The bust-out bard was back at it on June 25. After taking a couple of weeks off the road between legs of Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival, Bob Dylan returned to the live stage last Friday, June 20, in Clackston, Mich., where he kept his setlist simple. The musician resumed the same practice during follow-ups in Ohio, before Wednesday’s arrival at FirstBank Amphitheater in Franklin, Tenn., when he gave reference to his title by pulling out “The Times They Are A-Changin’” for the first time since Feb. 9, 2010. 

Dylan positioned his bust out in the night’s second position, building to its arrival after a complete run through of the 1979 Slow Train Coming feature, “Gotta Serve Somebody,” before moving into “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” for the first time in 15 years. First played at New York’s Carnegie Hall on October 26, 1963, the song has been a longtime staple of the musician’s archive, performed over 500 times by Dylan before it was ultimately shelved in 2010. 

Despite its 1960s debut and subsequent inclusion on an album of the same name in 1964, its live peak occurred in 1978, when Dylan added it to his setlist 87 times, according to setlist.FM. 

Wednesday night’s return served as the first time Dylan revisited the folk composition since the aforementioned February 9, 2010 date, when he delivered the classic song at the White House in Washington, D.C., for the hosts of “In Performance at The White House: A Celebration of Music From the Civil Rights Movement,” Barrack and Michelle Obama. 

During the most recent return to “The Times They Are A-Changin’” Dylan stroked the keys of the piano, with a church life reference and adding lyrical accompaniment from his backing band. 

Dylan returns to the stage tonight, June 27, 2025, at Radians Amphitheater in Memphis, Tenn.

Bob Dylan 

FirstBank Amphitheater – Franklin, Tenn. 

June 25, 2025 

Set: Gotta Serve Somebody, The Times They Are A-Changin’+, Forgetful Heart, Axe and the Wind, To Ramona, Early Roman Kings, Under the Red Sky, I’ll Make It All Up To You, All Along the Watchtower, ‘Til I Fell in Love With You, Desolation Row, Love Sick, Share Your Love With Me, Blind Willie McTell, Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right

Notes: 

+ First time since Feb. 9, 2010