Bob Dylan's eleventh song, "Six Days On The Road"(Song by Earl Green and
Carl Montgomery) was the perfect soundtrack for my roadtrip from
Frankfurt/ Germany via Montreal/ Quebec and Toronto/ Ontario toBuffalo/
New York State, US. And to anticipate it, Bob Dylan's last concert aspart
of Willie Nelson's "Outlaw Festival Tour" was worth every mile.The tour
with Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp and Southern Avenuewill not
end until September 20, 2024 in Gilford, New Hampshire, but in Augustit
was announced that Bob Dylan would not be at the last concert of the
thirdpart of the "Outlaw Festival Tour" in Gilford. ("The OutlawMusic
Festival's upcoming show at the BankNH Pavilion in Gilford, NewHampshire,
has undergone a significant change. Due to unforeseen circumstances,the
legendary Bob Dylan will no longer be performing at the event scheduled
forSeptember 20," the organizer announced.) Thus, Dylan's performance
inBuffalo was his last concert on the 2024 Outlaw Tour before he travels
to Europein upcoming October 2024.

But first things first... For someone who saw Dylan live inconcert mostly
in Europe and for someone who is not used to seeing Dylan aspart of a
concert evening with several artists, the Dylan performances at theoutlaw
festivals were refreshingly different from the other gigs. Theperformance
in Buffalo, New York State, was the perfect finale to his outlawconcert
tour. But first things first...

The Venue

The Darien Lake Amphitheater in Buffalo is a good 40kilometers south of
downtown, Buffalo and thus a little outside the city andultimately
somewhere in the middle of nowhere. By car it was about 45 to 60minutes to
drive. From afar you can already see the "tent city",which is well
signposted. The logistics with parking spaces, entrances fordifferent
ticket categories, merchandising and catering were perfect.

The show format

Doors: 3:30PM
Southern Avenue: 5:15PM - 5:55PM
John Mellencamp: 6:15PM - 7:30PM
Bob Dylan: 8:00PM - 9:15PM
Willie Nelson & Family: 9:40PM - 10:40PM

Bob Dylan, like all the other acts, started on time andplayed 15 songs in
just under 80 minutes. Surprisingly, two video screens, tothe left and
right of the stage, transmitted the stage action (albeit only witha "stand
camera") to the back rows.

The Stage

In the beginning, the opener group "SouthernAvenue" from Memphis/
Tennessee still had the Outlaw logo hanging in thebackground of the stage.
John Mellencamp had his own stage set with him and BobDylan renounced
everything, played in front of a stage curtain mostly in darkred, while
Willie Nelson then appeared in front of a huge American flag.Dylan's stage
was always brightly lit compared to many of his own indoor"Rough And Rowdy
Ways" concerts.

The audience

The audience sat in rows of seats arranged like a fan. Therewere three
front-row rows in the first block and then five or seven seatingblocks
each. The rear blocks were located a little higher, similar to a cinema,so
that the audience had a good view of the stage even in the back rows.
Seatsin the amphitheater are covered, the standing room on the lawn is
not. About12,000 visitors came together in Buffalo. Most of them probably
came because ofthe event itself, many because of 91-year-old Willie
Nelson. Each artist seemedto have his own audience. So does Bob Dylan. -
Almost unthinkable in Europe:People get up during the concert, buy beer
for themselves and friends, dance,cheer and rejoice loudly. For Bob, this
certainly took some getting used to comparedto his own concerts. For me,
it was. On the other hand, it was a highlyinteresting Bob Dylan concert
experience, which I will probably miss in Europe.

The Sound

Ok, I'll admit it: I had a front-row ticket and the soundwas just perfect.

The concert

Dylan walked slowly with the band to the middle of thestage. Everything
was still quite dark. Dylan stepped up to the piano, aspotlight was
pointed at him, the rest of the band was still in the dark. Bobtalked
briefly, Bob sat down briefly, stood up again and suddenly the stage
wasbright. No classic intro like on the "Rough And Rowdy Ways"
tourannounced the concert. All musicians were easy to recognize and
briefly tunedin to "All Along The Watchtower". The sound was crystal clear
fromthe beginning, Bob's voice as well and the band seemed like a unit.
Hardly anyof the musicians (Tony Garnier - electric and standup bass, Bob
Britt -acoustic guitar, electric guitar and Doug Lancio - acoustic guitar,
electricguitar) stood more than two meters away from Bob. Jim Keltner on
drums washardly visible to me, but Bob Dylan and the rest of the band were
very good.Dylan, without a hat and with black dyed hair in a black suit,
white shoes andred shirt, seemed agile. Each of the musicians paid
attention to the other,especially to Bob, who sang standing up most of the
time (and not only duringthe opener song). Only at the end of the song did
he sit down briefly to finishhis piano playing without singing.

The surprise of seeing Bob Dylan in the best of moods, withcrystal-clear
sound and voice in an almost perfectly brightly lit stage was asuccess. It
continued with the second song: "Rainy Day Women #12 &35." The stage
remains brightly lit as with all other songs and the soundremains just as
perfect. An atmospherically dense concert with partly new songarrangements
takes its course. After that comes (after "All Along TheWatchtower") my
next concert highlight: "Love Sick". Alreadywith the first line of the
song "I'm walking through streets that aredead/ Walking, walking with you
in my head" and the well-known rhythm, thepeople around me start to bob
along to the beat to inhale the beguiling effectof the song. At the latest
now it became clear that the Dylan audiencedominates here. Fewer and fewer
got beer, more and more began to listen toDylan. Those who had come for
Mellencamp or Nelson fell silent and learned toappreciate Dylan's concert
atmosphere. The much-quoted devotional mood of the"Rough And Rowdy Ways"
concerts comes up a little - although not asingle "Rough And Rowdy Ways"
song was heard.

The following songs played a little faster like "LittleQueenie" by Chuck
Berry or "Mr. Blue" by DeWayne Blackwellquickly made it clear once again:
this last "Outlaw" concert, likethe other Outlaw concerts in the summer of
2024, is definitely not one that canbe compared to the usual "Rough And
Rowdy Ways" concerts. Dylan triedto stylistically orient himself to the
performances of the last three years onold and newer song material.
Apparently, he also wanted to share theNelson/Mellencamp audience
something of the classic Dylan.

"Early Roman Kings" was followed by thesensational "A Hard Rain's A-going
to Fall", which was accompanied byTony on the stand-up bass. With "Under
The Red Sky" Bob picked up theharmonica for the first time and still
played in the light, with yellow andwhite light in front of a red-lit
stage curtain. A beautiful and unusualpicture compared to previous years.
The band, all in black suits and exceptTony without a hat, was in
concentration joy of playing. Dylan knew old songslike "A Hard Rain's
..."  fromthe 1960s as well as newer ones, such as the blues "Early
RomanKings" from the 2012 "Tempest" album at a constant level. Thefive
decades that passed between these songs were not heard in the
2024interpretation. And "Things Have Changed" from 2000 also
soundeddownright timeless. After "Stella Blue" (Grateful Dead) came"Six
Days On The Road" (Earl Green and Carl Montgomery), the fourthcover song
of the evening. At the very latest now it was clear again:"Buffalo" and
the "Outlaw" concerts were different. Ofcourse, it wasn't about offering
himself to the Nelson/Mellencamp fans with a"Best Of Dylan"-by the side,
but maybe Dylan wanted to offer himselfsomething that he could probably
best realize in this festival constellation.He didn't want to be the
"grumpy old man", which he was often accusedof. Maybe he just wanted to be
himself again and play songs that he liked andthought would fit well on
this "American" evening in Buffalo. Thisthesis may be matched by the fact
that, as I said, he didn't play a single songfrom the "Rough And Rowdy
Ways" album in Buffalo. Here he did notwant to be perceived as the Oscar
winner and not as the Nobel Prize winner oreven as a legend, but perhaps
only as Robert Allen Zimmerman, who is doing whathe has done all his life:
being a part of "Americana" and performingsongs.

What came after the "Six Days On The Road" was asmall sensation in itself:
"the circus was in town". Bob Dylan played"Desolation Row" from 1965 from
the "Highway 61 Revisted"album. If I remember correctly, it was the first
time he played the song since2018. This time, however, everything was
completely different. Dylan startedslowly, phrasing the lyrics even better
than on the previous songs. Every wordsounded well accentuated. After a
few minutes of play, he even clapped hishands as if he wanted to encourage
the audience to clap along. The audience andnot only the Dylan community
gladly accepted the offer. And to top it off, hepulled out a wrench and
struck it to the microphone in time to amplify therhythm. Incredibly
beautiful. The song ended after about seven minutes. "Iam floored" was all
my concert seat neighbor said and I agreed. Iimmediately knew what to do
with this statement, even though I am not a nativespeaker and did not know
this idiom until then. "Yes, I am floored,too," I replied.

"Soon after Midnight", the second"Tempest" song of the evening, could not
surpass what had just beenheard.

With an almost quiet and slow "Simple Twist OfFate" there was finally a
short musical quick trip into the 1970s. MickeyRaphael from Willie
Nelson's band discreetly entered the stage and wasintroduced by Bob.
Before that, Bob introduced the band without (as usual)saying any more
words to the audience. Also on the last of the 15 songs,"Ballad Of A Thin
Man", Mickey Raphael, who has been playingharmonica for Willie Nelson
since 1973, accompanied Bob Dylan and his band, whosounded loud and fast.

Conclusion

No, neither Willie Nelson nor John Mellencamp entered theDylan stage. And
Bob Dylan didn't even appear on Willie Nelson's stage at Bob'slast
appearance of the tour. And yes, there was such an expectation for a
veryshort time, after all, Mellencamp/ Nelson and Dylan have each shared a
stage inthe past. Ok, Mellencamp interpreted Dylan's "All Along
theWatchtower" at least in his own set. Anyway, whether "The Times TheyAre
A Changin" or "Things Have Changed", what remains is BobDylan's joy in
surprising his listeners without fulfilling their expectations.At his last
"Outlaw" concert in Buffalo, however, he also showed howtimeless his songs
are. Somehow I was "floored" after the almost 80minutes and, like everyone
else in Buffalo, had experienced a Bob Dylan concertthat can hardly be
compared to those before. Thank you, Bob.

(More Infos and photos from the Bob Dylan-Buffalo-Gig (in English and
German language) you find in my blog.leonardcohen.de

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