Fancy watching pro-shot footage of Bob Dylan in concert? Of course you do.
Over the weekend, Dylan returned to the Farm Aid stage to celebrate the event’s landmark 40th anniversary. It was the music legend’s comments 40 years ago at Live Aid, in fact, that inspired Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp to stage the original Farm Aid in Illinois.
Dylan joined this year’s Farm Aid lineup just days before the event, with little actually known about what sort of Dylan set awaited those in attendance.
In the end, he rocked up wearing a hoodie, and he even agreed to appear on both the projection screens and livestream.
Dylan’s setlist featured songs such as “All Along the Watchtower”, Bo Diddley’s “I Can Tell”, “To Ramona”, “Highway 61 Revisited”, and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”. Every single song Dylan played was taken from the ’60s, even the Diddley cover.
Dylan previously appeared at Farm Aid in 1085 and 2023.
This year’s Farm Aid bill also featured Billy Strings, Jesse Welles, and Margo Price, Kenny Chesney, Waxahatchee, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Steve Earle, Lukas Nelson, and Wynonna Judd as well as board members, the aforementioned Young, Mellencamp, and Nelson.
Young’s set was a highlight of the entire event: the iconic singer-songwriter came out after Dylan to unleash a politically-charged set that started with his anti-Trump anthem “Big Crime”, followed by “Rockin’ in the Free World”, “Long Walk Home”, “Be ihe Rain”, “Southern Man”, “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)”, and “Old Man”.
Nelson, meanwhile, closed out the show with a collection of classics. He was joined by almost every guest from throughout the day for “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”, “It’s Hard to Be Humble”, and “I’ll Fly Away”. Dylan, you won’t be surprised to hear, didn’t feature in the communal singalong session.
