By Scott McLennan

A reconfigured band and evolving arrangements made his Boston set vital, strange, and rooted in Rough and Rowdy Ways.

Bob Dylan, July 16 at the Leader Bank Pavilion, Boston

Earlier this year, when Bob Dylan announced a summer tour that would bring him to Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston, the news was made more interesting than usual because, at the time, the folk-rock icon had rearranged his band format. His two seasoned guitarists were putting down their electric instruments and taking up acoustics—a twist, if you will, on what infamously happened at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.

How foolish it is to depend on scuttlebutt when making a decision to buy a Bob Dylan concert ticket.

By the time the show hit Boston on Thursday, not only were the acoustic guitars gone, but so too were the players—Bob Britt and Doug Lancio. Over the past month, Dylan has been switching up his guitar tandem. In Boston, progressive jazz player Julian Lage and veteran Chicago roots-music picker Joel Patterson were in the lineup and fully plugged in—literally and figuratively. Lage and Patterson sounded fantastic together, which is remarkable, given that not only is Dylan doing more than just running through well-known arrangements of his best-known songs, but the two have played together just a few times.

Dylan shows of late follow a setlist that repeats from night to night, though there are tweaks here and there. Yet Dylan, bassist Tony Garnier, drummer Anton Fig, and the guitarists du jour maneuver through that setlist with a surprisingly fluid spontaneity.

Dylan, who was dressed in a hooded jacket, and his band stepped onto a darkened stage to open the 16-song concert with a stirring take on “Watching the River Flow.” The video screens used during earlier performances by opening acts Jimmie Vaughan and Brittney Spencer were kept dark during Dylan’s set, and the venue staff strictly enforced a no-cell-phone rule.

Dylan stayed planted behind his electric piano, set back on the stage, with Garnier standing next to him, seemingly serving as a musical director to keep songs on track.

Dylan’s last studio record, 2020’s Rough and Rowdy Ways, remains at the heart of Dylan’s recent concerts. He played five RARW tracks on Thursday, and that album’s tilt toward blues and old-timey music informed the selection of most of the other songs.

“Man in the Long Black Coat,” for instance, was even smokier and spookier than its recorded version from 1989, and Lage delivered the first of many electrifying solos.

Early on in the show, it was noticeable that Lage and Patterson were given more space as performers when compared to the economical turns taken by Lancio and Britt. Also of note, Dylan is singing in softer tones and  lower volumes—not sounding weakened or diminished, just more ethereal. There was a smoothness to his delivery that worked well with the show’s overall pacing and format.

Bob Dylan at the Azkena Rock Festival in 2010. Photo: WikiMedia

When Dylan visited the area last summer and the one before that, he was part of Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Festival. Then, his sets were more frenetic, prone to indulging in such oddities as a jazz deconstruction of “’Til I Fell in Love With You” and a punk-rock-paced “Desolation Row.”

Headlining his own gig, Dylan was more intentional about how the concert unfurled. The earnestness of young Dylan was intact when he sang “Watching the River Flow,” “It Ain’t Me Babe,” and the spellbinding show closer, “I Shall Be Released.” Not that he sounded like young Dylan, but those songs hit with the force that earned young Dylan his reputation.

Elsewhere, Dylan was simply having fun. On this night, “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” a song that has become a favorite vehicle for reinvention, was given a gypsy jazz arrangement. Dylan even offered a few alternate lyrics. He also paid tribute to musical influences with covers of songs made popular by Bo Diddley, Bobby “Blue” Bland, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Diddley’s “I Can Tell” dragged a bit, but Dylan’s versions of the Bland hit “Share Your Love With Me” and the Lewis-sung “I’ll Make It All Up to You” were tighter, and in tune with the night’s antique ambience.

Rough and Rowdy Ways continues to earn its stature in the Dylan catalog. The blues stomp of “False Prophet,” the spectral “Black Rider,” the light touch of “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You,” and the rollicking “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” were powerful set pieces. And Dylan took “Crossing the Rubicon” to new heights, building on the initial sparse martial pacing to reach a grand finale for the number.

Lage and Patterson lit up concert staples “Trying to Get to Heaven” and a late-set “Soon After Midnight” by applying their jammier approach to the music.

And “Under the Red Sky,” which made its comeback two summers ago, remains in the set and, amazingly, it keeps getting better. The 1990 song provided Dylan and the band with their most rocking moment of the evening. It was one of only two selections that got Dylan playing harmonica (the other being “I Shall Be Released”).

At 85, Dylan is still prone to baffling even longtime listeners, confounding short-term listeners, and luring in anyone with even the slightest interest in American folk, pop, and rock.

Jimmie Vaughan’s blues and Brittney Spencer’s long-form folk were well-suited lead-ins to Dylan (right down to Spencer’s cover of Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love”).

Spencer’s well-crafted original songs were swallowed up in the cavernous tent, but she made the case for diving into her albums or seeking her out in a more intimate setting, which would make it easier to grasp the details of her work. Veteran Texas bluesman Vaughan still delivers that Austin sound with the requisite guitar sting. He touched on the memory of his brother, Stevie Ray, with a searing version of “Texas Flood” and revived the wonderfully funky “The Crawl” from his days with the Fabulous Thunderbirds.

Scott McLennan covered music for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from 1993 to 2008. He then contributed music reviews and features to The Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and WGBH, as well as to The Arts Fuse. He also operated the NE Metal blog to provide in-depth coverage of the region’s heavy metal scene.