Joan Osborne Kicks-Off Tour at UPH: She’s An Artist, She Don’t Look Back

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Joan Osborne kicked off her U.S. tour in Saratoga Springs on April 10, performing a 100-minute set in front of a packed house at Universal Preservation Hall.

The theater-in-the-round performance, which served as the first show of a national tour that will extend through October, largely showcased Osborne’s rendition of tunes culled from the Bob Dylan songbook. Some initially appeared in Osborne’s 2017 collection “Songs of Bob Dylan.” Her new collection – titled “Dylanology Live” – is slated for release later this month.

“When I cover someone else’s song, I never try to repeat what they did,” Osborne told this reporter, during an interview in advance of her Saratoga Springs show. “What I’m always looking for is trying to find the place where that song and my voice can come together in a way that some aspect of the song can be new, refreshed, where this song can live through me in a way that’s unique.” 

Her appearance at UPH, accompanied by guitarist Jack Petruzzelli and keyboard player Will Bryant, consisted of an 11-song set honoring the great American musical poet – some of which Osborne had not previously performed before – and concluded with a three-song encore of works better associated with her own career as an artist. 

Running a line through the Dylan songbook that traced back 60 years, the band offered funkified renditions of “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” and “Highway 61” – the latter featuring Osborne spewing out lyrics to a musical accompaniment that rollicked like a jazz carnival in an open-air tent rolling across a Native American reservation; “Leopard-Skin-Pillbox-Hat“ offered an up-tempo swinging jazz feel, and the set time-checked nearly every decade of Dylan’s work, most recently with a tender, emotion-filled performance of 2020’s “I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You,” delivered with the presence of the Steinway grand piano filling UPH’s Great Hall, while the band’s vocalized harmonies majestically swirled about the space.

“We’re taking some liberties with the songs,” Osborne told the audience. “And you wouldn’t want us to play them like the record because that wouldn’t work and anyway Dylan himself plays halfway through the song before you even realize what it is,” she said, referring to the songwriter’s history of alternating arrangements when playing his own songs.

Osborne performed a pair of Dylan tunes released a quarter century apart – “She Belongs To Me” and “Everything Is Broken” while informing the audience: “We never recorded these, you people are the first in the world to hear them,” and later introducing the song “Shooting Star” as “another that we’ve never recorded or played live anywhere, but it’s just a favorite of mine.” 

Standing stage left, Petruzzelli – co-producer Joan Osborne’s album “Bring It on Home,” alternated between electric and acoustic guitars, while Bryant – co-founder of Hudson Valley recording studio The Building – sat stage right moving between an electric keyboard and a grand piano. 

Osborne added rhythmic accompaniment throughout with the use of a small blue tambourine she danced off her hip, amplified finger-snaps, and brush patterns graced atop a snare drum, gravitating gestures between the time-keeping beats as each situation warranted. 

With her performance of “Man in the Long Black Coat,” Osborne swayed with crossed arms in sync with the solemnity of the piece, showcasing the breadth of her vocal range. 

It was in the night’s encore segment that Osborne delivered three songs she is known for in her own right. These included the global sensation “One of Us,” the 2023 title tune “Nobody Owns You” from her 2023 release (which marked the one time she strapped on her own acoustic guitar) and revisited her 1995 debut album with the song “St. Teresa” delivering a rendition with a sultry groove vibe that resonated as nothing short of stunning. 

Setlist: Joan Osborne Live at UPH, Saratoga Springs, April 10, 2025.

She Belongs to Me

Everything Is Broken

Man In the Long Black Coat

Highway 61

Shooting Star

High Water (For Charley Patton)

Tryin’ To Get to Heaven (before they close the door)

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

Leopard-Skin-Pillbox-Hat

I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You

Tangled Up in Blue

Encore:

St. Teresa

(What If God Was) One of Us

Nobody Owns You