Bob Dylan's Catalog Gets the Bon Iver Treatment at Eaux Claires

Wisconsin had two Justins for the price of one on Friday night — and Bob Dylan got to be a ghost at his own tribute. Justin Vernon turned Eaux Claires Festival into a full-blown Dylan séance, delivering a meticulously curated 15-song cover set under the cheeky banner "Bon Dylan," then capping a day that had already started with an unannounced solo performance of his own material.

Becoming Bob for a Night

The "Bon Dylan" concept was no last-minute whim. Vernon announced the project back in April, framing it in deeply personal terms — according to NME, he traced the idea to a concert he attended in Eau Claire with his father and about 16 friends, a memory that clearly left a mark. "I thought it'd be cool to try to be Bob Dylan for a night," Vernon explained at the time. "I'm trying to turn Bon into Bob." That confession carries real weight coming from an artist who has spent the better part of two decades building his own sonic mythology with Bon Iver.

The set itself was a masterclass in curation, spanning Dylan's career from the early 1960s all the way through the late '90s. Vernon opened with the brooding "Not Dark Yet" from Dylan's 1997 record Time Out Of Mind — a choice that set a reflective, almost devotional tone from the jump. From there, the night moved through beloved landmarks like "Tangled Up In Blue," "Lay Lady Lay," "All Along The Watchtower," and "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," while also surfacing deeper cuts that rewarded the die-hards: "Shooting Star" from 1981's Shot Of Love and "When He Returns," the closing track off 1979's Slow Train Coming. Just as artists like Barbara Rubin helped shape countercultural underground scenes by channeling raw creative energy into unexpected spaces, Vernon transformed a festival stage into a genuine act of musical devotion.

A Loaded Band, A Shared Stage

Vernon didn't attempt Dylan alone. He assembled a large ensemble of collaborators — JT Bates, Sean Carey, Phil Cook, Ben Lester, and Michael Lewis among them — and the set functioned more like a collective ceremony than a solo spotlight. Sean Carey stepped to the mic for both "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" and "Lay Lady Lay," while Phil Cook took a turn fronting "Tangled Up In Blue" and "Meet Me In The Morning." Monica Martin joined Vernon for the tender "Boots Of Spanish Leather," and JP Brooks appeared during the spiritually charged "When He Returns." The whole thing breathed the way the best festival collaborations do — loose enough to feel alive, tight enough to honor the source material.

The Surprise Set That Started It All

Before "Bon Dylan" even kicked off, Friday had already delivered a jolt. Vernon stepped in with an unannounced Bon Iver set after Kevin Morby withdrew from the festival following the birth of his first child with Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield. The fill-in set — billed simply as "Bon" — opened touchingly with Morby's own "Die Young" before pivoting into Bon Iver classics like "Flume," "Re: Stacks," "Beach Baby," and "Speyside." The seven-song run also included the rarely heard early track "Hayward, WI" and "Room To Spare," an unreleased tribute to the late John Prine. It marked Vernon's first complete solo set since Bon Iver wrapped their touring cycle in 2023.

An Archive, an Album, and an Open Question

The Eaux Claires moment arrives at an interesting inflection point for Vernon. Bon Iver released their fifth album, SABLE, fABLE, in April 2025 — a record critics received warmly as a creative reboot — and the band has simultaneously launched Volumes, an archival series modeled partly on Dylan's own long-running Bootleg Series. The symmetry is hard to miss: a man studying Dylan's catalog on stage while building a Dylanesque archive of his own. Vernon has said he'd be "very surprised" if he ever made another full-length Bon Iver record, which makes every live gathering feel a little more significant. Much like how some artists are pushing back against technology reshaping music, Vernon seems intent on protecting the human, unpredictable core of what he does — and Friday night at Eaux Claires was proof that instinct still runs deep.

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