The unexpected duet was the closer to the outdoor set at Nowlan Park, Kilkenny. Rolling Stone quickly noted it was the first time the pair had even shared a stage since a show at New York’s Roseland Ballroom in 1994, but it’s been even longer since the pair dueted on that song. The pair first played it together at the 1975 SNACK Benefit at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.
If Neil Young does anything here, it’s to keep Dylan reasonably tuneful and in a traditional arrangement; something he’s not prone to do these days, with his gravel-throated growl. In the above fan-filmed video, you can rather hilariously see the security guard to the left anxiously trying to spot cameras to snatch, in accordance with Dylan’s notorious no filming rule.
Dylan’s history with the song goes all the way back to his New York coffee house shows in the early ’60s, though he recorded a famous version on the Basement Tapes sessions with the Band in 1967. Rolling Stone reports he hasn’t played it in a concert under his own name since 1976 during the Rolling Thunder Revue tour. The song itself is an early 20th Century hymn, originally written by Ada R. Habershon with music by Charles H. Gabriel. Its most famous early incarnation was a rewrite from the Carter Family patriach A.P. Carter.
You can listen to the pair’s original duet from 1975 below, and honestly, we think the latest version is a lot better.
Bob Dylan is still as prolific as ever; earlier this year he opened a Nashville Skyline whiskey distillery. Read about it here. Wondering what all that fuss about Dylan going electric was about? Read our history here.