Bob Dylan's Cincinnati Triumph, July 10, 2026

At one of my first shows, we could see a bit of backstage through a crack in the fence. Right as the show ended we could see Bob stepping down the steps off the stage. As he did, someone said something, and he looked up with a jack-o-lantern grin. I haven’t seen that grin on his face in a while; starting with the first Outlaw tour he’s generally been moody and hooded. But tonight in Cincinnati he was all smiles, bopping to the beat, and even dancing around behind his piano. It was probably the best show I’ve seen since Austin a couple of years ago. After the show everyone was just jubilant (as in the picture above).

This day didn’t start out promising promising. I hadn’t planned to do this one - a five hour drive is in that dead zone where it’s too close to want to fly, but really too far to drive. But Henry had a spare ticket, and the evolving band has been exciting to follow, so I decided there was just too much happening to miss the chance. All my friends would be here, after all. Of course, then I started my day getting a huge bill, being unable to find parking by Henry’s place (street sweeping day), and kind of feeling crappy. I had a weird whistle in my ear and didn’t know why. My back was sore. It was hot out. And, of course, there are wars on and stuff. I wasn’t in a great place when I left the house.

But we drove off to Ohio (“Where America’s From”), passing through Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio all in ten minutes, and met up with Mike and Kait. Ben showed up and we did some tailgating. It was sweaty out and I didn’t seem to feel the beer at all. Something there is in Ohio that always makes it hard for me to breathe there.

But Cincinnati is my favorite part of Ohioa, and the outdoor arena turned out to be covered, which was a relief. Shade! The whole vibe of the place was “Theme Park that Remodeled in 1990 and Hasn’t Changed a Bit.” It was like an ampitheater, only with no lawn and everything was covered. We took our seats, down at the front stage left, just before John Doe Folk Trio’s excellent set. John came out and said “You thought you came out for a night of good music. But you’re getting a night of GREAT” music. Mike shouted his approval and John said “That guy gets it.” Later Henry shouted out a request for his cover of “Pressing On.” John smirked and said “‘Pressing On?’….No.”

Lucinda Williams, post-stroke, has to be helped onto the stage. She stands a bit weak on her feet and her singing probably isn’t as dynamic as she’d like. But her focus is visible, and her sheer resilience shines through. What a badass! Her set was terrific again, with the crowd high-fiving, and the guy who helped her out throwing devil horns offstage, during her closing cover of “Rockin’ in the Free World.” John Doe reminded us that we are all worthy of love, and can love whoever the hell we want. And despite both of their digs at “What’s-His-Name,” Lucinda reminded us that we can keep on rocking.

My mood had lifted. In fact, about halfway through her set, I realized that I felt fantastic. Calm. Happy. Sweaty, and glad I was wearing my neon headband (it’s Neon Magic Summer ’26), but just plain happy. I was with friends; we’d hung out with Gordon and his son Jude, and Heather had shown up with pics of me from Atlanta 2004, and Dan K from Chicago was right in our row. The weather cooled to one of those hot, brown, midwestern nights that I always mention when I’m tasting Heaven’s Door Rye and saying what it tastes like to me, pretending I have much of a palette. I felt so good I wondered if Mitch McConnell had died somewhere out there and made the world a bit of a happier place.

Now, there’d been much discussion of who would be in the band tonight. With Julian Lage probably on a plane for his gigs in Europe, the best guess was that Joel Paterson would go back to holding it up himself on guitar, as he’s quite capable of doing. We saw a hollow body Gibson, like Joel played, over stage right, where Julian had been before. But then we saw another hollow body guitar on the other side, where Joel had been. Two guitarists?

As the band came out, Joel was right near us, so we shouted “Yeah, Joel! Chicago! Chicago!” He looked down, motioned to us, and mouthed “You? Chicago?” Then smiled and put a finger to his lips before we could get him in trouble with the boss.

Behind him, a new guitarist had come out, putting on another hollow-body Gibson. He was a younger guy with great hair and a World War 2 allied pilot mustache. With the large guitar and suit, he was giving “member of a jazz band at the officer’s club in 1944 playing tasteful jazz and making all the women go crazy by curling his lip every now and then.” None of us knew who he was. Now and then a guy would poke his head from behind the curtain backstage and look at him, and I started to imagine he was a character in a screwball comedy who was on the run, ended up backstage, and someone said “Thank Gd you’re here! You’re on!” and now he was onstage, with the guy who was chasing him stuck backstage. (The murky picture someone took during the formation does not capture his regal, spy-like essence or how well-groomed that stache is).

“To Be Alone With You” showed Bob in good voice, Joel going right to town, and the new guitar fitting right in, playing a lot of staccato rhythm with jazz voicings of the chords. He did a few solos, and he was great, but the night would belong to Joel on guitar.

Bob was in his hoodie, but was grinning and bopping along, in a better mood than I’d seen him in (at least visibly) in a long, long time. Tony, too, was grinning (the ultimate barometer). “Man in the Long Black Coat” was perfect for the weather.

“It Ain’t Me Babe” was a big crowd pleaser, and the two guitars were really adding to it. Joel and the new guy (revealed well after the show to be 29 year old Jad Tariq of Memphis) were watching each other, giving each other looks like “you play a solo” or “now I’ll play a solo.” It was Joel’s first time up as the guitarist with seniority. “Trying to Get to Heaven” was perfect for these two; Henry pointed out that the song seemed to fit very well with “Man in the Long Black Coat.” Other than having the same producer on the album tracks it’s hard to see why, but it works. Maybe the Man in the Long Black Coat is trying to get to heaven, and Miss Mary Jane went with him without leaving a note.

“False Prophet” began very leisurely, lacking the evil bite of earlier versions. It was jarring, really. It was like a walk in the garden, and not like Bosch’s garden of earthly delights, but a pleasant garden someplace. But then the guy walking with you is still saying all this dark, vaguely threatening stuff, which made it a whole different kind of unsettling, akin to “Soon After Midnight” when the gentle lilt suddenly becomes a song about dragging Two-Timin’ Slim’s corpse through the mud.

The song featured some dueling guitars, which broke up the “pleasant stroll” vibe with some biting blues; by this time Bob was often nodding at Joel. Usually you can’t tell what a nod from Bob might mean; tonight it was very clearly “Take a solo.” Or “Keep soloing.” He occasionally nodded the new guy’s way, but most of the looks were going to Joel. And they all seemed good and encouraging, sometimes even punctuated by a smile.

“I Can Tell” featured Joel on slide, which has really brought that song to life. The covers in the set generally feel like filler - Mike said after Chicago that this show alternated between the last song you hear before you go to hell and a 1950s high school dance. But the new band is really lifting them up.

Things began to go to another level with “Black Rider.” A bit less sinister than in Chicago, vocally. This time he seemed like the guy who appears to the Black Rider every couple of miles, uttering vague warnings and threats, in a gentle, “I’ve been warning you…” tone that you know the Black Rider isn’t going to heed. One day i’ll wave his hand and the Black Rider will turn to dust. Maybe he used to be the Black Rider himself. Maybe the Black Rider is like the Dread Pirate Robert; there’ve been many over the years. You can tell a show is good when I find myself going into these weird raptures of fantasy from them. It doesn’t always happen. It didn’t happen much the other night in Chicago.

And best of all, it started raining - hard - outside of the stadium in the middle of the song. We could hear it on the roof, and sometimes the wind would even blow a mist in from the wings. It was like the song summoned a storm. Damn, Bob - what else can you do?

Bob nodded for Joel to keep going a bit during the intro to “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” and when he did, Bob’s face broke into a huge smile and what appeared to be a delighted chuckle. He sang like he was having a blast up there.

“Crossing the Rubicon” gives Bob a lot of great opportunities vocally - a lot of lines that he seems to like playing with. Tonight he seemed to be really telling the story of the song more than he usually does to me, not just leaning into the vocal gymnastics, but really living inside of the song, telling us how he crossed the Rubicon. Joel played some wicked guitar. As we always do, we all shouted “Woo!” in the seconds when the band pauses during the instrumental breaks, and Tony was so amused that people who’d been in the back came up after and asked if we’d noticed Tony reacting to us. Heather said “Tony thinks you guys are funny!”

“Soon After Midnight” is a song I could generally skip, if it was long enough to make into bathroom break, but the two guitars are really pushing it forward, with Bob again seeming absolutely delighted in Joel’s work.

The two guitars are also adding a look of good shading and texture to “Under the Red Sky,” which is probably the song that comes closest to the album version. Fireflies were lighting up the stage. There was a harp solo here tonight, and a great one. The crowd went nuts for it.

“I’ve Made Up My Mind…” is another that I sometimes think I’ve heard enough, but it was particularly lovely and heartfelt tonight. “Goodbye Jimmy Reed,” which is sometimes known to limp along, is back to being an uptempo bop.

Now, this had been a hell of a show. Bob seemed to be having a blast, something that I don’t think I’ve seen in a long time. The two new guitarists were playing like they’d been playing together for ages and really elevating the set, clearly inspiring Bob. Just one wild card remained: would the closer be “Every Grain of Sand” or “I Shall Be Released?” Henry has been wanting to see “I Shall Be Released” live for twenty years. As noted in Steven Ring’s review of Chicago, when Bob closed with “Every Grain of Sand” there, Henry had thrown up his hands in despair. Today he was still bugged by it, even though he knew in his heart that you can’t get your hopes up about a setlist surprise. He’d been telling himself not to get his hopes up again all day.

But then Bob leaned over towards Joel and said “Shall be Released” with a little nod. When Bob sang the first line, Henry broke down. I was cradling him for much the song as he ugly-cried with joy. He later said he felt like he’d been released. The version Bob brought in also happened to be gorgeous - well arranged, beautifully sung, and with a benedictory harp solo to close out the evening. The whole show was a triumph.

Sometimes you wonder if it’s just your own mood. If you just have a better time than normal because you have seats with friends or simply have a great view. What you get out of a concert definitely reflects what you put into it. But everyone else we knew was just aglow after the show. We buzzed around the seats and the parking lot for a long time, trying to find out if anyone knew who the new guy was and rehashing favorite moments. There were a lot of them. This is the kind of show you chase. The reason we travel around. One of them, anyway. You get a lot of adventures and make a lot of friends along the way, but you’re always hoping for one of those shows that just seems to rise from A+ to something more. That lifts you out of yourself. What if there’s a show like this and you miss it because you didn’t want to take a five hour drive? It’s a nice ride with a friend and if you take a slightly scenic route you’ll probably see some interesting stuff.

Word around Chicago was that Joel was going to be out for 2-3 weeks, but that was probably before Bob Britt had left the band, and he just expected to fill in for dates when Julian had prior commitments. I wonder if Bob is going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.

Now it’s morning. I’m in a blue light cheap hotel in some speed trap town in Indiana, eating a hotel breakfast that doesn’t include any eggs while the Hallmark Channel plays Hallmark Christmas movies on the TV screen, even though it’s July. The whistle in my ear is a bit worse. If Mitch McConnell kicked it, it hasn’t been announced yet. But I’m feeling great, still buzzing from the show. I’m taking comfort in knowing that Mitch will probably be out of my hair pretty soon, anyway, and that I still have the Forest Hills show ahead in a couple of weeks. Hallelujah, I’m ready to go.

Outside the venue, sweating it out. On the inside the chili dogs were seven bucks, which isn’t bad for stadium chow.

Leaving Chicago; thanks for driving, Henry!