The wind off the lake at Northerly Island arrives from two directions at once, and the people with lawn tickets had worked that out by the time Lucinda Williams walked on — chairs angled inward, jackets on in July. Bob Dylan followed on Wednesday July 8th, and the count that matters is this: it was his forty-eighth concert of 2026.
He is eighty-five and has been touring more or less continuously since 1988. Nobody there needed that explained either.
Williams got a full support slot rather than a courtesy one, played in a black leather jacket with a five-piece band behind her, and was the only person on that stage all night who addressed the audience directly. She has had a stroke and relearned how to perform; the voice is lower and the phrasing is slower and it suits the material better than it used to.
No Announcements, No Screens
Dylan's current show is a refusal. No video walls, no between-song patter, amber and orange light and a red spot on the truss. The arrangements move the songs far enough from their recorded versions that recognition arrives late, mid-verse, as a small shock. "Tangled Up In Blue" turned up unrecognisable for a bar and a half and then resolved, which produced an audible ripple across the lawn — not a cheer, a realisation.
He plays the piano now rather than the guitar, which changes what the band has to do. The harmonica is still the only moment he reliably gets applause for simply picking something up.
A Stage On Landfill
Northerly Island is not an island and never was. It is a peninsula of fill dredged into the lake as part of Daniel Burnham's 1909 plan, it held the 1933 Century of Progress fair, then it was Meigs Field until Richard M. Daley sent bulldozers to carve Xs into the runway overnight in 2003. The venue sits on the result. The best skyline view of any stage in this city is a consequence of a mayor destroying an airport without telling anyone.
Acoustically it is a canopy over a shallow bowl in open air next to a large body of water, which means the lake eats the low end and the wind moves the whole image left and right. For a band playing loud that is a problem. For a piano, upright bass and a singer who will not raise his voice, it is nearly ideal.
He did not say the word Chicago. Fan accounts from Ireland had the photographs posted by the following morning, which tells you what kind of audience follows this tour — people who count the shows.
Forty-eight shows into the year, on a Wednesday, on a landfill. He will play forty more.
Cover image: Northerly Island / Wikimedia Commons