Bob Dylan in Concert at the Benedum (Mon., 4/21/25)

Monday, April 21

It’s been a long, long time since Pete Seeger introduced an up-and-comer named Bob Dylan to the crowd at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. The next year, Dylan was booed when he showed up with an electric guitar. Decades later, he was chastised globally for not showing up at all to accept the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. But in between and ever since, he’s done quite a bit of showing up. The Dylan curriculum vitae to date includes 40 studio albums plus bunches of bootleg albums, other recordings, and collaborations, in genres and styles from folk to talking blues, rock, country, Christian, covers of Frank Sinatra ballads … and a genre that one might simply call “Dylan.” (A classic recent example is “False Prophet,” above, from 2020’s Rough and Rowdy Ways.) And though his lyrics have been analyzed extensively for deep meanings, Dylan is above all a musician, who loves to play and sing live. Ripping it up with bandmates seems to keep him “Forever Young.”

Now he’s on tour again, still re-inventing and experimenting—because just when you think you’ve seen it all from Dylan, you haven’t—and his Pittsburgh concert is booked into Benedum Center. The show is officially sold out, so visit your secondary sources. 237 7th St., Cultural District. (M.V.)

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