Bob Dylan has announced his first tour since 2019, hitting the road this November for a string of 21 North American headline dates.

The run will kick off in Milwaukee on Tuesday November 2, wrapping up a month later in Washington, DC. Included in the itinerary is a five-show stint in New York, with three dates set for NYC and two in Port Chester. Tickets for all shows will be available from Dylan’s website starting this Friday (October 1).

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The shows were announced as the first leg of a world tour in support of Dylan’s 39th studio album, ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’, set to run until 2024. It’ll be the first time he’s has played to a live audience since December of 2019, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic forcing Dylan to pause his decades-long ‘Never Ending Tour’.

He did, however, perform a one-off virtual concert dubbed Shadow Kingdom last July. In NME’s review of the show, Rhian Daly said: “Instead of beaming us into the future, Shadow Kingdom takes into the smoky recesses of the past – both in its setting (it begins in a black-and-white club in a wooden hut before moving to other locations) and in the setlist, which draws from mostly deep-cuts from his ‘60s and ‘70s releases.”

His first original album in eight years, ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’ was released last June through Columbia, and featured the singles ‘Murder Most Foul’ (which earned Dylan his first-ever Number One on a US Billboard chart), ‘I Contain Multitudes’ and ‘False Prophet’.

The album received critical acclaim upon release, including in a five-star review from NME that labelled it “arguably [Dylan’s] grandest poetic statement yet”. In his write-up, Mark Beaumont praised Dylan for delivering “enclosed, traditionally structured atmospheres […] onto which he [projects] his sprawling literary visions of death, degradation and the horrors of history”.

‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’ led to Dylan becoming the first artist with a US Top 40 album in every decade since the 1960s. He followed its release earlier this month with the 16th instalment in his ongoing bootleg series, ‘Springtime In New York’.

Bob Dylan’s 2021 US tour dates are:

NOVEMBER
Tuesday 2 – Milwaukee, Riverside Theatre
Wednesday 3 – Chicago, Auditorium Theatre
Friday 5 – Cleveland, Key Bank State Theatre
Saturday 6 – Columbus, Palace Theatre
Sunday 7 – Bloomington, IU Auditorium
Tuesday 9 – Cincinnati, Procter & Gamble Hall
Wednesday 10 – Knoxville, Knoxville Auditorium
Friday 12 – Louisville, Palace Theatre
Saturday 13 – Charleston, Municipal Auditorium
Monday 15 – Moon Township, Robert Morris University UPMC Events Center
Tuesday 16 – Hershey, Hershey Theatre
Friday 19 – New York City, Beacon Theatre
Saturday 20 – New York City, Beacon Theatre
Sunday 21 – New York City, Beacon Theatre
Tuesday 23 – Port Chester, Capitol Theatre
Wednesday 24 – Port Chester, Capitol Theatre
Friday 26 – Providence, Providence Performing Arts Center
Saturday 27 – Boston, Wang Theatre
Monday 29 – Philadelphia, The Met
Tuesday 30 – Philadelphia, The Met

DECEMBER
Thursday 2 – Washington, The Anthem