Watch: Bob Dylan wows in rare electric guitar set backed by The Heartbreakers at Farm Aid 2023

Bob Dylan surprised fans at last weekend’s (23 September) Farm Aid festival with a three-song set backed by Tom Petty’s band, The Heartbreakers.

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The performance marks the folk rock legend’s first appearance at the annual benefit event since 1986. Dylan was joined by members of The Heartbreakers on stage, where he blazed through the songs Maggie’s Farm, Positively 4th Street and Ballad of a Thin Man on his sunburst Telecaster.

Also at the concert were Farm Aid co-founders John Mellencamp, Neil Young and Willie Nelson, who conceived the event back in 1985 to provide financial support for US farmers facing the threat of foreclosure.

Today, Farm Aid remains music’s longest-running concert for a cause, having raised more than $70 million for farmers over the years

Check out the full set below.

In related news, producer Michael Cash recently revealed that Bob Dylan once gave Post Malone some lyrics to use in a song that to this day remains unfinished.

As reported by Rolling Stone, Cash wanted to put together an album of Dylan songs recorded by modern rappers like Malone, Kendrick Lamar, and J. Cole. The album would be based on a Dylan-related project from the mid-2010s: Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, where artists like Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, and Rhiannon Giddens recorded songs featuring newly uncovered Dylan lyrics.

While Dylan’s team had sent Malone some lyrics to work with, they got through just half of the track before things went sideways and the lyrics were revoked.

“It just seems like nobody really managed expectations, and it just seems like nobody communicated. A really cool piece of music got made, and then it just got weird. It got really weird,” Cash said.