Duluth Dylan Fest 2025: Schedule Announced

The tentative schedule for our 2025 Duluth's Dylan Fest is taking shape, celebrating Duluth's Native Son the week of his 84th birthday. This annual event is held during the week of May 24th, Bob's birthday, a feast of local friends and the extended family of fans from abroad, paying homage to one of the most influential singer-songwriters of our time.  

Whether you're a lifelong fan or a newcomer to Dylan's vast repertoire, Duluth Dylan Fest offers a unique opportunity to dive deeper into his music, explore the city where he was born, and experience the community that continues to celebrate his enduring legacy. 

The activities are evolving. Here’s what you can look forward to in this year's current schedule of events:

Duluth Dylan Fest 2025

Duluth Dylan Fest will be held May 19-25, 2025. Please note times and locations are subject to change. Watch for updates for ticketed event links. The festival line-up includes:

 

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Hibbing Day – More details to come (Hibbing High School Tour and

Birthday Celebration on the lawn of Bob Dylan’s Boyhood Home.

 

Monday, May 19, 2025

 

Dylan Fest Acoustic Jam Session with host Leslie Black

Bring your voice and/or instrument and music stand.

Carmody Irish Pub

308 East Superior Street, Duluth

5:30-8:30 PM | Free

 

Thursday, May 22, 2025

 

Duluth Dylan Fest Dance Party with Cowboy Angel Blue

Mr. D’s Bar and Grill

5622 Grand Avenue, Duluth

7:00-10:00 PM | Free

 

Friday, May 23, 2025

 

Dylan Fest Singer-Songwriter Contest

Sacred Heart Music Center

2022 4th Street, Duluth

7:00-10:00 PM | Tickets TBD

 

Saturday, May 24, 2025

 

Bob Dylan Front Porch Birthday Party with live music

Bob Dylan’s childhood home

519 N. 3rd Ave. East, Duluth

11:00-12:30 PM | Free

 

John Bushey Memorial Lecture

Location TBD

1:30–3:00 PM | Free

 

Highway 61 Revisited Radio Show

The North 103.3 FM, Streaming online at 5:00-6:00 PM | Free

Sheltering from the Storm Concert

Sacred Heart Music Center

2022 4th Street, Duluth

7:00-10:00 PM | Tickets TBD

  

Sunday, May 25, 2025

 

Farewell Brunch featuring Live Music

Location TBD

11:00 AM -12:30 PM | Free (Brunch not included)

FOR LATEST SCHEDULE UPDATES:

Duluth Dylan Fest 2025 – Duluth Dylan Fest

Related Links

Music-Based Tourism and Placemaking in Dylan's Northland

The Case for Celebrating Dylan's Home Town

2023 Duluth Dylan Fest... Days Two and One are Done

Arranging the initial design.

Duluth Dylan Fest commenced shortly after dawn on Saturday, May 20th. There were two happenings at the Historic Duluth Armory and the Armory Annex. Mark Poirier led us on a tour of the Armory, with a smattering of details about its history and the vision for the future. Outside the entrance to the Annex one could participate in a collaborative creative effort to produce a welded gate.

As many know well, gates have been the most recent iteration of Bob Dylan's foray in the development of his skills as a visual artist. (EdNote: This activity is completely unrelated to the controversial billionaire Bill Gates.) It's well known Dylan has been drawing and painting for more than half a century. Fewer are aware, however, that he has been creating welded works in iron for three decades now. It's just one more example of Dylan's connections to his Iron Range roots. 

In 2022 our local Dylan Fest, in conjunction with the Duluth Forging Community, created a Dylangate Event. Visitors were invited to bring various items to be incorporated into the overall design, much like the gates Bob Dylan has produced at his Black Buffalo Ironworks studio. The project was such a success that it looks like it's becoming a tradition. One attendee brought a piece of metal from Maryland to contribute.

The big draw, for many Saturday morning, was the opportunity to tour the Historic Duluth Armory where a young Bobby Zimmerman experienced a zeitgeist moment while watching Buddy Holly perform in January 1959. Armory Arts director Mark Poirier led the tour, offering visitors a glimpse of the future for this historical place.

From one to four in the afternoon, the public was invited to sip samples of Heaven's Door whiskey and bourbon, another business that Dylan has spawned late in his career. At five o'clock, Miriam Hanson hosted a special edition of Highway 61 Revisited on KUMD The North radio station, and at 7:00 Hard Rain, the band from St. Louis, provided entertainment for the Duluth Dylan Fest Kickoff Party. Spirits were lifted and dancers danced at the Earth Rider Festival Grounds.  

Samples of Heaven's Door at CashWise

On Sunday, the action moved to Hibbing with a tour of places where Dylan spent his growing up years and a party on the front lawn of the Zimmerman homestead where "Bobby" came of age. In the evening had the first of two John Bushey Memorial Lectures with Seth Rogovoy, Author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet.

A week of events still lies ahead of us though. Here's the full schedule of what's to come, beginning tonight with more Heaven's Door bourbon and whiskey sampling and a live jam at Carmody's Irish Pub, followed by the Basement Tapes Band concert at Bent Paddle Brewery in the Lincoln Park District. It's all free and all good. 

Will we see you there?

* * * 

These guys no how to put on a Dylan show.

A former upstairs ballroom at the Armory?

And a vision for the future for the drill hall where
young Robert Zimmerman saw Buddy Holly.

Photo credits: Ed Newman, Michael Anderson and Jill Fisher (top right)

A Visit with Seth Rogovoy: On Looking at Dylan Through a Jewish Lens

Seth Rogovoy. Photo credit: Richard Lovrich

Hard to believe April's already here with May just beyond the horizon. In the Northland we're still buried in a blanket of snow, but based on experience we know that there will eventually be green grass, buds on the trees and the promise of warmer weather. In the Duluth "event" cycle the Homegrown Music Festival, Duluth Dylan Fest and Grandma's Marathon will soon be unfolding like lilac blossoms.

At this year's Duluth Dylan Fest there will again be two John Bushey Memorial Lectures, one via Zoom which can be enjoyed from anywhere in the world and the other live. The first will feature Seth Rogovoy, a writer and producer who also works as an editor, radio commentator, lecturer, teacher, cultural programmer, record producer and theatrical producer.

Rogovoy has written extensively about Bob Dylan over the years. In addition to being author of Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet he is founder and curator of The Rogovoy Report, which self-describes as "an opinionated and radically curated digest of news and features from around the corner to around the globe."

One positive that came out of the tragic and disruptive Covid pandemic is that nearly everyone now knows how to use Zoom so that people across the country and around the globe can tune in for Rogovoy's multi-media presentation titled The Kabbalah of Bob Dylan. The free live event will take place Sunday May 21, 6:30–7:45 PM. Rogovoy describes his talk as "a 45-50 minute multimedia version of my book, where I examine Dylan's life (including his early life in Hibbing) and his musical career through a Jewish lens."

E: How did you first come to take a serious interest in the music and life of Bob Dylan? 

Seth Rogovoy: I began listening to Bob Dylan at an impressionable age, around 13, just as my music tastes were being formed. I had an older friend who was very into him and we would get together and play and sing Dylan songs on our acoustic guitars. So it was partly a case of "folk tradition," but also that Dylan offered something much more intellectually satisfying and more emotionally sophisticated than the music that was playing on the pop charts. I felt this deeply and it affected me strongly and influenced my own intellectual and emotional development, so that within a few years my interest in Dylan, listening to his songs, reading and writing about him, and playing and performing his music, became a significant part of my identity. It was a key factor in pointing me to toward my life and career path as a writer and more specifically as a music critic and journalist - on some level it was all about trying to figure out what made Dylan so great -- and so much greater than almost everything and everyone else. It was inevitable that I would eventually write a book about Dylan from a unique vantage point.

 

E: Why do you consider Planet Waves to have been your "perfect entry point" into the music of Bob Dylan?

SR: The sound of Planet Waves was immediately appealing and the songs were well-suited to singing and playing on acoustic guitar. They were intimate and personal and very easy to inhabit. And Planet Waves was the only studio album on which Dylan was backed by The Band -- Dylan's best accompanists ever.

 

E: What were the biggest surprises you discovered about Dylan when you took your own deeper journey into Judaism and mysticism?

SR: In reading and studying the panoply of Jewish texts -- scripture (e.g. the Bible), liturgical, philosophical, and mystical writings aka the Kabbalah -- I recognized many phrases, images, and concepts from my lifelong immersion in the work of Bob Dylan. For example, when I learned the prayer for blessing my children, I realized that Dylan had based "Forever Young" on that very same prayer. Instances like these just piled up quickly -- the phrase "one says to the other no man sees my face and lives" in "I and I" is almost wholly lifted from a sentence that God uttered to Moses when the latter asked the former if he could "view His countenance." And the "Wheels on Fire" imagery is a direct reference to the prophet Ezekiel, who scripture says appeared riding a chariot with wheels of fire. That sort of thing -- enough to fill a book!

E: In layman's terms, what is mysticism? 

SR: Mysticism of any kind, in any religion or belief system, is the pursuit of making a direct connection with the Divinity. There are many tools given in order to achieve this -- meditation, textual study, ecstatic singing, chanting, plumbing the mysteries of the esoteric, mystical writings. In Judaism, the overall term for this is Kabbalah. And following Hindu precepts, when George Harrison sang, "I really want to see You, I really want to be with You" in "My Sweet Lord," that is a direct expression of the mystical pursuit.

E: Your book Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet seems to have garnered a fair amount of praise. Why has there not been more attention paid to Dylan's Jewish heritage?

SR: Bob Dylan is multi-faceted, so when people talk about or write about Bob Dylan, there are so many avenues to explore. I cannot answer why there has not been more attention paid to Dylan's Jewish heritage, and I am not even sure that there has not been enough. I was happy to propose and write a deep dive into this one aspect of Dylan's life and work.

* * * 

EdNote: If you plan to join us live in Duluth for 2023 DDF, be sure to attend Saturday's John Bushey Memorial Lecture featuring Bobcats podcast host Matt Steichen. Steichen's talk is titled Bob Dylan and his Fans: Searching for Love and Inspiration. Wussow’s Concert Cafe, 1:30–3:00 PM | Free.

* * * 

Related Links

For a complete rundown of 2023 DDF events visit: 

https://duluthdylanfest.com/duluth-dylan-fest-2023/

Seth Rogovoy's Books on Amazon 

2023 Duluth Dylan Fest: May 20-28 Advance Schedule

After months of meetings and planning, the schedule for Duluth Dylan Fest 2023 is fairly solidified. DDF kicks off on Saturday, May 20th and runs through Sunday, May 28th. 

The 2023 line up, though still potentially in flux, will be pretty much as follows:

SATURDAY, MAY 20 

*Forging Community Dylangate Event & Historic Armory/Bob Dylan Duluth Tour 

Armory Arts & Music Center Annex Armory Tours at 10 am and 10:45 am 9:30-11:30 AM | Free 

Highway 61 Revisited Radio Show 

The North 103.3 FM 

5:00-6:00 PM | Free 

Duluth Dylan Fest Kick Off Party 

with music by Hard Rain- All Things Dylan with special guest opener tba Earth Rider Festival Grounds 6:00-10:00 PM | Tickets $5 to $40 Eventbrite 

SUNDAY, MAY 21 

*Robert Zimmerman Hibbing Day 

Lunch at Sammy’s Pizza with stories by 

Joe & Mary Keyes - 11:30 AM 

Meet at Dylan Monument at Hibbing High School for Tour - 1:00 PM 

Front Yard music at childhood home by 

Gene La Fond & Amy Grillo - 2:30 PM 

11:30AM-4:00 PM | Free RSVP Eventbrite 

*John Bushey Memorial Lecture with 

 Seth Rogovoy, Author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet 

Livestream on Zoom 

6:30-7:45 PM | Free 

MONDAY, MAY 22 

*Acoustic Dylan Jam 

Bring your instruments, music stand and/or voice - lyric & chord book provided 

Carmody Irish Pub 5:30-7:30 PM | Free 

*Basement Tapes Band 

Bent Paddle 

7:30-9:30 PM | Free 

TUESDAY, MAY 23 

*Dogs Do Dylan--New Salty Dogs & Friends
Wussow’s Concert Cafe 7:00-9:00 PM | $5 

 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 24 

Birthday Cake 2022

*Bob Dylan Front Porch Birthday Party with live music by Greg Tiburzi 

Dylan childhood home 519 N. 3rd Ave. East 12:00-1:30 PM | Free 

Bob Dylan Birthday Bash 

Cowboy Angel Blue 

Gartman Plays Dead: The Club Front Rehearsals 

Earth Rider Festival Grounds 5:00-9:30 PM | Tickets $5 to $40 Eventbrite 

THURSDAY, MAY 25 

*Evening with Jeff Slate with Paul Metsa & Sonny Earl Opening Sacred Heart Music Center 7:00-9:00 PM | $10 Advance Eventbrite 

FRIDAY, MAY 26 

*Dylan Fest Singer-Songwriter Contest
Sacred Heart Music Center 7:00-10:00 PM | Free RSVP Eventbrite 

SATURDAY, MAY 27 

*John Bushey Memorial Lecture with Matt Steichen,Bobcats podcast host. Bob Dylan and his Fans: Searching for Love and Inspiration Wussow’s Concert Cafe 

1:30-3:00 PM | Free 

Highway 61 Revisited Radio Show 

The North 103.3 FM 

5:00-6:00 PM | Free 

*Music of Bob Dylan Infidels with Dan Israel, Terry Walsh & More
Sacred Heart Music Center 7:00-10:00 PM | $10 Advance Eventbrite 

 SUNDAY, MAY 28 

*Farewell Brunch with Misisipi Mike Wolf & Friends
Wussow’s Concert Cafe 11:00 AM-1:00 PM | Free 

If travelling from afar, Duluth has an airport (DLH) where you can fly in and fly out with ease. Some people choose to fly in to Minneapolis-St.Paul Airport and rent a car to visit a few Dylan sites in the Twin Cities, such as the largest Dylan mural in the world. 

For the most up-to-date information on events, please visit: www.duluthdylanfest.com or www.facebook.com/duluthdylanfest/ 

*Funding support from the Minnesota Arts Board 

A Dozen Historical Newspaper Clippings about Dylan and the Northland

The past couple months I have been periodically doing research at our local public library, the old-fashioned way. That is, I have been asking for help from the Reference Librarians. It may surprise a few people to discover that not everything in the universe can be found by means of a Google search. 

Libraries are a rich repository of all kinds of archival materials. One section I've been scouring is their newspaper clippings. Stored by topic, you can ask for and access newspaper clippings from more than a hundred years ago pertaining to whatever topic you are researching. (In older libraries in other parts of the world you can probably go back centuries.) 

I recently reviewed the history of Central High School for a Business North article I was working on. The folder had clippings from seven years before the school existed when the notion of a new hilltop Central High was a twinkle in the school district's eye.

The images here are from their Bob Dylan files. I'm willing to bet that not everything here is in the Tulsa Bob Dylan Center collection. (Click images enlarge.)

The loss of Zimmy's broke a lot of hearts.

It is interesting to see these newspaper stories about Dylan

from the early days of his emerging fame. 

This is where we gather each year for the DDF Birthday Party

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Get into it.

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Photos from Andy & Renee and Hard Rain's Dylanfest 32

Though Duluth Dylan Fest is the only week-long Dylan celebration in the world (actually an 8-day event this year), countless other cities and communities have been celebrating Bob Dylan's birthday in May each year. One of the biggest celebrations has been Andy and Renee and Hard Rain's Dylan Fest in L.A. 

Last year, Andy & Renee came to Duluth to celebrate with us here, performing at the Sacred Heart Music Center. This year, the full team not only offered up an L.A. bash but also streamed it so the two events could be coincide for a moment in time. (Great concert, y'all!) Their event was actually all day and more, so we mated only briefly.

Here are some photos from the West Coast Dylan celebration, courtesy Sunbonnet Sue.

Related Link

Getting the Backstory on the L.A. Dylanfest with Andy Hill, Renee Safier and Hard Rain