I’ve seen Minnesota’s Bob Dylan, who turns 70 May 24, twice, most recently Aug. 22, 2004.

The man who introduced the Beatles to pot in a New York City hotel room in 1964, this year performed in China for the first time. That sure beats the bizarre 2009 arrest in New Jersey of an old man wandering around in the rain in sweatpants while in town on his never-ending tour.

Not only did his band rock as hard as the Who, but the man in the white cowboy hat spent that Sunday night under Coveleski Stadium’s center field scoreboard hunched over a keyboard like “Tommy.”

Dylan tore through a dozen songs heavy on “Love and Theft,” his amble through American musical styles, though amped beyond recognition. I swear I heard “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” “Summer Days,” “Lonesome Day Blues,” “Floater (Too Much to Ask),” “Moonlight,” “Honest With Me” and “Sugar Baby.” His band was on fire.

That show couldn’t have been more different than when we saw him at Notre Dame on Valentine’s Day in 1999.

His relentless touring seems a response to the part in his introduction still smarting about being “written off” after the 1980s.

He opened with Sue’s favorite, “Rainy Day Women No. 12 and 35.” Dylan dipped into his bottomless songbook of 500 songs “(he’s written more songs than I’ve had hot dinners,” says Keith Richards) and 56 albums for “Highway 61 Revisited,” “Lay Lady Lay” and an encore of one of my all-time favorites, “Like a Rolling Stone,” though at a less rollicking tempo, and “All Along the Watchtower,” with screeching Jimi-worthy guitar solos.

The Fields of Dreams tour teamed two music legends, Dylan and Willie Nelson, for concerts in minor league ballparks.

Through furious sidling as Nelson hardcores departed, we got pretty close to the stage.

Being on outfield grass on a clear August night can’t be beat.

“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” Dylan sang in 1962 and again at the University of Notre Dame’s Joyce Center, the only tune on which his trademark harmonica made an appearance.

In 1999 I had thought twice about going to see this living legend who traveled as a Wilbury, did the concert for Bangladesh with George Harrison and influenced John Lennon’s songwriting during the creative burst from about 1965 to 1967 when the Beatles were prolific.

Dylan’s staggering body of work made lyrics matter.

Within six months of 1966 he produced back-to-back classics in “Blonde on Blonde” and “Highway 61” but became somewhat erratic in the decades since.

The crowd was young enough I thought maybe they came expecting son Jakob and the Wallflowers.

You either like his rough, easily-imitated voice or you don’t, but his brush with death with that heart infection and the fact he was coming so close, coupled with the strong attraction of seeing Brian Setzer’s 15-piece orchestra “Jump, Jive and Wail” finally tipped me. I feared Bob might be blown off his own stage, much like Heart upstaged Electric Light Orchestra when Jeff Lynne’s spaceship docked at the Pontiac Silverdome. That did not happen, of course, as Dylan invented what he does and does not need to compete with modern razzle dazzle.

That first time he didn’t play anything I particularly longed to hear — say, “Like a Rolling Stone” — yet you go knowing he wouldn’t be Dylan if he reeled off recognizable hits, one after another. That was part of the attraction, wondering what we’d get and what tempo he might play it, from the slowed-down, dirgelike “Mr. Tambourine Man” to flat-out jamming on “Tangled Up in Blue” from “Blood on the Tracks.”

I’ve been to countless concerts, including Elton John in the same venue when he was the rock Liberace and his new preview track was “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” days away from sharing Madison Square Garden with Lennon, who never played live again.

This concert sticks out in my mind for its lack of pretense.

His introduction amounted to, “Please welcome Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan.”

The staging was so minimal it reminded me of Marshall Crenshaw at Club Soda in Kalamazoo.

A drum kit, some guitars and no backdrop.

Who came expecting to hear “Desolation Row” and “The Times They Are a Changin”?

Ironically, the poet famous for dense wordplay and impenetrable lyrics did nothing to dispel his reclusive image in person.

Not that anyone expected six o’clock news happy patter, but he was almost done playing before he brusquely introduced his band. That was it. No hi. No bye, except for a bit of a bow.

He opened with “Serve Somebody” from his gospel phase and closed with the appropriate “Not Fade Away,” the Rolling Stones’ first U.S. hit, but perhaps his tribute to Buddy Holly, lost in a plane crash 40 years ago that month on American Pie’s the “day the music died.”

But we’ll never know because Dylan did not explain himself.

He seemed to enjoy himself, moving about a bit to guitar licks and nearly smiling, his voice the strongest I’d heard it in years.

Happy birthday, Bob.