Bob Dylan kicked off his Outlaw Music Festival set Friday evening at the Darien Lake Performing Arts Center in Darien Center, New York, by playing “Masters of War” for the first time since the Desert Trip Festival in 2016.
Dylan has taken very few political stances since the Civil Rights Movements of the early Sixties, refusing to even condemn the Vietnam War, and his views today on basically any issue are impossible to know. But it’s hard to ignore the fact he’s bringing the song out as wars continue to rage in Ukraine and Gaza without any clear end in sight.
He did something similar at the start of the Gulf War on February 20, 1991, when he played a ragged, reggae-tinged “Master of War” at the Grammy’s after being presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award. But when he took to the podium to accept the honor from Jack Nicholson, he made no mention of the conflict.
He instead paraphrased Psalm 27:10 by saying, “Well, my daddy, he didn’t leave me too much, you know? He was a very simple man and he didn’t leave me a lot. But what he did tell me was this. He did say, ‘Son…it’s possible to become so defiled in this world that your own mother and father will abandon you. And if that happens, God will always believe in your own ability to mend your own ways.”
“Masters of War” is one of several Sixties classics he’s reintroduced back into his setlist on the Outlaw Musical Festival this summer. He’s also done “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Positively Fourth Street,” “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” and “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.”
There are also several obscure covers songs in his set, including Charlie Rich’s “I’ll Make It All Up To You,” Bobby Blue Bland’s “Share You Love With Me” and George “Wild Child” Butler’s “Axe and the Wind.”
The Outlaw Music Festival continues Saturday evening at Hershey Park Stadium in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It wraps up September 19 at the Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy, Wisconsin. Dylan then heads off to Europe in October for a long run of shows across much of the continent.