Justin Vernon has performed a full set made up entirely of Bob Dylan covers at Eaux Claires Festival – watch footage below.
The Bon Iver musician delivered the previously announced one-off “Bon Dylan” performance at the Wisconsin event on Friday night (July 24), taking on 15 songs from across Dylan’s career.
Vernon opened with ‘Not Dark Yet’, from Dylan’s 1997 album ‘Time Out Of Mind’, before moving through classics including ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’, ‘Tangled Up In Blue’, ‘Lay Lady Lay’, ‘All Along The Watchtower’ and ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’.
The full set consisted exclusively of Dylan songs, with Vernon also reaching for deeper cuts including ‘Shooting Star’ from 1981’s ‘Shot Of Love’ and ‘When He Returns’, the closing track from 1979’s ‘Slow Train Coming’.
He was joined by a large band of friends and collaborators including JT Bates, Sean Carey, Phil Cook, Ben Lester and Michael Lewis.
Carey took lead vocals on ‘Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You’ and ‘Lay Lady Lay’, while Phil Cook featured on renditions of ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ and ‘Meet Me In The Morning’.
Monica Martin joined Vernon for ‘Boots Of Spanish Leather’, and JP Brooks appeared during ‘When He Returns’.
The full “Bon Dylan” setlist was:
‘Not Dark Yet’
‘Shooting Star’
‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’
‘The Man In Me’
‘Tangled Up In Blue’
‘Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You’
‘Meet Me In The Morning’
‘New Morning’
‘Boots Of Spanish Leather’
‘When He Returns’
‘Shot Of Love’
‘Lay Lady Lay’
‘All Along The Watchtower’
‘With God On Our Side’
‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’
Vernon announced “Bon Dylan” in April as a one-night-only project that would see him perform songs from every era of Dylan’s catalogue, and explaining the idea, he recalled attending a Dylan concert in Eau Claire with his father and around 16 friends.
“I haven’t felt much like being what I’ve been, or been seen to have been,” Vernon said. “Or what I wanted to have been. Or what I’ve become. So I thought it’d be cool to try to be Bob Dylan for a night. I’m trying to turn Bon into Bob.”
Earlier on Friday, Vernon also played a separate, unannounced set of Bon Iver material.
The surprise solo performance was billed simply as “Bon” and replaced Kevin Morby’s scheduled appearance after the singer-songwriter withdrew from the festival following the birth of his first child with Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield.
Vernon opened by covering Morby’s ‘Die Young’, before playing Bon Iver songs including ‘Beach Baby’, ‘Flume’, ‘Speyside’ and ‘Re: Stacks’. The seven-song set also included the early rarity ‘Hayward, WI’ and ‘Room To Spare’, an unreleased tribute to the late John Prine.
It marked Vernon’s first full set of his own material since Bon Iver completed their touring commitments in 2023. Since then, he has made only occasional live appearances, including at a Kamala Harris campaign rally.
Watch footage below.
Bon Iver’s surprise setlist:
‘Die Young’ (Kevin Morby cover)
‘Beach Baby’
‘Flume’
‘Speyside’
‘Room To Spare’
‘Re: Stacks’
‘Hayward, WI’
Vernon co-founded Eaux Claires with The National’s Aaron Dessner in 2015, and previous editions became known for unique collaborations and one-off sets. Bon Iver notably premiered their third album, ‘22, A Million’, there in full in 2016.
Bon Iver recently launched a new archival series titled ‘Volumes’, which will feature live shows, demos, unreleased recordings and other previously unheard material. The first instalment arrived in April and brought together performances recorded between 2017 and 2023.
The series was modelled partly on Dylan’s long-running ‘Bootleg Series’, as well as Neil Young’s extensive archive releases.
Bon Iver released their fifth album, ‘SABLE, fABLE’, in April 2025. In a four-star review, NME described the record as a “creative rebirth”, adding that although some fans had feared it might represent the end of the project, it instead felt like “a new chapter”.
Vernon has since said that he would be “very surprised” if he ever made another full-length Bon Iver album.
