Bob Dylan Live In Tulsa Reviewed: A Magnificent Resumption Of The Rough And Rowdy Ways Tour

Bob Dylan

Tulsa Theater, Tulsa, Oklahoma, March 25, 2025

The end of Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways tour has been repeatedly speculated upon, but MOJO is delighted to report that rumours of its demise are entirely untrue. When Dylan and his band left the road last autumn after their show at London’s Royal Albert Hall on November 14, many people feared that this would be his last performance — not just of nine of the songs from his 2020 album, but of anything, on any stage.

Bob Dylan is not through with his own songs, their lyrics and arrangements, or us yet. On Tuesday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he turned the downtown arts district into a festival, a carnival, as he hit the road once more. People came to town from England and Japan, France and Canada, and all across the United States. The Bob Dylan Center is now located here in downtown Tulsa, next to the Woody Guthrie Center, and both were packed with happy fans all day. The Dylan Center threw a party for its members at closing time; there were Bob t-shirts, surely, but looking around, people were dressed up to the nines. Women and little girls with hot-rollered perfect curls and party dresses, and formal beautifully stitched cowboy boots by Lisa Sorrell. Men in suits and hats and bolo ties. One in Dylan’s full Rolling Thunder Revue outfit: whiteface makeup, the flowered hat, white shirt, vest, even the wild eyes. We’re celebrating his sixty-five years as a performing musician, his songs old and new, breathing the same air that he is, in the vast old barn of the Tulsa Theater.

Inside the theatre the stage is wide and deep, perfect for Dylan to stand most of the time at his piano, turning sideways sometimes, stepping back now and then to consult with his longtime bass player Tony Garnier, roaming over to say something to Anton Fig, the band’s new drummer on this leg of the tour. While the band are sober in their suits and hats, Dylan is as festive as his audience: black-brimmed hat with a concho band studded with small silver rounds, sleek dark trousers, a vibrant dark shirt patterned with bursts of bright blooms, and—contrarily in this cowboy cattle town—motorcycle boots.

There’s no intro music. Dylan and his band start jamming together, and you start guessing: what will the song be? Suspend any knowledge you have of prior setlists if you can. It’s All Along The Watchtower, and it’s magnificent. Fig, the new drummer, who has played with Dylan (and, for years, with David Letterman’s house band) before, provides sass and snap but never drowns out Dylan’s voice. That voice is the leading instrument on every single number, now: the guitars, drums, bass, and his own piano and harmonica are almost grace notes on some songs, never intruding. He’s surrounded by an excellent band, but what this tour is showcasing is his voice.

A new arrangement of It Ain’t Me, Babe seems to gladden Dylan, too. “It sure ain’t me, babe,” he grins, as he surveys the audience. He’s happy, joking with the band members, teasing us during False Prophet with lines like “Whattaya lookin’ at, there’s nothin’ to see” as 4,200 people stand at their seats, swaying, and staring at him almost without blinking. He’s laughing aloud with Garnier at the start of My Own Version of You, then shifts to a quiet, well-enunciated delivery of the words. He pauses for the loud cheer when he names beloved native son—and his old friend—Leon Russell.

Dylan’s using his harmonica much more these days. For the kicky, almost mariachi-flavoured arrangement of When I Paint My Masterpiece that continues to channel Irving Berlin’s Puttin’ On The Ritz he brandishes it and plays delicately, liltingly, cuddling the harp in one hand, sometimes, while playing the piano with the other. This instrument, powered by his breath, creates an intimacy that Dylan clearly appreciates as much as the audience. You can hear every note, every inhalation. May every venue Dylan plays on this tour have acoustics as fine as those in the Tulsa Theater.

After the surprise of what Dylan announces as “a short break” of fifteen or so minutes, he and the band return with Crossing The Rubicon, a slow march of a song that he suddenly brightens with wild glissandos to punctuate certain lines. Fig’s giddy-up drums power Desolation Row and then the instruments fall almost entirely away for Key West (Philosopher Pirate), which Dylan sings almost a cappella. The gentlest touches of guitars, Dylan’s own light hand on the piano, make a hymn of I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You. “I’m giving myself to you, I am / From Salt Lake City to Birmingham / From East L.A. to San Antone / I don’t think I can bear to live my life alone,” he sings, and the lines have the wistfulness of an evening around a lone prairie campfire, as Dylan again performs almost solo. Yet the crowd response to this song (and to Mother of Muses) is a full-hearted acknowledgement that he’s got all of us. There’s a personal, almost tender connection on the slower songs, and a camaraderie-filled come-along on numbers like Goodbye Jimmy Reed and 1971 Russell production, Watching The River Flow. And on the song that really is a hymn, Every Grain Of Sand, it’s a benediction, sending us all out into the warm March night with Dylan’s blessing.

Whatever the source of the vitality and passion, generous good humour, and clear enjoyment marking Dylan’s performance this evening, as the Rough And Rowdy Ways tour rolls through the heartland of America’s Midwest during these difficult days, we’re in for encouraging words and sweet times this spring.

Setlist:

All Along The Watchtower

It Ain’t Me, Babe

I Contain Multitudes

False Prophet

When I Paint My Masterpiece

Black Rider

My Own Version Of You

To Be Alone With You

Crossing The Rubicon

Desolation Row

Key West (Philosopher Pirate)

Watching The River Flow

It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You

Mother Of Muses

Goodbye Jimmy Reed

Every Grain Of Sand

Main picture: Bob Dylan at Hyde Park, 2019 (credit: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images).