Watch Bob Dylan cover Ricky Nelson’s ‘Garden Party’

Bob Dylan covered Ricky Nelson’s ‘Garden Party’. Check it out below.

The moment took place on Thursday night (15 May) at Willie Nelson’s ‘Outlaw Music Festival Tour’ stop on the North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, California.

As his set came to an end, Dylan surprised fans by playing Nelson’s 1972 comeback hit for the first time. The track sees Nelson recall a Madison Square Garden oldies performance that he had played the year prior alongside Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Bobby Rydell.

Nelson played his classic hits ‘Hello Mary Lou’, but faced criticism and boos from the audience after playing ‘Honky Tonk Women’ by the Rolling Stones, and Dylan’s ‘She Belongs To Me’.

‘Garden Party’ saw him lament the expectation to succumb to nostalgia, as he sang: “If memories were all I sang, I rather drive a truck”. It ended up being a hit, reaching Number Six on the Billboard Hot 100.

The track even included a reference to Dylan within the line: “Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan’s shoes wearing his disguise”, which is a nod to George Harrison attending the show in disguise under his pseudonym Mr. Hughes.

Check it out below.

Previously on the ‘Outlaw Music Festival Tour’, Dylan covered The Pogues’ ‘A Rainy Night in Soho’ for the first time, and broke out the first live rendition of ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ in 15 years.

The tour is set to run for 36 dates and will include performances from the likes of Billy Strings, Wilco, Sheryl Crow, Waxahatchee, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, and The Avett Brothers.

In other Bob Dylan news, there are rumours that Timothée Chalamet – who played the songwriter in A Complete Unknown – may be planning to break out some of the artist’s classic tracks alongside a cover band at Glastonbury 2025.

Nothing has been confirmed as of yet, however, some tabloids including The Sun have claimed that the actor is planning on performing a brief set with the Bob Dylan tribute group Not Completely Unknown on Saturday June 28. They are allegedly going to be performing on the Acoustic Stage, which only has space for a few thousand people compared to the 200,000-capacity Pyramid Stage.

If the appearance at Glasto 2025 were to materialise, it would follow on from Chalamet delivering a live performance on Saturday Night Live earlier this year, which saw him play a trio of the singer’s tracks.

NME gave the biopic a four-star review, with Alex Flood writing: “The most important (and often trickiest) job of any music movie is to get the music right. And this nails that. If you’re a Bob newbie, you’ll leave the cinema ready to dive into his back catalogue. If you’re already a fan, the next few weeks will be spent making playlists of lesser-known B-sides or reading the lore around a scene you weren’t familiar with. And that’s why it was a good idea to make this film – a mad idea, but a good one.”

Speaking about the importance of committing himself to the character, Chalamet then told NME in January that he was willing to work as long as possible to get the character and musical performances right in the biopic.

“I had the time to put the 10,000 hours in, which in a three-month, four-month period you really can’t… There wasn’t a deadline on it,” he said. “I wasn’t learning for anyone else. I was learning for myself.”

The post Watch Bob Dylan cover Ricky Nelson’s ‘Garden Party’ appeared first on NME.