Earlier this year when he announced the return of his Eaux Claires festival in Wisconsin, Justin Vernon also revealed that he’d participate in the event not as Bon Iver but as someone, or something, dubbed Bon Dylan. Now, he’s finally offering a clearer picture of what that actually means — and it’s not Bon Iver as usual.
Instead, Vernon will take the stage over the July 24-25 weekend as a kind of full-tilt avatar of Bob Dylan, channeling the songwriter circa 1994 while performing material from across his catalog. The one-off performance will also mark Vernon’s only live appearance of 2026; Bon Iver had not toured since 2019.
“I haven’t felt much like being what I’ve been,” Vernon says in a newly released teaser video, which doubles as the first real glimpse into the project. Soundtracked by a skeletal take on “Not Dark Yet” recorded during early rehearsals last month, the clip frames Bon Dylan as one part novelty, one part creative reset. “So I thought it’d be cool to try to be Bob Dylan for a night. I’m trying to turn Bon into Bob.”
The idea traces back to a Dylan show in Eau Claire last year, where Vernon attended with his dad and “16 friends” and says inspired Eaux Claires’ revival thanks to the feeling of community in the room. When it came time to decide whether Bon Iver would return as a headliner, Vernon opted for transformation over repetition.
Bon Dylan’s backing band features a rotating cast of close collaborators, including Sean Carey, Phil Cook, JT Bates, JP Brooks, Camaja Byrd, Sean Carey, Ben Lester, Michael Lewis, Katira Lutterman, John Pieter, Courtland Pickens and Jeremy Ylvisaker. The musicians will be joined by as-yet-unannounced guest singers.
It also lines up with Vernon’s recent stance on touring. As he’s suggested in past conversations, the Bon Iver frontman has grown uneasy with the expectations tied to his own catalog. Bon Dylan offers something of an escape hatch: a way to perform without revisiting the same emotional terrain, and to engage with an entirely different songwriting language.
Vernon has also looked back through his concert vault for the first release in a long-percolating new archival series, VOLUMES, which came out April 3. The debut installment, VOLUMES: ONE “SELECTIONS FROM MUSIC CONCERTS 2019-2023 BON IVER 6 PIECE BAND”, rounds up nine performances from the group’s last four years’ worth of touring before the break, plus — despite the album title — a solitary track from 2017.