Bob Dylan Stuns Buffalo Crowd With First “Masters of War” Opener in Over 60 Years — Fans Say It Felt Like a Warning
On a cool evening in Buffalo, New York, at the eighth stop of the third leg of the Outlaw Music Festival 2025, the audience expected the usual Dylan magic — cryptic poetry, rearranged classics, maybe a surprise guest or two. What they got instead was something far rarer, more urgent, and perhaps even unsettling.
The lights dimmed. The chatter of the crowd softened into an anticipatory hum. Then, with no preamble, Bob Dylan and his band launched into “Positively 4th Street,” that sly, venom-tipped classic that has served as one of the sharpest knives in Dylan’s lyrical arsenal since 1965. The song’s opening lines — “You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend…” — cut through the cool Buffalo air like a confession and an accusation all at once.
The crowd roared. People pulled out their phones. Some nodded knowingly, others just swayed to the slow burn of Dylan’s gravelly delivery. But no one could have guessed what would come next.
Because as “Positively 4th Street” faded into its final chord, Dylan’s voice rose again — darker now, more deliberate. A rumble from the bass. The stark pluck of guitar strings. And then, unmistakably:
“Come you masters of war…”
The audience froze.
It wasn’t just that Dylan was performing “Masters of War” — a song written in 1963 as a searing condemnation of arms dealers and warmongers — it was that he was opening his set with it, a move he hadn’t made in more than six decades. Even more astonishing: Dylan hadn’t performed the song at all in nearly nine years.
For a moment, the crowd’s reaction was a mix of disbelief and awe. One fan near the front was overheard saying, “No way. No way he’s doing this.” Others just stared, holding their phones like they were filming history in real time — because they were.
A Song With Teeth
“Masters of War” has always been one of Dylan’s most direct and uncompromising works. Unlike the surreal wordplay of “Desolation Row” or the bittersweet poetry of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” this song doesn’t hide behind metaphor. It’s a straight shot, a bare-knuckle accusation aimed at those who profit from destruction.
“You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher…”
When Dylan first sang those lines in the early ’60s, the Vietnam War was still in its early stages and the Cold War loomed large. In Buffalo, in 2025, the lyrics carried a different kind of weight — one informed by decades of global conflicts, political tensions, and a world teetering between technological progress and human fragility.
Many fans in attendance described the performance as chilling, even prophetic. “It wasn’t just a song,” one attendee posted online minutes later. “It felt like a warning. Like he’s telling us something is coming.”
Why Now?
That’s the question Dylan watchers have been asking since the moment the set ended: Why now?
Bob Dylan has always been a master of timing — not in the way of flashy stage antics, but in choosing the exact moment to make a point without ever explaining it outright. In the past, he’s been known to resurrect long-shelved songs for reasons that only become clear months or even years later.
Some speculate that the choice to bring “Masters of War” back now could be tied to the current political climate, renewed debates about military spending, or global instability. Others think it might have been a personal reflection, a reminder to himself — and to us — that the old battles never really end.
And then there’s the possibility that Dylan just felt it. That, in that particular moment in Buffalo, with that particular crowd, it was simply the right song to play.
With Dylan, the truth is usually somewhere between the deliberate and the instinctive — and always left for the audience to figure out.
A Once-in-a-Lifetime Setlist Shift
Longtime Dylan fans know that his setlists are constantly evolving, often rearranged without notice, and always subject to the whims of the man himself. But opening with “Masters of War”? That’s not just a curveball — it’s a statement.
For comparison, Dylan had opened with the song only once before in his career, in the early 1960s during the height of the folk protest era. Since then, it’s popped in and out of rotation, but never at the top of the show — until Buffalo.
One fan in the balcony section described it as “like stepping into a time machine and finding out the past and present are the same.”
The Aftershock
When the song ended, there was no speech, no explanation. Dylan simply moved on to the next track, leaving the audience buzzing with speculation. Social media lit up instantly, with clips of the performance spreading across X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and TikTok within minutes.
“Chills. Absolute chills,” wrote one user. “He’s still the poet warrior we need.”
Another simply posted: “This is why you never skip a Dylan show. Ever.”
Legacy in Real Time
For an artist whose career has spanned more than sixty years, Bob Dylan still finds ways to surprise — and, perhaps more importantly, to make people think. His Buffalo performance wasn’t about nostalgia. It wasn’t about giving the crowd the “hits.” It was about planting a seed, one that will keep growing in the minds of everyone who was there.
Was it a warning? A reflection? A reminder that the old songs still matter because the old wounds never healed?
Only Dylan knows. And as always, he’s not telling.
But for those who were there on that night in Buffalo, the message was loud and clear: sometimes the most powerful protest doesn’t come in the form of a speech — it comes in the form of a song you thought you’d never hear again.
