Bob Dylan: First Night in Glasgow (and a night in Dumfries) (Nov 16, 2025)

Glasgow 1

With a day between shows, I decided to explore a town between Leeds and Glasgow.  (Skip on down if you don’t dig the travelogue parts of these reviews).

The only major option on the train line was Dumfries, the last home of Robert Burns, one of the other great Robert poets.

Now I’ve always admired Burns, though if you don’t know any Scots dialect his work can sound like the Swedish Chef. If you put in the effort to learn what’s going on in a poem and it’ll probably be worth it, though. There are verses of “Auld Lang Syne” that give me goosebumps (“we two have paddled in the brae from morning sun til dine / but seas between us broad have roared since days of auld lang syne”)And after all, in addition to writing with Robert Hunter (born Robert Burns and said to be a great great grandson of the Scottish bard, Dylan named “Red Red Rose” by Burns as his greatest inspiration in 2008, when HMV had an advertising campaign based on inspiration. It’s worth quoting in full:

My luve's like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June:

O my luve's like the melodie

That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I:

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a'the seas gang dry.

Till a'the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi' the sun:

I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve,

And fare thee weel a while!

And I will come again, my luve,

Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

Besides obviously “Farewell” (which, to be fair, he probably got third or fourth hand via “The Parting Glass,”) you can see a lot of similar vibes to Dylan here, especially in more recent love songs like “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You.” And, of course, Burns did write “My Heart’s in the Highlands,” though Richard Thomas noted that Burns himself commented that “the first half stanza is old, the rest is mine,” just the sort of description of the folk process in which Dylan thrived 200 years later.

So off I went to Dumfries, hoping to explore a new town and maybe catch a spark.

They are awfully fond of Burns in Dumfries, with multiple museums in addition to his grave. The museum in his old house even features a horn spoon like the ones he mentioned in “Address to a Haggis,” a display that I’ll admit sounds made up:

His knife see rustic Labour dight,

An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,

Trenching your gushing entrails bright,

Like ony ditch;

And then, O what a glorious sight,

Warm-reekin', rich!

After admiring the spoon, the docent and I chatted about accounts of the time Burns’ body was exhumed to be moved to its current tomb, and a gruesome account of moving the body from a few years later lamenting that phrenology hadn’t caught on at the time, so they hadn’t taken a cast of his skull on the last chance they’d ever have.

Only it wasn’t the last chance; when his wife was eventually interred in the new vault, decades later, they figured that while they were down there they might as well get ol’ Robert’s skull back out. The docent mentioned that the plaster cast taken at the time was not only extant but on display at anotherBurns museum across the river. This being just the sort of tale I research, I ran as fast as my little legs could carry me over the bridge. There it was, behind glass on a shelf above Burn’s sword, guarded in the case by a Lego zombie bride, and out of the case by a life-size Burns mannequin that scared the bajeezus out of me.

I don’t suppose it’s a mystery that so many teenagers in Dumfries looked like goths.

Though it was hard to find an open restaurant there after 6pm, at night there were six or seven night clubs, all close enough that people sort of circulate between them on foot. I lost a game of dominos, bombed at karaoke, had a man with teeth like coffee grounds chew me out about the state of America, saw a guy band all dressed in gold play high energy Springsteen and Journey covers, heard “Wagon Wheel” sung out at two different pubs, all on the same day I saw a plaster cast of Robert Burns’ skull. All in all, you can have a pretty exciting day in Dumfries.

I went back to the Burns mausoleum at the churchyard the next morning, where I saw no sign of a service taking place even though there was one scheduled, and even though I was sure there was an organ audible when I’d been in the churchyard the evening before (one of those experiences that seems awfully spooky as long as you don’t think about it too hard), then made my weary way to the train to Glasgow, and back to the circus of the never ending rough and rowdy ways tour.

GLASGOW

The walk to the train station, and from there to the venue was long and unremarkable; the map app took me down a back way. Glasgow could be any city to me so far. Nathan, Yuliya, and I had some quick drinks and headed to the SEC Armadillo, an arena that apparently isn’t really called that, but which looks so much like an armadillo that people starting calling it that, not unlike The Bean in Chicago. It looks enormous on the outside, but inside it’s a fairly small. Right away, something seemed up: the piano was rotated to face stage left instead of stage right, and there was no sign of the pedal steel.

In my balcony seat (next to a couple from Dumfries) I watched the pedal appear towards the last minute, now parallel to the piano instead of perpendicular, clearly making it easier for Bob Britt to see Dylan while playing.

Right from the start the show was different;  Bob came in and launched right into “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” at the piano, skipping the guitar jam intro (which returned for “It Ain’t Me Babe.”). “I Contain Multitudes” had an ever-so-slightly different vibe that reminded me of “Soon After Midnight,” though i couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t just a different mix. “False Prophet” continued to be a guitar attack, with the crowd catching on to shoot “yeah!” during the silences in the breakdowns.  There was something in the air tonight. Even from the balcony (ironically the best view I’ve had in some time) you could see that Bob was really enjoying himself and pleased with how things were going.

But these opening four songs often seem like warmups to me these days, like the opening act before things start to get interesting.

“When I Paint My Masterpiece” was sung in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. A cool version that really confirmed that Bob was locked in this evening. This was gonna be good.

A strange man shouted something, and it sounded like a fight broke out, in the opening moments of “Black Rider,” like at Royal Albert Hall last year. What is it about that song that seems to make some people lose it?  This version seemed like it was trying to cast a spell - an ethereal version, notably lacking any pedal steel, with Dylan landing on a piano part that called to mind “Hall of the Mountain King” or “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies.” You know: the kind of spooky piano that goes with cartoons about elves who live in caves and things.

This would become a sort of lead-in to a performance that was worth the whole trip. I was reminded of Peter Stone Brown’s review of the Towson 2000 “Tambourine Man” in which he said “whatever it is that possesses Dylan took possession.”

The song began about as usual, in the stripped-down spoken work style that’s been standard since Royal Albert Hall a year ago. But early on, Dylan hit on a bass piano riff, sort of an oompah thing, and started to build a new melody around it. He’d sing a line, then play the same melody on piano, in a sort of call and response. Suddenly the song became a sort of sea shanty, like a crazed pirate captain, stalking the deck and whipping his zombie crew as they rowed.

You could almost imagine the piano riff as singing the lines back to him - and indeed could sing it yourself

“Can you look at me with your sightless eyes?”

“Can we look at him with his sightless eyes?”

“Can you cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Can we cross our hearts and hope to die?”

And it wasn’t just a verse or so; the band caught on and built their parts around this, keeping it up for the whole song so seamlessly that it seemed like they’d rehearsed it.  There were a couple of lines that didn’t quite fit the meter or cadence, and one or two tiny lyric flubs, but Dylan pushed through the mistakes and kept it all intact. I was cackling in my seat. What a moment to witness! I was lifted out of myself, away from the problems of the great world and the small, wrapped up in the mission of a zombie pirate crew, sailing around the world to find the necessary body parts for our captain’s creation. Yo ho ho and a bottle of brains!

(Nightlymoth has some examples)

A “To Be Alone With You” opened with Bob on guitar sounding better than usual, especially when he started just playing chords instead of noodling. Again we had a strong vocals and a new bridge:

They say Night time is the right time

Every time of the year

One time I lived over there

Right now from over here!

Adding the exclamation point because this was such an excited version. The kind where he sings “I won’t sleep a wink - no! - til I’m alone with you!”

Then came another new bridge:

They say Night time is the right time

To hold the keys and the cards (?)

Every time I go that way

I never know what to do

“Crossing the Rubicon” would have been a clear highlight on a slower night.

I still maintain that there’s a great new “Desolation Row” building. Britt didn’t touch the pedal this time, but Dylan was reaching and experimenting just a bit, like he was reaching for something new. When he didn’t quite land on anything, he defaulted back to a bit to the Chuck Berry delivery he’s been using. But even the parts that didn’t reach what he might have been going for were cool, and nothing seemed like a real wrong turn. He cracked up while singing “have mercy on his soul” as though it had just occurred to him that there was something funny about it that he hadn’t considered before.

“Key West” is about due for a new arrangement. Though it can be mesmerizing, the crowd gets restless.

A tight “Watching the River Flow” featured more new lyrics:

People everywhere you look

Can’t get away!

Everytime (inaudible)

No place, no place to stay

And

Every time I go that way

A woman hypnotized (?)

Always…you gotta do

gotta do what you got to do

An absolutely impassioned “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” had the people around me, first timers all, amazed. Goosebumps and sobs.

“I’ve Made Up My Mind…” continues to be incredible this leg.

“Mother of Muses” would have made another three song block of crushing ballads, except that it, too, was different tonight. In a show where many would have been a highlight other nights, this was probably what we would have been buzzing about afterwards if it hadn’t been for “My Own Version of You.” It’s been interesting to see it evolve. In Swansea it had a martial drum beat that was gone in Coventry and crept back a bit toward the end in Leeds. Tonight it came in, perhaps modified a bit, and more integrated. The song started slow and steady, then built into an actual rocker by the end, with wailing vocals that seemed not just to be bending notes and melody but truly telling the story of the words. He was inside the song tonight. Tony’s bass really drove it this time.

Even “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” was a rocker tonight, with Dylan realllllly wailing on the vocals in a way I seldom hear on this song, which can veer into languid versions sometimes. (“Took off my shooeeees”) I began to compare the singing to a sick, slow guitar solo, like he was singing a Grant Green electric guitar line. I’ve never heard that on “Jimmy Reed” before; it’s usually a low point in the set for me. Tonight’s rhyme for the “suck out the juice” was “if I had noose(?), it ain’t no use.”   It’s been fun watching all these new lyrics, mostly clearly improvised, but different every night. It takes effort to do improvisation nightly without repeating.

“Grain of Sand” wasn’t as inventive as in Leeds, but again sent us off with a glowing harmonica benediction.

As Nightlymoth said in a chat, “the whole show had a real sense of purpose and urgency.” There were high fives among the regulars. The main buzz was about “My Own Version of You” but it was agreed that this whole show was a banger, the sort that those of us who follow these things get particularly jazzed about.

Nathan and Yuliya joined me again, and we toasted with Ian, Moth, and Maddy in a hotel bar before going to Howlin’ Wolf, a Chicago themed bar. In Glasgow! The place seemed based on what you’d imagine a Chicago blues bar was like (though I know of no such bars extant in the city), with a band playing great Chicago blues with one stranger telling me I had an accent like a character in Some Like it Hot and another tapping me on the shoulder to say “Didn’t I meet you last night in Dumfries?”

Did the spirit of Robert Burns inspire Dylan tonight? Something sure possessed him. Would that such a spirit would possess us all.

Angus, Yuliya, Nathan, and that one rambling weirdo who clearly has a screw loose.