Bob Dylan at Desert Trip, weekend 2
Bob Dylan should have opened his second and final performance at the Desert Trip festival Friday night (Oct. 14, 2016) with “Things Have Changed,” the song with which he’s been launching his shows for some time now. After all, there has been a big change in Dylan’s life since the previous weekend’s performance: he is now the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Instead, he started his set at the two-weekend, six-act festival, produced by the Coachella organizers in Indio, CA, with “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” the same song with which he’d opened the previous Friday’s show—and then proceeded to play the exact same setlist all the way through.
Related: Our review of Dylan’s concert at Desert Trip weekend one
Until the encores, that is. Dylan returned to the stage after his set-closing “Ballad Of a Thin Man” with “Like a Rolling Stone,” his game-changing 1965 hit often called the greatest rock anthem of all time. He then closed out the show crooning “Why Try to Change Me Now?,” a song written by Cy Coleman and recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1952. Dylan recorded it on last year’s Shadows in the Night album, his first of two albums of Sinatra-associated tunes.
Watch Dylan perform “Ballad of a Thin Man” on weekend two of Desert Trip
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Dylan made no mention of the Nobel Prize during his set. Keith Richards, there to perform with the headlining Rolling Stones, did, however, telling the crowd of 75,000, “First, I gotta add to Mick’s thing to, uh, Mr. Dylan, I mean, hey you know.. Nobel Prize… c’mon on! Congratulations to Mr. Dylan I mean for all of his work. I can’t think of anybody else who deserves it better.”
Dylan himself said few (if any) words during his performance, and did not invite any members of the Stones to sit in on “Like a Rolling Stone” (which they recorded on 1995’s Stripped album).
Watch Dylan perform “Like a Rolling Stone” encore from Desert Trip
Festival attendees reported that Dylan was more animated than he was the first weekend, but if any were hoping for surprises, they went away disappointed.
Related: The Rolling Stones premiere new blues song at Desert Trip weekend two
Bob Dylan’s October 14, 2016, Desert Trip setlist
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
Highway 61 Revisited
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
High Water (For Charley Patton)
Simple Twist of Fate
Early Roman Kings
Love Sick
Tangled Up in Blue
Lonesome Day Blues
Make You Feel My Love
Pay in Blood
Desolation Row
Soon After Midnight
Ballad of a Thin Man
Encore
Like a Rolling Stone
Why Try to Change Me Now?
Watch Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” encore from Desert Trip
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2 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationYou should change the title on this post. It’s not true. Bob’s first show after the award was the previous night in Las Vegas.
Thanks for the heads’ up and done! We’ve fired our intern and given him your contact info. 😉