Bob Dylan covers The Grateful Dead at tour-closing gig

Bob Dylan closed his ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’ North American tour last night (June 11) and included a cover of The Grateful Dead in his set.

The star has been on the road in support of his latest album since November 2021, taking a break between December 2021 and March 2022.

The dates concluded last night at Oakland, California’s Fox Theater – his third of three nights at the venue. For the final song in his set, Dylan swapped the tour standard of ‘Every Grain Of Sand’ for a cover of The Grateful Dead’s ‘Friend Of The Devil’.

Advertisement

It was the first time since 2007 that Dylan had performed the Dead song live, although it used to be a staple of his sets in the late ‘90s. Listen to a recording of his latest cover of ‘Friend Of The Devil’ below.

Dylan himself got the cover treatment recently, with Angel Olsen putting her own spin on his 1964 song ‘One Too Many Mornings’. The cover was created for the soundtrack of the new Apple TV+ series Shining Girls, which stars The Handmaid’s Tale’s Elisabeth Moss.

Meanwhile, last month Post Malone revealed that Dylan had “kind of slid into my DMs”. During an appearance on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, the host showed a clip of a teenage Post covering the iconic artist and asked if he had had the chance to meet him yet.

“I have not met Bob Dylan,” the rapper replied. “But we have been – I don’t know how much I’m at liberty to discuss. But we’ve been chatting. We’ve chatted.”

He added about interacting with Dylan: “It’s incredible… He’s always just been a voice in my head. I’ve always just appreciated the music and appreciated the songwriting.”