{"id":150012,"date":"2025-11-20T11:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/150012\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T11:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:19:09","slug":"this-voice-of-a-generation-is-startling-and-crisp-clear-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/150012\/","title":{"rendered":"This voice of a generation is startling and crisp clear \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bob DylanWaterfront Hall, Belfast\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a little after 8pm when Bob Dylan<\/a> follows his four band members on stage and steps nimbly towards his baby grand piano.<\/p>\n

He takes a seat and immediately swings around to his right, picking up his electric guitar, so that his back is to the crowd, and with that starts jamming out loose chords as his band kick in. The sound is foot-stompingly loud from the off, and they promptly find their groove.<\/p>\n

A minute or so later Dylan swings around again to face his piano, partly obscuring himself as he reaches for the keys and starts into the opening verse of I\u2019ll Be Your Baby Tonight. At 84, the voice of a generation is straight away startling and clear.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first of his two sold-out nights at the Waterfront Hall, part of his five-night stop in Ireland. There\u2019s no support act, no stage intro, certainly no \u201cGood evening, Belfast\u201d, but it\u2019s a perfectly lively opener, as if Dylan is singing \u201cAre you with me tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n

In these opening few minutes he has already played more guitar than on his last visit to Ireland, in November 2022. Dylan repeats the guitar-intro trick several times during the 17-song set. The songs and sequence seem carved into stone now: he hasn\u2019t yet tinkered with them on this 26-date, nine-country European tour.<\/p>\n

The band are whip-tight in parts but also well able to keep things loose. His Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour, named after his 39th studio album, released in June 2020, has been going for four years; more than half the songs on Wednesday night \u2013 nine, to be exact \u2013 are off that album.<\/p>\n

After a joyful It Ain\u2019t Me, Babe, he continues with I Contain Multitudes and False Prophet, both suitably rough and rowdy in parts. Dylan repeatedly shifts between drawn-out expressions and rushed lines, as if he has no time to lose.<\/p>\n

Over the hour and 45 minutes he never lets up, the singing bold again on When I Paint My Masterpiece, before two more tracks off Rough and Rowdy Ways: a haunting Black Rider, a powerful My Own Version of You.<\/p>\n

There is less raspiness to his voice, and he holds the absolute attention of his audience, aided by all our mobile phones being locked away in fancy zip bags until after the show.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Bob Dylan\u2019s special relationship with Ireland began in 1984Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He drops in When I Paint My Masterpiece in another fresh arrangement, before Desolation Row comes mid-set and, soon after, a sweetly melodious It\u2019s All Over Now, Baby Blue, peppered with glorious harmonica.<\/p>\n

The band \u2013 Tony Garnier on bass, Anton Fig on drums, and Bob Britt and Doug Lancio on guitar \u2013 appear to close in together at the end of each song and each time Dylan comes to his feet. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these songs aren\u2019t easy to play,\u201d he says in his only breakout line of the night. \u201cBut the band play them pretty good, don\u2019t you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mother of Muses and Goodbye Jimmy Reed give way to Every Grain of Sand, one last harmonica blast, and with that they\u2019re done. Dylan moves out from behind his piano to greet the standing ovation, then walks off, briefly returning for a second bow, the low lighting catching his face and the heartfelt smile written across it.<\/p>\n

Bob Dylan plays Waterfront Hall again on Thursday, November 20th; Gleneagle Arena, Killarney, Co Kerry, on Sunday, November 23rd, and Monday, November 24th; and 3Arena, Dublin, on Tuesday, November 25th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bob DylanWaterfront Hall, Belfast\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606 It\u2019s a little after 8pm when Bob Dylan follows his four band members on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9002,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-150012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bob-dylan","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}