This is the conclusion of the article a review of the amazing world of Dylan.pl – which we published a few days ago.
By Filip Łobodziński
Now we’re in 2025 and we’re a different band. During the lockdown, we parted ways with two of our main players, the guitarist and the accordionist. I acknowledge their great input and I owe them a lot but the time came when the band needed some fresh blood. A new guitar/banjo/mandolin player has been on board since 2022 and a harmonica virtuoso/electric guitar player jumped ship in 2024. And together we started work on a new repertoire for another album that I had conceived three years previously.
We have 10 new songs now which we play live. They are received enthusiastically by our fans. And our older stuff has also been refurbished.
Sometimes we are faithful to the original version in terms of rhythm and groove, e.g. this rendition of Gotta Serve Somebody:
– or our take on the Ballad of a Thin Man:
– or our Tweeter and the Monkey Man:
But that’s not our main point. We look for different angles, new perspectives or just slightly off-course ways of doing Dylan. For instance, with Slow Train we opted for a “train” drive, a bit inspired by the Allman Brothers’ Whippon’ Post groove:
For A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall we chose a steady-rock rhythm:
Our Highway 61 Revisited has a rockabilly, Carl Perkins-tinted vibe:
Blind Willie McTell is a nod to the funeral bands:
Meanwhile, our Fourth Time Around has a reggae pulse and an allusion to its sister song:
Our Chimes of Freedom is a different story altogether, very dynamic and sometimes aggressive yet optimistic in the end (in my translation, I referred here to the Polish translations of the Rimbaud poems):
Masters of War on their part, are aggressive and sinister:
And for One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below) I wanted to showcase our two guitar players, with the three of us playing initial and final theme in 3-part harmony:
And with Love Sick, we get once again in a hard-edged rock rhythm:
This is dylan.pl A.D. 2025. Our current line-up is:
- Filip Łobodziński – translations, vocals, rhythm guitars (since 2014)
- Marek Wojtczak – bass (since 2014)
- Krzysztof Poliński – drums (since 2015)
- Tomek Pfeiffer – guitars, banjo, mandolin (since 2022)
- Bartek Łęczycki – harmonica, guitar (since 2024).
And we try to keep on keepin’ on. And perhaps I may add that maybe thanks to my efforts (in addition to the band; I’ve published two anthologies of Dylan lyrics and Tarantula so far) the awareness of Bob Dylan’s output is a lot greater than before.