Entertainment

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

FILE - In this Jan. 12, 2012 file photo, Bob Dylan performs in Los Angeles. Fifty years into his career as a recording artist and a week away from release of an extraordinary new CD, Dylan spent his Tuesday evening where he seems to feel most comfortable — on a stage. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

Fifty years into his career as a recording artist and a week away from release of an extraordinary new CD, Bob Dylan spent the evening where he seems to feel most comfortable, on a stage.

He marked the grand reopening Tuesday of a refurbished theatre in a gritty village 35 miles (56 kilometres) northeast of New York City.

At 71, the renowned songwriter is a road warrior. Tuesday was his 50th gig out of 87 scheduled this year. In the past 20 years, Dylan has played more than 2,000 concerts, said Bill Pagel of the Boblinks website, who meticulously logs every song he performs.

Next week, Dylan releases "Tempest," a wide-ranging disc filled with the lyrical dexterity he's famous for that's getting such an advance buzz that the Los Angeles Times website published a lengthy blog post on just one of its songs.

He has yet to try out any of the "Tempest" songs before a live audience, and his appearance at Port Chester's Capitol Theatre was no exception.

It was a high-wattage reopening for the theatre, which opened as a movie venue in 1926 but turned to rock 'n' roll in the late 1960s and hosted the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd and Janis Joplin. It closed in 1976 and, except for a brief revival in the early 1990s, has been largely quiet.

Promoters behind New York City's Wetlands Club came in to refurbish the theatre and present an ambitious schedule of pop music for the rest of 2012.