Bob Dylan, Mavis Staples Will Play 1st Concert At DePaul's New Arena

By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 11, 2017 6:00PM

Bob Dylan, looking cryptically amused as usual / Getty Images / Photo: Christopher Polk

The first concert to be performed at the new Wintrust Arena, near McCormick Place, will offer a twofer of legends, one from rock, one from soul. Bob Dylan will headline the inaugural musical performance at the area on October 27, with Chicago's own beloved Mavis Staples also scheduled to appear, Dylan and the city of Chicago announced on Monday.

Tickets to see Staples and the eternally road-bound Dylan at the arena—which will later host DePaul basketball games and WNBA's Chicago Sky—go on sale through Ticketmaster on Friday, at 10 a.m.

It was a big morning in general for Staples even beyond the big Wintrust reveal. She announced a new album, If All I Was Was Black, which will feature 11 new songs produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy. The pair also collaborated on 2010's Grammy-winning You Are Not Alone and 2013's One True Vine.

Tweedy said of the record, which apparently will not be turning a blind eye to the world outside. "I've always thought of art as a political statement in and of itself—that it was enough to be on the side of creation and not destruction. But there is something that feels complicit at this moment in time about not facing what is happening in this country head on."

Check out the title track, which Staples shared today. She'll join Dylan for most of the dates on his fall tour.