Julian Lage has swapped back in as the guitarist in Bob Dylan's band. Last night, the noted musician performed with Dylan throughout his set at Wilmington, NC's Live Oak Bank Pavilion at Riverfront Park, replacing Jad Tariq.
It has been a rollercoaster ride for Dylan's normally stable backing band. This spring, Dylan surprised fans by bringing on Julian Lage to replace Doug Lancio—who had been on the road with The Bard since the Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour opened in November of 2021—for a June 17 gig at California’s Santa Barbara Bowl. Lage and Bob Britt, a member of Dylan’s band since October 2019, shared guitar duties until June 26, at which point Britt departed the tour after making a cryptic Facebook post that seemed to imply that he quit.
Things have been in a state of flux ever since then. Dylan led a four-piece outfit with only replacement band member Joel Patterson on electric guitar for five performances from June 29 through July 4, before Lage returned to play alongside Patterson in Shakopee, MN on July 6 and Chicago on July 8. From there, Dylan recruited the Connecticut-bred, Memphis-based guitarist Tariq for gigs on July 10 and 12, but Lage swapped back in for shows on July 14, 16, 18 and 19. Yet, when Dylan took the stage at Queens, NY’s Forest Hills Stadium on July 21, Richmond, VA’s Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront on July 23 and Vienna, Virginia's Filene Center at Wolf Trap on July 24 and 25, Tariq was back in for Lage. Dylan has not addressed the frequent changes to his band publicly.
Lage has been commuting back and forth between the US and Europe, where he already had a series of shows booked before his first appearance with Dylan, throughout the summer. He is expected to appear with Dylan when he closes his current tour with gigs at Atlanta’s Synovus Bank Amphitheater at Chastain Park this Friday and Nashville's Ascend Federal Credit Union Amphitheater this Saturday.
Lage’s next scheduled concert under his own name is slated to take place in Tuscany, Italy, during Jacob Collier’s Hideaway event, which will run from August 8-12.
