MINNEAPOLIS — Bob Dylan’s first full Twin Cities gig in nine years will be just his sixth date with a newly retooled backing band. If the new lineup even sticks.

A tradition that goes back to his audacious hiring of loud rock ’n’ roll musicians for backers in the mid-1960s, Dylan is confounding fans once again with shake-ups in his touring band ahead of his July 6 date at the new Mystic Lake Amphitheater in Shakopee with openers Lucinda Williams and John Doe.

The Iron Range’s most famous son, who turned 85 in May, has been turning over guitar players on his current outing. He inexplicably lost his sideman of five years, Doug Lancio, in early June. Then his other guitarist, Bob Britt, quit the band last week after a seven-year stint. In the interim, he picked up renowned jazz picker Julian Lage. However, Lage has his own string of gigs to play and was apparently just a temporary fill-in.

At his concert Monday night in Austin, Texas, Dylan debuted a new guitarist: Joel Paterson, a jazzy twanger and reputable steel guitar player from Chicago who’s close to one of Minnesota’s best-loved groups.

Paterson has played on several albums by Minneapolis’ Cactus Blossoms, including the sibling-led band’s 2023 tribute EP, “If Not for You (Bob Dylan Songs, Vol. 1).” He was even seen onscreen with the CBs picking pedal-steel with them in David Lynch’s 2017 TV series, “Twin Peaks: The Return.” He’s not usually part of the Blossoms’ live lineup, though — in part because he has a standing Monday night gig at Chicago’s landmark jazz club the Green Mill.

Whether or not Paterson becomes tangled up in Bob’s band long term remains to be seen, but the Minnesota bard’s finnicky fans were resoundingly singing the new guy’s praises after bootleg audio surfaced from Monday’s show, despite Dylan’s no-phones policy. Paterson is the lone guitarist in the group at the moment, which also features longtime bassist Tony Garnier and former “Late Show with David Letterman” drummer Anton Fig.

“He’s doing such a great job that I can’t believe he joined the band on such short notice,” one commenter wrote about Paterson under a YouTube clip.

Tickets are still widely available to Dylan’s concert next week at Shakopee’s Live Nation-run outdoor venue, which holds about 19,000 people. The new amphitheater just wrapped its first run of shows last week and is offering $35 general-admission lawn tickets to Dylan and many other shows to fill in its wide-open spaces.

Not counting his short appearance at last year’s Farm Aid concert in Minneapolis and his string of dates in recent years in smaller cities like Rochester, Mankato and Eau Claire, Dylan has not played a full concert in the Twin Cities metro area since an Xcel Energy Center gig in 2017 with Mavis Staples. He has altered his setlists since those smaller-town dates to feature less from his 2020 album, “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” and more from throughout his 64-year career.

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