## *Bob Dylan Picks Surprising Cities for First 2025 Tour Dates Since* A Complete Unknown *Hit Theaters*
**By Mason Trane**
*Published: May 28, 2025*
**MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA —** When *A Complete Unknown* swept into theaters this spring, audiences marveled at the poetic chaos that was Bob Dylan’s early years. What they didn’t expect was for the man himself to return to the road mere weeks later—with a tour itinerary as unpredictable as his songwriting.
Bob Dylan, the Nobel Prize-winning bard of American counterculture, has officially announced the first wave of tour dates for what insiders are calling “The Post-Unknown Tour.” As expected, the cities are unconventional, intimate, and chosen with purpose—a reflection of Dylan’s long-standing rejection of predictability.
But the biggest shock? A return to his native Minnesota for a show in Mankato, a city he’s never played, despite being born just a hundred miles north in Duluth.
### A Tour Built on Mystery
The press release was brief. “Bob Dylan will return to the stage beginning March 25 in Tulsa, Oklahoma,” it read, posted on Dylan’s minimalist website in courier font, “and will appear in select cities across the American Midwest and South.”
Fans scoured the list.
* **March 25 – Tulsa, OK – Tulsa Theater**
* **March 27 – Fort Smith, AR – ArcBest Performing Arts Center**
* **March 29 – Wichita, KS – Century II Concert Hall**
* **April 2 – Des Moines, IA – Hoyt Sherman Place**
* **April 4 – Mankato, MN – Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center**
* **April 6 – Green Bay, WI – The Weidner**
No New York City. No Los Angeles. Not even Chicago or Boston. Instead, Dylan’s map unfolded like a Midwestern quilt—an homage, perhaps, to the soil and silence that shaped him.
“I thought it was a joke,” said Rae Hilstrom, a longtime Dylan fan who runs the Facebook group *Minnesota Tangled Up in Blue*. “Mankato? I mean, no offense, but it’s not exactly Carnegie Hall. Then again, it’s Bob. He plays by his own script.”
### A Return to Roots
The decision to perform in Mankato, a small city known more for agriculture than acoustics, has stirred curiosity among fans and locals alike.
“It’s a poetic full circle,” said Professor Liam Ortman, a Dylan scholar at the University of Minnesota. “Dylan’s early years were shaped by his desire to escape northern Minnesota. Now, in his twilight, he’s drawn back—not to celebrate fame, but to whisper to the ghosts of youth.”
Indeed, Mankato holds a complicated place in regional history. It was the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history, ordered by Abraham Lincoln during the Dakota War of 1862—something Dylan, a lifelong student of injustice, surely knows. His 1964 song “With God on Our Side” invoked Native American history with haunting resonance.
“He’s not just playing Mankato because it’s available,” Ortman added. “He’s sending a signal.”
### Theater of the Heartland
From Tulsa to Green Bay, the venues Dylan chose are theaters, not arenas. They’re quiet, seated, mostly under 3,000 capacity.
“He wants intimacy,” said Sarah Dalrymple, the current tour coordinator for Dylan’s team, in a rare interview. “The new setlist is all about eye contact. We’ve had to rearrange lighting cues just to spotlight the audience more than him.”
Sources close to the tour say Dylan will be performing several deep cuts, especially from *Time Out of Mind*, *Oh Mercy*, and his 2020 album *Rough and Rowdy Ways*—a sparse, reflective record seen by many as a career capstone.
Fans at a private dress rehearsal in Tulsa reported hearing unreleased material as well. One track, allegedly titled **“Glass Church in a Parking Lot”**, features a sparse piano riff and lyrics that reference “dustbowl towns” and “heaven in worn-out leather.”
### Dylan the Myth, Dylan the Man
Since the release of *A Complete Unknown*, interest in Dylan’s life has spiked. The James Mangold-directed biopic, starring Timothée Chalamet as young Dylan, painted a surreal portrait of the folk icon’s electric transformation in 1965. Though Dylan himself never officially endorsed the film, he didn’t stop it either—an unspoken blessing in the Dylanverse.
Critics have noted that Dylan’s return to touring is a counter-narrative to the cinematic portrayal.
“In *A Complete Unknown*, Dylan is depicted as escaping the straightjacket of folk purity,” wrote film and music critic Talia Renko in *The Atlantic*. “On this tour, he’s escaping Hollywood’s gaze. He’s reminding us that the real Dylan—wrinkled, restless, whispering—is still writing the story.”
### A Tour Poster Like No Other
Unveiled with the date list was a cryptic poster: a silhouette of Dylan standing in front of an empty highway sign, guitar on his back, the words “The Map Ain’t the Territory” stenciled at the bottom.
Fans on Reddit quickly connected the phrase to the writings of philosopher Alfred Korzybski, who argued that our perceptions of reality are never the full picture.
“Classic Dylan,” wrote one fan. “Even the tour poster’s a riddle.”
### A Mankato Morning
On the morning of April 4, 2025, downtown Mankato was buzzing like it hadn’t in decades. Local record shops extended hours. The small cafes played *Blonde on Blonde* on loop. One farmer’s market even renamed their apple cider, **“Forever Young Brew.”**
Tickets sold out in seven minutes.
“He’s bringing the world here,” said Kristen Malloy, a city councilwoman. “We’re not just hosting a concert—we’re hosting a chapter in American history.”
When Dylan took the stage that night—dressed in a black suit and silver bolo tie—he didn’t say a word. He let the music speak. “When I Paint My Masterpiece” opened the show, followed by “Key West (Philosopher Pirate),” and a hushed, gorgeous rendition of “Boots of Spanish Leather.”
He closed with “Every Grain of Sand.”
It was, by all accounts, spellbinding.
### Looking Ahead
With only six cities announced, speculation is rampant about where Dylan might go next.
Rumors swirl about intimate dates in Marfa, Texas; Helena, Montana; and even rural Alaska. Dylan, famously tight-lipped, has offered no hints.
“He doesn’t need to play 50 cities anymore,” said Ortman. “If he plays 10—each chosen like a line from a poem—it’ll be enough.”
What remains certain is that Dylan’s creative fire still burns, quietly and fiercely, on his own terms. He is, as he always has been, a man in motion.
### Epilogue: Beyond the Unknown
As the final chords rang out in Green Bay on April 6, the stage lights dimmed, and Dylan left without a bow.
Backstage, someone asked if he’d seen *A Complete Unknown*.
“Yeah,” he mumbled, adjusting the brim of his hat. “They got the chords right. But not the weather.”
And with that, he was gone—into the night, into the myth, and onto the next unknown town waiting to be written into verse.
