In the Mix

I saw Bob Dylan play guitar at the Borgata on Friday. That wouldn't seem to be such an odd thing, but Dylan, in his mysterious way, hasn't handled a six string in these parts for quite some time. For the past several years on his Neverending Tour, he's hid out, stage left, leaning on a barely audible keyboard, spurring speculation that he had a bad back, or arthritis, or that he was just being perverse and playing piano because he was Bob Dylan and that's what he felt like doing.

I wasn't aware that, with no explanation, he had started playing guitar again on his European tour dates this spring. So I was quite taken aback to see the skinny old Bard with a feather in his broad brimmed white Renaldo and Clara hat (though without the whiteface makeup), and an electric guitar strapped around his neck.

He only kept it there for four tunes - "Cat's in the Well," "Don't Think Twice, It's Allright," "Watching the River Flow" and an "It's Alright Me, I'm Only Bleeding" that sounded much perkier than when A.J. heard it before his S.U.V. caught fire on the Sopranos a couple of weeks back.

After that, he took shelter behind the keyboard again, which was perfectly okay with me. It gave guitarist Denny Freeman and multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron (the guy from BR549) room to move. And whether he was looking forward to playing the nickel slots or is just under the influence of a better brand of painkillers, Dylan was particularly spry and engaged the rest of the night. He even smiled a couple of times, I think, during "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again."

He never did grant the dude next to me's repeated request for "Romance in Durango." (Not surprising, because he's never played it, which, of course, the dude next to me knew.) But he tore me up with two songs: A beautiful and slowed down "Shelter From The Storm" that he sang as if he was actually emotionally invested in what the lyrics meant, and "Nettie Moore," from last year's Modern Times, which gently rattled and stomped as he sang about irrevocable heartbreak: "I loved you then and ever shall, but there's no one left here to tell/The world has gone black before my eyes."