WELCOME BACK: The Twin Cities may still...

WELCOME BACK: The Twin Cities may still be in love with Prince, but the pop world here didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for another native son: Bob Dylan, who just completed a five-day stand at the 2,800-seat Orpheum Theatre. This was the smallest venue he has played there since 1960.

To greet him, one hip weekly did a cover story devoted to the question of whether the rock immortal should be “euthanized” (one staff writer said yes, one maybe, two no), while the rival weekly spent an entire page arguing that Dylan hasn’t recorded anything important since 1975’s “Blood on the Tracks.”

The fans ignored those poison pens and packed the Orpheum (which Dylan owned from 1978 to 1988), and Dylan responded with strong performances, easily his most satisfying in the Twin Cities since his 1978 St. Paul homecoming show.

Per usual, Dylan said little to the audience, and he didn’t even get off his tour bus to check out the third night’s opening act, Dave Ray and Tony Glover, with whom he used to play on the local coffeehouse circuit.

In other Dylan news, pop’s poet laureate has reportedly threatened legal action against the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART), which is using the slogan “The Times They Are A-Changing” to increase awareness of schedule changes.