Last Night in Gilford [no Brits not that GUILFORD, GILFORD!

2025-08-03, Bank of NH Pavilion, Gilford, NH

RAY PADGETT

AUG 4

Notes from night two of my Outlaw weekend! Plus videos and a tape.

After some sloppy moments in Saratoga Springs, Dylan was on in Gilford last night. The six-song stretch from “All Along the Watchtower” through “Blind Willie McTell” was one of the strongest chunks vocally I’ve seen in a few years. “Desolation Row” especially was perhaps the best I’ve ever seen it sung in person. “Blind Willie” was just as good, with him almost whispering the lyrics. It was so powerful I forgot to applaud after. I was just sitting there.
I joked in yesterday’s dispatch that I kept writing the word “jaunty” in my notebook (and it turns out I wasn’t the only one! We should rename this Jaunty Tour 2025). Last night the word that popped up a couple times was “bite.” He bit into the lyrics for “I Can Tell,” really making a meal of them and riffing at the end “no no no no no!” Ditto an equally biting “Love Sick,” propelled by Anton Fig’s theatrical drumming.
The centerpiece of this set to me is the “All Along the Watchtower” / “Til I Fell in Love with You” combo. “Watchtower” benefits from the wonderful new arrangement, and Bob leans into the vocals, extending the final word of each verse (“hoooooowl,” etc). Then “Til I Fell,” as I mentioned yesterday, has that wonderfully strange backing, the band members making ambient noises behind Bob. I got some video of it last night:
The one discordant moment came on “Searching for a Soldier’s Grave.” Bob was pissed about something, gesturing angrily to Tony throughout the song. He shook his head a couple times, and once seemed to roll his eyes. My guess is he felt the band was overplaying. Near the end it seemed like he was wrapping the song up early. But then, when the band all but stopped playing and the audience applauded the seeming end, he resumed singing, for a much quieter final verse. It will be interesting to see if that becomes the new arrangement (or if he drops the song entirely).
As noted yesterday, this band rocks. Both in the colloquial sense of “they’re good”—but also literal: They play loud and fast. The same lineup as the last Rough and Rowdy tour, but making a totally different sound. Which suits these big outdoor venues, but I did miss that past minimalism on a few songs, like “To Ramona” which might have benefited from a more spare approach. Fig especially is a busy drummer, which usually works great…except when it doesn’t. The one time Dylan really reached back for that minimalism, “Don’t Think Twice,” made a stunning finale that seems to direct him back towards Rough and Rowdy, which after all resumes this fall.
Bob walks out to the sax strains of Duane Eddy’s “Forty Miles of Bad Road,” a song he nods to in a line in “Things Have Changed,” which for years opened his shows. Meta! Thanks to Tim Edgeworth for IDing the song.
Gilford was the final stop of last summer’s Outlaw Tour—but, for reasons unexplained, Dylan dropped off that one show. So it was nice to get a do-over. The venue is smaller than most, in the middle of a lake-resort area of New Hampshire. Last weekend the Wilco guys were telling me that bands love this venue because they have an amazing backstage setup, with mini-golf and free boat rides on the lake. Wonder how Bob’s mini-golf game is.
Having seen the same covers two nights in a row, here’s my ranking of how well they work live: 1. “I Can Tell.” 2. “Share My Love with You.” 3. “Searching for a Soldier’s Grave.” 4. “I'll Make It All Up To You.” 5. “Axe and the Wind.” The last I’d be fine losing; Dylan doing an old Willie Dixon deep cut is a cool idea on paper, but I found somewhat formless and generic both nights. The Bo Diddley cover “I Can Tell,” on the other hand, is one of the best songs of the current set. It would make an amazing opener if he decided to bump it up a slot. And in the best balladsubcategory, he croons the hell out of the Bobby “Blue” Bland tune “Share My Love.” Here’s a bit of “I Can Tell”:
I’ve somehow got a mental block that he’s still playing “E*rly R*m*n K*ngs” (It’s like the Harry Potter villain—the character in the books I mean, not the other one—you don’t want to say its name). I forgot it was coming, then both nights when I heard the openings chords, I audibly groaned. “Pay In Blood” is right there, play that instead! Playing anythinginstead! </end rant>
Both nights, I was pleasantly surprised by the crowds. At least around me, people were digging Dylan. It’s not a Rough and Rowdy crowd, and the quieter songs were soundtracked by a low ambient crowd murmur—I recalled a grade school teacher’s oft-used line asking our class to keep it to “a dull roar”—but both seemed less predominately Willie-and-Willie-only crowds than some I saw last year. A lotta Tempest tees in the audiences too. Even the shirtless dude wearing nothing on top but a puka shell necklace and a straw hat (a few red flags there) behaved himself.
If anyone is still holding out hope for a Bob-Willie duet, it doesn’t seem like Bob typically sticks around. Even in this multi-act show, they do the same “Elvis has left the building” trick of leaving the house lights down for a few minutes after he’s done—making the crowd expect an encore—giving him cover to escape to the bus.
Critics of the Outlaw Tours point to the large venues and the unruly crowds. Which I get. It’s a far cry from seeing Bob in a beautiful 1920s movie palace with a hushed and reverent audience. But to me there’s something beautiful about also seeing Bob Dylan in a place advertising two-dollar hot dots. Saturday night I was watching 92-year-old Willie Nelson sing “Still Is Still Moving to Me” while eating a chocolate-covered waffle. It doesn’t get better than that.