| Reviews Dublin, Ireland 3Arena November 25, 2025 |
Review by Padraig Hanratty
As soulless arenas go, the 3 Arena is quite pleasant. All seats have a
clean line of sight of the stage. The sound is usually pristine. All you
need is big screens for those of us poor souls up in the gods... Oh well,
you can't have everything.
We're in Dublin for the final show of the European leg of the 2025 Rough
and Rowdy Ways Tour. It promised to be special. Any thoughts that this
would be the last Rough and Rowdy Ways show were scuppered by the man
himself with a post on X.
To all fans and followers of Rough and Rowdy Ways Show. We will see you
early Spring 2026, will let you know where and when later.
It was great to hear that he intends to keep touring in 2026. News that it
would be yet another leg of the R&RW tours was greeted with somewhat less
jubilation...
The final show of a tour often promises to be special. However, there were
also reasons to be cautious. The R&RW songs don't always find their feet
in large arenas, being more suited to smaller halls, such as the
Waterfront in Belfast last week. This was also the third show in a row,
following two well-received shows in Killarney. And it's a long trek
from Killarney to Dublin. Would this turn out to be one of those "dying
voice within me" evenings?
Concerns about the state of Dylan's voice exactly allayed during the first
couple of verses of a jaunty "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight". And things
weren't helped by the surprisingly muddled sound, with Bob's voice
fairly clobbered in the mix. Things settled down as the song progressed,
though, and soon Dylan had found his stride.
By It Ain't Me, Babe" he was yawping superbly, stretching the
voooowwwwwels to breaking point. This song had a long instrumental intro,
but (unlike in Belfast) no harmonica. Indeed, harmonica breaks were at a
minimum this evening, and there was no guitar. Speaking was also pretty
sporadic, apart from one "Thank you" and the band introductions.
The opening pair of songs sets up an amusing contrast for the evening.
"I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" is Dylan at his most charming and
agreeable, opening the concert with a promise that he'll deliver the
goods. He then switches to chilling hostility for "It Ain't Me,
Babe", his classic refusal to live up to anyone's expectations. This
contrast between upbeat, jolly songs (such as "To Be Alone with You"
and "Watching the River Flow") and grim epics (most of the R&RW songs)
has been a feature of this tour.
As he sings in the next song:
I'm a man of contradictions,
A man of many moods.
I contain multitudes.
However, it's all about the songs. After attending the relatively intimate
concert at Waterfront in Belfast last week, I worried that the R&RW songs
would get lost in the echo chamber of the arena. However, tonight, certain
songs seemed to expand magnificently, finding new breathing space to flex
their muscles on the stage.
"False Prophet" was the first call to arms of the night, Dylan's voice
roaring its way through blistering guitar lines. "My Own Version of
You" has also had more life breathed into it. In Belfast, it sounded
like Dylan was summoning up a zombie army. Tonight, that army was on the
march, already striding into the village and bothering the livestock.
"I Cross the Rubicon" has also found a slick groove that makes the
song much more compelling on stage than the grating version on the album.
And even a dreary dirge like "Black Rider" now pulsates with a gripping
menace that I'd never felt before.
Whereas other songs have grown on this tour, some seem to have diminished.
"Desolation Row" is still a standout, but it seems to have lost some
of its fire since last year's Keltner-driven epic blitzkrieg. Tonight, it
lit up the crowd, but never really seemed to properly catch fire.
The minimalist version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" dragged for
me, but it was well received by the crowd. In Belfast, "Key West" was
mesmerising, but tonight it creaked and stumbled, without ever finding a
steady pace. It wasn't helped by an almighty fracas breaking out in a
section of the crowd during the later verses.
It certainly was an evening of flows and ebbs, but the audience stuck with
it, being reasonably respectful and attentive for an arena crowd. After
the band introductions, we were flung into the finishing straight with a
boisterous "Goodbye Jimmy Reed". This was a welcome bible-bashing shot
of energy after the turgid, drawn-out sequence of "Baby Blue",
"I've Made Up My Mind...", and "Mother of Muses". All fine songs
in isolation, but a bit smothering when piled on top of each other.
And then it was the stately magnificence of "Every Grain of Sand". By
now, the Voice was showing definite signs of strain, after some powerhouse
vocals earlier in the evening. Dylan at times resorted to a whispery
delivery that added to the poignancy. He wrapped up the song with a
harmonica solo that rattled the rafters.
At this stage of the tour, encores are not an unknown thing. We got a
blast "Going Down to Bangor" in Belfast. And Killarney was blessed
with "Lakes of Pontchartrain". (Was Paul Brady, that "secret hero"
on his mind? Or did talk of the lakes of Killarney set off associations
in Dylan's ever-buzzing mind?)
We were hoping for something special on this last night of the tour. And
he delivered.
In 2017, Dylan met up with Shane MacGowan after his concert in this arena.
Photos of a hooded Dylan with a sadly frail MacGowan circulated in the
papers the next day. And in 2022, again at the 3 Arena, Dylan gave a shout
out to MacGowan, saying "Fairytale of New York" was his favourite
Christmas song.
Since then, of course, we've lost MacGowan. But Dylan conjured up his
spirit tonight with a beautiful rendition of "Rainy Night in Soho" that
brought the entire arena to its feet. It could have degenerated into a
rowdy singalong, but Dylan's tender vocals caressed the song to a touching
conclusion. As Dylan sang earlier in the evening, "A lot of people gone, a
lot of people that I knew."
It was a beautiful ending to another leg of the seemingly never-ending
rough and rowdy ways tour.
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