Concerts & Events

On May 25, one day after the old man's 83rd birthday, faculty and friends of the Old Town School of Folk Music return to one of their greatest sources of inspiration—the songs of Bob Dylan. Former Fearless Leader Jimmy Tomasello will be in town for the event, and will invite some friends to join him and John Mead's True Believers for a night of inspired rock & roll & roots music, reflecting decades of experience and connection at the Old Town School of Folk Music. We'll perform in our most intimate setting, on our oldest stage, at 909 West Armitage.

This time we'll focus, appropriately, on Dylan's years of wandering in the wilderness—the 1980s. The election of Ronald Reagan, the murder of John Lennon, and his own Gospel experiments threw Bob—and the rest of us—off kilter, and for the next decade, he sought a new path. While throughout those years he issued deeply flawed albums filled with false starts, dead ends, and second guesses, Dylan nevertheless wrote fantastic songs the whole time, filled with apocalyptic landscapes and romantic defeat and yearning.

Bring your own snacks and booze, and don't miss it.