This guest post is by Michael Glover Smith, a Chicago-based filmmaker, writer and teacher. Follow him on social media platforms at @whitecitycinema
I was fortunate to be able to attend last night’s Bob Dylan concert in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the last of six shows I’ll be seeing on the 10th - and presumably final - leg of the Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour. Like a lot of stops on this tour leg, Kalamazoo is a small Midwestern city in a “secondary market,” the kind of place that Dylan, bless his troubadour heart, has seemingly always been fond of playing. Also like a lot of the stops on this tour leg, it is fortunately less than a three-hour drive from my home on the north side of Chicago. This means that last night’s show brings the total number of Bob Dylan concerts I’ve seen now to 94 - going back to my very first show in the summer of 1989 (when Tony Garnier was the brand spanking new bassist!) - and the total number of Rough and Rowdy Ways shows I’ve seen to 17.