Gig review: Bob Dylan returns to Nottingham

If a Nobel laureate and rock legend turns up in your town, it would surely be rude not to go along, right? After all, it’s not going to happen that often, is it? In fact 83-year-old Bob Dylan seems to make a habit of it: this was his third visit to Nottingham since he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, and his fifth this century.

There were a few empty spaces here and there in the Motorpoint Arena - this isn’t, after all, an hysterical ‘Oasis-reunion’ style, ‘last-chance-to-see’ event. Dylan seems to have been touring since the mid-seventies; in fact, it’s been described as a ‘never ending tour’, though presumably age and health will bring an end at some point. He must enjoy it, though it would be difficult to tell from his stage demeanour. At 7.30pm sharp, the house lights go down, a cheer goes up and then, onto the poorly-lit stage come some shadowy figures, one of whom, we suppose, is the man himself. No announcement, and the band meanders into life, settling into a riff we do not instantly recognise but which evolves into All Along the Watchtower, with Dylan’s unmistakeable vocal set a couple of notches too low in the mix. 

As the performance progresses, Dylan’s voice - and his mic settings - become stronger and he continues to defy those who say he ‘can’t sing’. Dylan ‘can’t sing’ in the way Picasso couldn’t draw! This has been billed as The Rough and Rowdy Ways tour so, as expected, the majority of numbers are from that most recent album (2020) and are delivered as recognisable renditions of the album tracks: the strong bluesy riffs of False Prophet and Crossing the Rubicon; the drifting, almost wistful I Contain Multitudes or Key West; the bouncy, rockabilly Goodbye Jimmy Reid. If anything, these are the songs Dylan seems most committed to. Left behind are the early protest songs and the surreally-poetic mid-Sixties classics. Dylan, in his later years, writes with greater allusion: to classical history and mythology, to our shared culture and the changes he has helped to shape, to musings on end of life matters.

As so often, with a Dylan concert it’s intriguing to see what he includes from that vast back catalogue (39 studio albums plus many recordings of concerts and outtakes). Dylan doesn’t do ‘greatest hits’ so the obvious choices are missing (no Blowin in the Wind or Like a Rolling Stone, for example). From what we might call the classic, mid-Sixties era, a surprise inclusion is Desolation Row, rendered with a pounding beat, and a beautifully-sung It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue. A lighter piece from the Country album Nashville Skyline, To Be Alone with You comes over as a bit of a mess: the band relies on Dylan on piano and his improvised instrumentals don’t always work, whereas his playing on the more complex Rough and Rowdy chord progressions is fine.

Harking back to 1971, Dylan performs the jaunty, tongue-in-cheek When I Paint My Masterpiece with a distinctly Latin vibe; we also get Watching the River Flow, which was recorded at the same session. Unlike previous Dylan concert iterations, the songs haven't been reworked so much that you can only identify them when a famous or title phrase cuts through; nonetheless, the audience applauds when they have that moment of recognising something classic, though on the whole they do seem to know and appreciate the new material too.

So, what of the crowd? Well, we are weighted towards those of Dylan’s own vintage (or just about), some with the inevitable ‘mobility issues’ that time brings. But there are plenty of ‘youngsters’, however you might define that, who must have come to musical consciousness with Dylan already an established and revered master. Somehow, he seems to have remained ‘cool’ unlike some of his contemporaries. Maybe that’s because he doesn’t do ‘greatest hits’, hasn’t become his own ‘tribute act’, and has continued producing new material - much of it critically-acclaimed - into his old age. He doesn’t appear to crave audience adulation - he just turns up, plays the songs he wants to play in the way he wants to play them. If we want to pay and turn up to listen (with our mobile phones safely banished to 'Yondr' pouches in our pockets) well, that’s ok. 

The show ends with a lovely rendition from Dylan's ‘born again Christian’ era - Every Grain of Sand - beautifully crafted, whatever the message. He and the band members stand as we applaud, then the stage lights go down and he’s off. So there’s no rapturous acclaim, no yelling, no emotional outpouring. There is just the realisation, as we walk away, to be let back into the everyday – and onto our phones – that we’ve witnessed one of the era’s defining cultural icons at work. Let that be enough. 

Bob Dylan performed at Motorpoint Arena on 8th November 2024.