Bob Dylan Kicked Off His Spring Tour Swing With a Big Surprise at the Broward Center

Early Friday evening, about an hour before showtime, a squall rolled in off the Atlantic and up Las Olas Boulevard to the patio of the sold-out Au-Rene Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. The skies opened up, briefly chasing early arrivals sipping their rum-and-Cokes and Pommery Pink Pops off the patio.

That symbolic ten-minute downpour was the only introduction the night's star attraction required or received before the house lights dimmed at little past 8 and the massive curtain rose to reveal the Voice of His Generation, who — the good Lord willing and the creek don't rise — will turn 83 in May.

Having laid off his Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour since early December, Bob Dylan is spending spring break working in Florida this year, beginning with a two-show parlay in Fort Lauderdale March 1-2.

On opening night, with his six-piece band arrayed across the otherwise bare stage, Dylan launched into a pair of his classics, "Watching the River Flow" and "Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I'll Go Mine)." Most likely, that bluesy opening one-two punch would ring familiar to audiences who've attended earlier dates on this tour, which began in late 2021. So would nearly all of the 90-minute, no-intermission, no-encore set — save for one surprise about two-thirds of the way through.

The band was clad mostly in black, Dylan himself uncharacteristically hatless and appearing exceptionally diminutive, with all but his head framed by the glowing nimbus of his frizzy hair, all but concealed by a closed baby grand piano front and center, behind which he perched.

True to form, he performed every track from 2020's Rough and Rowdy Ways save for, understandably, the 17-minute epic "Murder Most Foul." Interspersed between those nine arrangements were six entries from the artist's prodigious back catalogue and the aforementioned Easter egg: a boogie-woogie-style cover of "Walking by Myself," a minor hit in 1956 for the unfortunately obscure bluesman Jimmy Rogers (not to be confused with famed "Father of Country Music" Jimmie Rodgers).
He rose from the piano bench for parts or all of only a few numbers, including "Crossing the Rubicon," one of the night's several highlights, which propelled the old master to his feet, where he stood, knock-kneed, pounding away at the keyboard like some geriatric Little Richard, as though he were back in the Hibbing High School auditorium trying to wow the bobby soxers in the Eisenhower Era.

Of course, he doesn't have to try to impress anyone these days. And the setlist notwithstanding, a Bob Dylan show is and always has been an exercise in improvisation. Never known for his musicianship, he's no virtuoso at the piano — more like an abstract expressionist, leaving it to his band to tend to the melody while he follows his own peculiar muse.

So it was last night in Fort Lauderdale, especially on Rough and Rowdy's several jazz-inflected tracks, all of which suffered from the acoustics in the soaring concert hall, which muddled the overamplified proceedings and wiped out any semblance of subtlety in Dylan's famously less-than-enunciated delivery.

In general, the evening was a matter of the rowdier, the better, peaking with "Gotta Serve Somebody," a song from Dylan's Christian period that won him a Grammy in 1980. Here it got a rollicking gospel treatment that was sufficient to motivate one retiree sitting close to the front, who'd clapped her hands and rocked with nothing short of ecstasy to all the blues tunes, to bust out the full-on air guitar.

"Goodbye Jimmy Reed" (which, among several fine double entendres, contains the brilliant "I can't play the record 'cause my needle got stuck" ) inspired more of the same before Dylan, briefly and without ceremony, introduced his band and closed with "Every Grain of Sand," disappointingly delivered at his piano-poundingest, robbing the song of its core spirituality but bringing the crowd to its feet, which stomped for a time with adoration and the vain hope for an encore that would not materialize.

Rome to Brussels, Salt Lake City to Birmingham, Fort Lauderdale to Key West, across the Rubicon, for 90 minutes Dylan has come to take you with him if you choose to go.

Note: Many devotees are already aware of the drill, and the venue made it clear in emails sent to ticketholders in the days leading up to the show: Dylan now prohibits the use of cellphones during his shows and enforces the ban via an outfit called Yondr that locks your phone, inventory control-style, in a pouch when you enter, hands it back to you, and frees it when you leave (or in an emergency). But not everyone's a devotee, and Yondr workers had to do a lot of polite explaining at the door. (Not all of the crew members are devotees, either; in an attempt to make conversation, one inquired, "He wrote 'Stairway to Heaven,' right?")

Setlist:
- "Watching the River Flow"
- "Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I'll Go Mine)"
- "I Contain Multitudes"
- "False Prophet"
- "When I Paint My Masterpiece"
- "Black Rider"
- "My Own Version of You"
- "Crossing the Rubicon"
- "To Be Alone With You"
- "Key West (Philosopher Pirate)"
- "Gotta Serve Somebody"
- "I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You"
- "Mother of Muses"
- "Walking by Myself" (song by Jimmy Rogers)
- "Goodbye Jimmy Reed"
- "Every Grain of Sand"

Personnel:
Bob Dylan - piano
Tony Garnier - electric and standup bass
Jerry Pentecost - drums
Bob Britt - acoustic and electric guitar
Doug Lancio - acoustic and electric guitar
Donnie Herron - pedal steel, lap steel, electric mandolin, violin

Update published 3/3/24 10:30 a.m.: As submitted by numerous fans to the Dylan website BobLinks, the setlist of the Saturday, March 3, show in Fort Lauderdale was nearly identical to Friday night, the only exception being a swap in ordering between "Mother of Muses" and "Walking by Myself."