Bob Dylan Returns

Summer means seeing at least a couple of Bob Dylan shows in the area.

And the last couple of years, it also meant minor league ballparks, and rockin’ in the outfield while the rocker in a cowboy suit would lean over his keyboard and lead his band.

But as they say, things have changed.

Gone are the ballparks this time around, traded for a variety of indoor and outdoor venues. The two he’s playing Tuesday and Wednesday are quite a contrast – the perfectly woodsy Pines Theatre in Western Massachusetts and the cavernous Mohegan Sun casino arena in Southeast Connecticut.

The bigger change, though, is that he’s playing guitar again – for the first time on tour in five years.

Not since he played for Bobby Vee in Duluth and had a different name did Dylan spend fulltime on keyboards, and yet that’s what he’s been doing these past years, for a reason I have yet to find, blowing in the wind or not.

Since his spring European tour, he’s been starting his shows with a handful of songs on electric guitar – a welcoming sight for old fans who have always associated him with that instrument – plugged or unplugged.

It may be more of a visual wish fulfillment than a musical one, though. I forgot how much his headstrong, sometimes wrongheaded solos can throw a wrench into the very well oiled machine that is his band (which now goes without any onstage introductions whatsoever).

He wrote in his “Chronicles, Volume One,” he used to figure out his guitar solos mathematically, which led to all those strange shows in the 90s. Anyway, the visual was still pretty strong, and he couldn’t do much to derail a roaring locomotive of a set Tuesday.

Instead of “Cat's in the Well,” with which he’s been opening shows for a year now, he switched to “Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat,” a tune that spoke to the sartorial choices of his band – now in matching tan Western suits and hats; Dylan himself is in black suit topped by a flat-brimmed cream hat like the one he wore on “Desire,” minus the flower arrangement in the brim.

“The Times They Are A-Changin,” chugged along led by electric guitar, with Donny Herron leavening things on pedal steel, even more so on good timey “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” that followed.  I’d like to think that Dylan’s been playing “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” on every American stop so far this tour because of its prominence in the final episode of “The Sopranos” early this month. It’s the song A.J. is marveling at just before his SUV goes up in flames.

But he’s been playing it every show since spring, too, in a perkier, less brooding arrangement that does nothing to blunt the impact of its words. That line “even the president of the United States sometimes has to stand naked” has been getting whoops for being oddly prophetic for eight administrations running.

And speaking of politics, “Masters of War,” it is sad to report, is every bit as timely today as it was in 1963, encased in an arrangement that may be its most effective yet.

Part of its potency had to do with the sound quality. Whether it was because of the outdoor setting, the humid night or the excellence of the sound crew (or all three), rarely has Dylan been so clearly heard.

With the two guitarists in the band now organized such that Denny Freeman takes most of the electric leads, Stu Kimball more often takes acoustic guitar, lending an unplugged authenticity to many songs and, more crucially, the ability to quiet them down at any point to allow the words to have further impact.

And every time the band employed these dynamics, the Northampton crowd, bless their hearts, got quiet along with them and took in the words in the beautiful setting, with the sunset leading to hushed wooded darkness and the punctuation of fireflies.

When he played “Every Grain of Sand,” it was almost hushed.

Two songs from “Blood on the Tracks,” in quite different arrangements showed how well that masterpiece holds up, even as he changed the details in the songs (the woman in “Tangled Up in Blue” works at the Tropicana and goes to Atlanta; the other, “Shelter from the Storm” reflects an indelible situation at more of an emotional distance that approaches wistfulness.

Even more welcome were the songs from “Modern Times” – when he played Connecticut on his latest album’s release date, he wasn’t playing anything from it yet. And though he had started to by the time he returned to the region in November, by now he’s adding songs that hadn’t yet been heard live here.

“The Levee’s Gonna Break” is a monster live, living in the same wheelhouse of course as his other great levee songs like “Down in the Flood.” “Cry a While” live is an improvement over the recording, as is “When the Deal Goes Down” is a pleasant change of pace that’s no longer stuck in nostalgia. Best of all is “Thunder on the Mountain” with its funny and offhand lines wondering about Alicia Keys (she was at the BET Awards, Bob).

Paired in the encore with a more succinct, less bombastic “All Along the Watchtower” spelled the difference between a sentry and an invader. Can’t wait until tonight’s show.

The set list for Bob Dylan at Look Park in Florence, Mass., was:

• “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”
• “The Times They Are A-Changin’”
• “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”
• “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”
• “Every Grain of Sand”
• “The Levee’s Gonna Break”
• “Shelter From the Storm”
• “Things Have Changed”
• “Masters of War”
• "Tangled Up in Blue”
• “Desolation Row”
• “Cry a While”
• “When the Deal Goes Down”
• “Highway 61 Revisited”
  (encore)
• “Thunder on the Mountain”
• “All Along the Watchtower”