Rough and Rowdy Ways tour was billed as running from 2021 to 2024, but at the time of publication, there seem to be no future tour dates on the horizon. As Dylan himself wondered on his most recent album:
Dylan has diced with death more than once 鈥� think of his infamous , or his serious 鈥� and death has preoccupied his songs increasingly in recent years. Throughout this tour, Dylan鈥檚 thoughts have been heavily focused on his own mortality and his own legacy.
If the Albert Hall concerts this year are to be his last on the road, then it鈥檚 a fitting venue at which to bow out, having first played it nearly 60 years ago. Back then, Dylan was a restless, hungry artist, reinventing his sound, his image, his voice with every album 鈥� sometimes, within months of release.
Between 1962 and 1966, Dylan went from being a Midwest folk singer to the , via , rewriting the popular music songbook as he went.
With each successive regeneration, he seemed determined not only to redefine rock and popular music, but to alienate his audience . He was an artist in search of answers, who didn鈥檛 give those in his wake time to catch their breath. Sixty years on, and now well into his ninth decade, things haven鈥檛 changed.
His own version
Dylan鈥檚 final night at the Albert Hall was a summation of how he remains a defiant artist still forging new ideas. The performance contained highlights from his entire career. Eight of the 17 songs were written and released before the 1990s, while everything else was from the 2020 album after which the tour is named. But each song was radically reinvented, reworked to Dylan鈥檚 ever-changing vision, with some of the songs even being rearranged during his three-day residency at the Albert Hall.
Take (2020), Dylan鈥檚 late masterpiece about the process of creation. In the song, the narrator 鈥� a modern-day Prometheus, maybe even Dylan himself 鈥� tells of his efforts to construct his vision from 鈥渓imbs and livers and brains and hearts鈥�.
The song鈥檚 arrangement at the start of the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour was as a brooding, Tex-Mex noir. But by the tour鈥檚 end, Dylan had stripped his ode to Mary Shelley鈥檚 Frankenstein to its essentials, until all that was left by the final Royal Albert Hall concert was Dylan鈥檚 voice.
He rapped the lyrics, accompanied by his own sparse piano backing and the occasional guitar flourish. It was a performance that evoked similarities to Dylan鈥檚 rapid-style solo delivery of songs like (1965) on the same stage in the 1960s.
My Own Version of You is a song in which Dylan reflects on his own artistic and creative processes. And in its radical and stark new arrangement in this final concert, Dylan was returning to how he started: as an artist whose main tools have always been . It鈥檚 the reason he was awarded the in 2016, after all.
It鈥檚 perhaps unsurprising then that the entire concert was a reflection on the process of creation. Dylan鈥檚 process is to reshape, disassemble, reassemble and strip back. While the process is undoubtedly frustrating for some in the audience, as they struggle to guess what song Dylan is performing, it is also exhilarating to watch an artist reinventing himself and his songs in real time.
They become assemblages of the old and the new, the found and the borrowed. (1971) is no longer an elegiac sing-along song, but instead a reggae-influenced tune via Dylan鈥檚 own down-and-dirty blues of the Time Out of Mind album (1997), with a bit of his born-again gospel thrown in for good measure.
(1968) is no longer Dylan鈥檚 homage to Jimi Hendrix鈥檚 career-defining cover version, but a fable of hell trapped on a loop from which the narrator seeks escape, with echoes of (1990). And (1981) becomes a melancholic requiem by an old man with no regrets, determined to rage against time. It conjures memories of Dylan鈥檚 version of , performed at the Royal Albert Hall in 2013.
If this was to be Dylan鈥檚 last ever live performance, then what does it say about him and his place in music history? Well, that he remains as vital an artist as he was in the 1960s, one who continues to reinvent himself, who continues to chase that restless, hungry feeling and who doesn鈥檛 look back, but constantly forward.
Dylan would leave behind an expansive body of work 鈥� both studio albums and live recordings 鈥� for scholars, critics and audiences alike to . And in that rediscovery, they will learn much about what it means to be an artist.
, Senior Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries, University of 野狼社区
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