The Outlaw Music Festival touched down Thursday night on the North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, California, and Bob Dylan once again delivered a wildly unpredictable set that stunned even his most hardcore fans.
The biggest surprise came at the very end when he broke out Ricky Nelson‘s 1972 comeback hit “Garden Party” for the first time in his career. The song chronicles a Madison Square Garden oldies revue that Nelson played in October 1971 alongside Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Bobby Rydell. Nelson initially entertained the nostalgic crowd with his Fifties classics like “Hello Mary Lou,” but he faced boos when he broke out “Country Honk” by the Stones, and Dylan’s “She Belongs To Me.” Nelson poured his sorrows into the lyrics of “Garden Party” (“If memories were all I sang, I rather drive a truck”), and earned an unlikely comeback hit that reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100.
As you can see from this audience-shot video, Dylan’s new live rendition of “Garden Party” is remarkably faithful to the original. He even delivers the line that namechecks himself (“Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan’s shoes wearing his disguise”), which is a reference to George Harrison attending the show in disguise under his standard pseudonym Mr. Hughes, but he skips over the verse that references “She Belongs to Me.” (Dylan’s longtime bassist Tony Garnier has a huge grin on his face during the entire performance, which is surely how much of the audience felt watching this unfold.)
“Garden Party” wasn’t the only surprise of the night. Dylan also played Bobby “Blue” Bland’s 1964 hit “Share Your Love With Me, which was later covered by both Aretha Franklin and Kenny Rogers, for the first time since the opening of his 1974 reunion tour with the Band. And in terms of originals, the set featured the first “Lonesome Day Blues” since 2017, the first “Blind Willie McTell” since 2017, and the first “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” since 2019.
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This was just the second night of the Outlaw Music Festival Tour, and it’s already clear that Dylan is determined to have fun with his set and break out surprise covers that few could ever see coming. On night one, Dylan played “Rainy Night in Soho” by the Pogues in addition to the obscure blues song “Axe and the Wind” by George “Wild Child” Butler. He repeated the latter tune on night two.
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To be sure, there are likely many in the crowd who would rather hear hits like “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” “I Shall Be Released,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” or “Blowin’ in the Wind” than “Axe and the Wind.” And even though he did throw in his first “Mr. Tambourine Man” since 2010 on the first night to appease such folks, the timeless lyrics of “Garden Party” summarize how Dylan feels about playing his golden oldies: “But it’s all right now, I learned my lesson well /You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.”
(Fun fact: Back in 2008, we called up Donald Trump to ask about his frequent appearances at Neil Young concerts in New York City. We asked him if he had a favorite Neil Young song. “It’s sort of all favorite,” he said, unable to name even one. “I like the older stuff better, which is typical with a lot of artists — hence the famous Ricky Nelson song ‘Garden Party.’ I like all his songs, you know, ‘Rock and Roll’ — just great stuff.”)
