Bob Dylan marches to his own beat

October 28, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

if you go

Who: Bob Dylan

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday

Where: E.J. Thomas Hall, Akron

Tickets: $58.90 and $69.10; Ticketmaster

Place:E.J. Thomas Hall, University of Akron: 198 Hill St., Akron, OH

By Jim Abbott

Orlando Sentinel

“An artist has to be careful never to really arrive at a place where he thinks he’s at somewhere. You always have to realize that you’re constantly in a state of becoming, and as long as you’re in that realm, you’ll sort of be all right.”

Nowhere is Bob Dylan’s assessment of his creative philosophy, delivered in Martin Scorsese’s 2005 Dylan documentary “No Direction Home,” more apparent than on the concert stage. In the spotlight, Dylan always has specialized in confounding expectations.

In 1965, Dylan alienated and angered his fans by plugging in electric guitars at the Newport Folk Festival, inspiring boos that would be the soundtrack to his performances for several years. As recently as 2006, Dylan declined to play guitar at all, leaving it unused on a stand in the middle of the stage as he accompanied himself on electric keyboard.

“It’s like Newport in reverse!” complained one disappointed friend who considered a Dylan concert without acoustic guitar something close to sacrilege.

At the least, one has to wonder: Why would the guy put the guitar in the middle of the stage if he had no intention of playing it? Is he just messing with us?

Such complaints likely bounce off the old troubadour, who apparently had a grand time being booed by outraged folk fans in the 1960s. In the Scorsese film, one-time sideman Al Kooper recalls wondering aloud to his boss about whether something ought to be changed to appease the fans.

Dylan’s response? He loved the ruckus, which he likened to a circus.

In the audience, the key to navigating such quirks is to follow the advice I always offer to skeptics at their first Dylan show: “No matter what he looks like, no matter what he sounds like, remember the person you are looking at up there. That is Bob-freaking-Dylan.”

It’s advice that I’ve needed to force myself to remember from time to time: When the singer played in Orlando in 2002, less than six months after the Sept. 11 attacks, it took half of the first verse before I recognized “Blowin’ in the Wind,” a song I had sung since grade school.

So why keep showing up? And is there a science to appreciating a Dylan concert?

Why go?

The obvious answer: How often can you see a legitimate legend at work?