Bob Dylan treated fans to a live performance of his classic song ‘All Along The Watchtower’ marking his first time playing it in six years.
Yesterday (September 12), the legendary rock icon opened his show at the Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio with the 1967 track, treating the audience with his first live performance of the song since November 2018.
The song – which appears on Dylan’s eighth studio album, ‘John Wesley Harding’ – has been covered by various artists throughout the years but is mainly associated with the guitar icon Jimi Hendrix and his electrifying rendition which was recorded with the Jimi Hendrix Experience for their third studio album, 1968’s ‘Electric Ladyland’. Released only six months after Dylan’s original, Hendrix’s cover became a Top 20 hit the same year it was released and received a Grammy Hall of Fame award in 2001.
Dylan first played ‘All Along The Watchtower’ at the launch of his reunion tour with The Band on January 3, 1974. Since then, it has become his most played track, racking up a total of 2,285 times performed live. His performance of the song has been referred to as a cover of a cover due to his influence of Hendrix’s version.
Back in August, Dylan played ‘Rainy Day Women #12 & 35’ for the first time in almost a decade at an Outlaw Music Festival touring stop in Boise, Idaho.
When the ‘Outlaw Music Festival Tour’ kicked off, Dylan started it off with a typically unpredictable setlist of ‘50s blues and country covers and deep cuts.
His opening set included versions of Willie Dixon’s ‘My Babe’, Chuck Berry’s ‘Little Queenie’ and Hank Williams’ ‘Cold, Cold Heart’, as well as four separate songs from his own 2012 album ‘Tempest’, including ‘Long And Wasted Years’ and ‘Scarlet Town’.
Dylan has also announced his own UK headline tour for later this year – including a trio of shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
He is due to bring his ongoing ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ world tour to the UK in November and will be playing 10 shows across the country – starting in BIC Windsor Hall in Bournemouth (November 1). The use of cameras and mobile phones will be prohibited at the concerts.
Elsewhere, the ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ singer is set to release a new box set called ‘The 1974 Live Recordings’ – a compilation of his arena performances across the year.
Arriving next week (September 20), the set will feature 417 previously-unreleased performances, as well as newly-mixed recordings and liner notes written by journalist and critic Elizabeth Nelson. You can pre-order the box set and check out the full 431 tracklisting here.
In other news, it was recently confirmed that Dylan has recorded a cover of ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ for the upcoming Ronald Reagan biopic.
The upcoming film, Reagan, has been in the works for several years, dating back to its announcement in 2020. The film is set for release in late August in the US – a UK release date has yet to be set – and will star Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan.
For the film, Dylan has recorded a cover of Cole Porte’s 1934 song ‘Don’t Fence Me In’. The song was later popularised in the 1940s by Gene Autry, who Dennis Quaid is a third-cousin to.
Dylan’s own biopic, A Complete Unknown, is set for release in the US on Christmas Day, while it receives a UK release sometime in January.
A Complete Unknown stars Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, and will feature performances from Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz and Scoot McNairy.
The biopic is set to explore Dylan’s transition to using the electric guitar in the ’60s, his rise to fame, and his subsequent achievement of icon status in the folk-rock music industry.