Very little is known about Bob Dylan’s upcoming streaming concert Shadow Kingdom — which premieres July 18th on Veeps — but a 30-second clip has been shared on Dylan’s social media channels that shines a little light on it. It’s a tiny segment of his 1971 tune “Watching the River Flow,” which Dylan hasn’t played live since 2014.
The black-and-white video shows Dylan performing the song in front of a well-dressed crowd at an undisclosed location. He appears to be on stage with at least some members of his regular touring band, but they’re wearing masks and it’s impossible to be sure from just this brief clip.
The words “The Early Songs of Bob Dylan” appear early on, suggesting this special will concentrate on older material, even though his most recent album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, came out in June 2020 and he has yet to play any of those songs in a live setting. A press release announcing the show last month said that Dylan would play “renditions of songs from his extensive and renowned body of work created especially for this event.”
Tickets for Shadow Kingdom are currently on sale via Veeps for $25. Ticket-buyers will have 48 hours to watch the show.
Veeps is a relatively new player in the world of streaming concerts; it was founded by Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden and Benji Madden. They’ve also booked live events featuring the Zombies, Freddie Gibbs, Chase Atlantic, and Beartooth.
Dylan hasn’t played a show since he wrapped up the most recent leg of his Never Ending Tour at Washington, D.C.’s the Anthem on December 8th, 2019. He had an extensive tour on the books for 2020, including a North American summer run with Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, but the shows were all canceled because of the pandemic. He has yet to announce any tour dates now that live music has returned, leaving Shadow Kingdom as the closest thing fans can get to experiencing a Dylan concert.