Musician Bob Dylan, famously from Minnesota, has been added to the lineup for Farm Aid’s upcoming 40th anniversary show Sept. 20 at the University of Minnesota’s Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Dylan is central to Farm Aid lore but very rarely performs at the event: The origin of Farm Aid was sparked by an onstage comment Dylan had made in 1985, Farm Aid organizer Willie Nelson has said. Dylan performed at the inaugural Farm Aid in 1985 and via satellite for the 1986 concert but had not appeared on the Farm Aid stage again till a surprise appearance in 2023.
Dylan, 84, and Nelson, 92, have been on the road jointly in recent years with the Outlaw Music Festival, which stopped at the Somerset Amphitheater last fall, and Dylan played a small show in Mankato in the spring. But the “Like a Rolling Stone” singer has not visited the Twin Cities since a memorable Xcel Energy Center show in 2017.
This year’s Farm Aid show is the first time the touring benefit concert has visited Minnesota, though the show was nearly derailed by a Teamsters strike at the University of Minnesota. Farm Aid expressed support for the striking union workers, who ultimately reached an agreement with the university to end the strike last weekend.
With the exception of a break in 2020 and 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, Dylan has been consistently playing about 100 shows a year since 1988, as part of his so-called Never Ending Tour.
Tickets to the all-day Farm Aid concert are still available online at farmaid40.org. The final five hours of the event, from 6 to 11 p.m., will also be broadcast live on CNN.
A full performance schedule has not been released, so it is unknown when Dylan will perform, but given his stature, it’s likely he’ll take the stage among other headliners later in the evening.
Other musicians in the lineup include Nelson, Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews with Tim Reynolds, Margo Price, Kenny Chesney, Billy Strings, Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats, Lukas Nelson, Trampled by Turtles, Wynonna Judd, Steve Earle, Waxahatchee, Eric Burton of Black Pumas, Jesse Welles, Madeline Edwards and Wisdom Indian Dancers.
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