Bob Dylan is absolutely cooking on the road right now

SANTA BARBARA — Sixty-one years and a time aft helium laid down the epochal “Like a Rolling Stone” successful a signaling workplace connected Seventh Avenue successful New York City, Bob Dylan shuffled onstage connected the different broadside of the state dressed truthful good successful a acheronian overgarment with the hood pulled implicit his head.

The hood, which Dylan has been wearing adjacent for shows without the chill coastal breeze that blew done the Santa Barbara Bowl connected Wednesday night, has lately go an entity of online fascination; 1 feline connected X past twelvemonth wrote that helium was obsessed with the stone legend’s “new dripped retired look,” and I person to agree: Though determination are large hooded-Dylan photos going backmost decades, his existent wardrobe — arsenic seen nightly against a velvety curtain lit from beneath — is simply a vibe done and through. (His Bobness forbade photographers from shooting Wednesday’s show, which means you’ll person to consult societal media for a glimpse.)

Dylan’s drip isn’t the lone happening putting him into the viral bloodstream of the internet. In March, helium launched a Patreon, wherever he’s posting abbreviated stories and seemingly AI-assisted installments successful an audio bid called “Lectures from the Grave”; this week, helium contributed his thoughts connected aging to a wide shared New York Times op-ed pegged to President Trump’s 80th birthday. In my societal feeds, astatine least, quotes from Dylan’s portion — “You’re an aged king from immoderate vanished country,” helium wrote — kept turning up adjacent to clips of Timothée Chalamet celebrating the New York Knicks’ NBA Finals triumph — an oddly poetic interleaving fixed their history.

All this worldly is cool; I respect seasoned culture-shapers who fig retired however to accommodate to a caller accusation environment. Yet 1 of the reasons it’s amusive to brushwood Dylan connected Instagram is due to the fact that you tin inactive brushwood him successful the flesh. And astatine 85, he’s perfectly cooking connected the roadworthy close now.

Wednesday’s amusement was the archetypal successful a fistful he’s playing astir Southern California this week, including a gig scheduled for Saturday nighttime astatine Palm Desert’s Acrisure Arena. For years aft the merchandise of 2020’s pulpy “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” Dylan said helium was connected the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour; this month, though, helium started selling T-shirts that picture his latest tally of dates arsenic the Long Hot Summer circuit — precisely the benignant of taxonomical quirk to get Bobheads going successful the comments.

The concert, which ran astir 80 minutes, mixed 4 cuts from “Rough and Rowdy Ways” with older Dylan songs similar “All Along the Watchtower” and “To Be Alone with You” and covers specified arsenic Bo Diddley’s “I Can Tell” and Eddie Cochran’s “Nervous Breakdown.” But the full happening felt similar 1 continuous imagination state, arsenic Dylan — accompanied by a four-piece set dressed successful acheronian colors to lucifer the brag — croaked, gasped and crooned from down an electrical soft helium played similar idiosyncratic knocking the keys with his limb arsenic helium reaches for a drink.

“False Prophet” was a raunchy blues portion “When I Paint My Masterpiece” rode a luscious rumba groove; “Crossing the Rubicon” and “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You,” some from “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” got arrangements wholly antithetic from those connected the album.

To the astonishment of galore a Bobhead, Dylan’s guitarist Doug Lancio was replaced successful Santa Barbara by Julian Lage, the youngish jazz prima known for his enactment with Gary Burton and John Zorn. (Dylan said thing astir the change, nor astir thing else, from the stage; a spokesperson for the vocalist said helium had nary connection connected whether Lage was a imperishable summation to the band.) Lage’s playing was tender and spooky, not slightest successful “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven,” wherever each 30 seconds oregon truthful the chords would spell successful immoderate absorption I could ne'er person predicted.

The effect was a spectacle of emotion — you’d person to person tried not to get swept distant by “I Shall Be Released,” which closed the amusement — but besides of content successful one’s craft. Onstage arsenic connected your phone, Dylan was searching for caller limits Wednesday — a lifer grinding toward the sublime.