When it comes to artists like Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, The Doors, Ritchie Valens and Mozart, by the time we get to the biopic, it’s usually too late to see them.
A rare exception, thankfully, is Bob Dylan, whose origin story was depicted with exquisite detail and some dramatic license in last year’s Oscar-nominated hit “A Complete Unknown.” Timothee Chalamet embodied the young Dylan as he made the pilgrimage from Minnesota to New York meet his ailing hero, Woody Guthrie, and then rose through the Greenwich Village folk scene to become the (reluctant) voice of a generation.
Audiences in Pittsburgh got to witness some of that history firsthand, starting on March 17, 1965 when Dylan made his Pittsburgh debut at the Syria Mosque with Joan Baez. By that point, their relationship had become strained by Dylan’s eccentric behavior and subtle string of insults, like telling her, in the film, “Your songs are like an oil painting at the dentist's office.”
Carl Apone, who wrote The Pittsburgh Press review in ‘65, gushed about the “queen of folk singers” and seemed barely aware of who Dylan was, despite the “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” being two years old. There was a sameness to their duets, he said, that “brought the performance dangerously close to boredom.” Imagine that. He lamented that she was reluctant to sing about “the loveliness of the mountains and plains and other folk-song staples.”
So, like oil paintings.
Of Dylan, he wrote, “His style might be described as avant-garde cowboy, but the young man does have a bright future. However, he sings too long and too often, and his nasal tones are not the kind which wear well over an evening.”
Five days later, Dylan shook the folk world to its core by going electric on side one of his fifth album, “Bringing It All Back Home,” leading up to the July heresy at the Newport Folk Festival that climaxes “A Complete Unknown.”
Pittsburgh’s taste of that Dylan era came in February 1966 at the Mosque, where the show was half-acoustic, half-electric and featured some material from the forthcoming “Blonde on Blonde.” Providing the electricity was the Hawks, later to be known as The Band (with drummer Mickey Jones in for Levon Helm).
The film shines a spotlight on those early years in the 2020s, when authenticity is at a premium. “Song to Woody,” one of two originals on his self-titled debut album, is hardly one of Dylan’s better-known songs. But the week after the Christmas Day release of the movie, it jumped from an average of 4,000 streams a day to 55,000. His catalog, according to Luminate, went from 8.1 million streams in the week ending Dec. 5 to 20.2 million streams the week ending Jan. 2.
Newcomers to his work increased 110%, and there were even industry reports that harmonica sales were up.
“We’re not looking at the metrics,” a source close to Dylan told Rolling Stone. “Bob doesn’t care. Like everything we do, our hopes were that [the film] would introduce his music not just to a newer generation, but to more people. We might introduce Bob Dylan to people who’ve only heard about him or read about him in history books and who may have forgotten or moved on to something else.”
A rolling stone
Dylan wasn’t always a road warrior. He actually went from 1966 to 1980, on the “Slow Train Coming” tour, without playing a Pittsburgh show.
That stretch included seven years at home — during his retreat into family life and back into folk/country roots from late 1966 to early 1974 — and then a brilliant era with the Bob Dylan and the Band comeback tour (‘74), the Rolling Thunder Revue (‘75-’76) and the ‘78 tour for “Street Legal.” (Check it out, kids, it’s his most underrated album, but you might not get it right away).
It was after hanging with the Grateful Dead in ’87 that he launched The Never Ending Tour — a name he himself did not embrace — and since then he has hit Pittsburgh 23 times, performing at the Civic Arena, Star Lake, Heinz Hall, Wild Things Park, the New American Music Festival on the South Side, as well as the Petersen Events and UPMC Events centers, among other venues. (Conneaut Lake Park in ’92 is a personal fave.)
From 1988 to 2019, The Never Ending Tour, according to setlist.fm, ran 3,031 shows and ended just before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since returning to the road in November 2021, it’s been known as The Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour, named for his acclaimed 39th album that dropped in 2020 and is highlighted by the 17-minute epic "Murder Most Foul.”
There have been a few different reasons offered for the uptick in touring the last four decades.
In a 2004 interview, he told Ed Bradley of “60 Minutes,” “It goes back to that destiny thing. I mean, I made a bargain with it, you know, long time ago. And I’m holding up my end … to get where I am now.”
Pete Townshend got a different story when he talked to Dylan at the Desert Trip festival in 2016. “I asked Bob Dylan why he does so many gigs,” he told Far Out Magazine. “He told me, ‘I’m a folk singer. A folk singer is only as good as his memory, and my memory is going.’ He’s doing it to keep his memory alive.”
As the movie demonstrates — most glaringly in his reluctance to sing “Blowin’ in the Wind,” much to the frustration of Baez — Dylan is not there to be the greatest-hits jukebox performer. He works in new material, forgoes big hits, leans into blues and swing, and messes with tempos, melodies, arrangements and even lyrics to the point where the songs are sometimes unrecognizable.
The quality of these appearances are haphazard, with better results from the more intimate theater shows, like the 2014 beauty at Heinz Hall when he first seemed to embrace the mood of a Tom Waits show. With some of these shows, even the fans who insisted all along that “YES, Dylan CAN sing!,” have had to give in to the other side. The most recent stop here, in September, on the Outlaw Music Festival, felt like a long, slow intermission between John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson.
First time
The vibe should be different on this early 2025 tour, stopping at the sold-out Benedum Center on Monday, as he’ll be facing younger crowds with a lot of newcomers.
One of them is Daniel Young, the 24-year-old son of John Young, a longtime Pittsburgh musician and occasional Post-Gazette freelancer.
“I'd say that ‘A Complete Unknown’ was the main force behind me diving more into Bob Dylan's catalog and wanting to see him live,” Daniel told the PG. “His age is definitely a contributing factor, too — not to be too morbid, but you never know how many opportunities to see him live there will be in the future.”
As for expectations of the show, he said “I think there will be a decent mix of songs from his most recent album, some of his big hits, and some deep cuts/fan favorites. Many bands and artists are content with just playing the hits live, but Dylan doesn't seem like the kind of guy to do just that. I've looked over some of his recent set lists, and there are plenty of songs I don't recognize, which I'm fine with. In general, I'm just excited to see a classic songwriter do his thing, even if I don't know every single lyric to every single song.”
It will also be the first Dylan experience for Andrew Shafer, a Delmont resident in his mid-30s.
“There are plenty of aging musicians I’d love to see ‘before it’s too late,’” he says. “Some I have, like Willie Nelson and Buddy Guy. Some I’ve missed, like B.B. King. Why this time? Nothing specific other than it just aligned correctly. I am not expecting Bob’s best show ever, I am not expecting the hits. I just want to hear Bob play what he wants, and maybe selfishly, ‘Duquesne Whistle.’ I am not a super fan, can’t name many more songs or albums than the usual bunch, and no the movie played no relevancy in our decision to go. We did just watch it, however, and it was pretty good.”
Andrew Colaizzi, a Mt. Lebanon accountant, got into Dylan — and also The Band — via “The Basement Tapes” a decade ago when he was a University of Pittsburgh student. This will also be his first Dylan show.
“I know people throw digs at his voice, and I've heard clips where he sounds pretty scruffy,” he says. “That being said, I think it'll be worthwhile to hear someone who has been performing for over 60 years and still does dozens of dates a year. The quality of the music is there and I heard his band is tight.”
“I’m really nervous about seeing Dylan for the first time” was the title of a recent Reddit thread from poster bmbmbmNR.
“I’m not sure if this will be the greatest experience of my life or one I’m going to regret,” bmbmbmNR writes, expressing concern about songs that might be unfamiliar and the quality of his voice. (Young people really like to know the songs when they go in.)
Some great responses follow:
From bipolarcyclops: “Just remember that when you see him you are actually looking at a Nobel Prize for Literature winner. This will likely be the first and only time this will ever happen to you.”
From TinMachine: “[In] a small way, catching him live now is one of the last chances we'll get to participate in a historical cultural moment. IMO it's akin to, like, living in Victorian times and passing up the chance to see Dickens read his works. Only better. It's the closest we have to seeing Shakespeare at the OG globe.”
Time_of_night advises: “Just keep in mind that the first song or two are going to be a bit rough, so hold off your judgment. His voice gets better as the show goes on. But I've found this to be true with many older musicians.”
Dodging Lions, taking their user name from “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” offers this very Deadhead-like wisdom: “You already bought the ticket, just take the ride.”
The sold-out show at the Benedum begins at 8 p.m. Monday.
Please note that this event will be a phone-free experience. Use of phones or recording devices will not be permitted in the performance space. Upon arrival at the venue, all phones and recording devices will be secured in individual Yondr pouches that will be opened at the end of the event. Anyone seen using a device during the performance will be escorted out of the venue by security.
First Published: April 15, 2025, 8:00 a.m.
Updated: April 16, 2025, 7:53 p.m.
