I love Bob Dylan’s music.

The memory is hazy when the fandom started. I certainly had heard “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Like a Rolling Stone” and others as a kid, but I remember hearing the song “Hurricane” on the radio as a teenager and being fascinated by it and the story of boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter.

“Desire,” the album with “Hurricane” on it, probably was the first Dylan I bought. I don’t come anywhere close to owning all of his music, but I have at least 25 LPs / CDs.

But I won’t be at Powers Auditorium when he performs there Saturday.

Like Dylan, many of my favorites don’t play just the hits and don’t feel obligated to play them exactly the way they were recorded when they do. But for whatever reason, I’ve never connected with him as a live act.

I’ve seen Dylan at least seven times. None of them were great shows, or at least he wasn’t the primary reason they were (the first Farm Aid concert in 1985, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame opening concert at Cleveland Municipal Stadium in 1995). Two lackluster late ’80s shows at Blossom Music Center would make my list of the worst concerts I’ve ever seen (or at least the worst concerts I was looking forward to seeing).

But if I “love” Dylan, then the verb to describe how Cornel Bogdan feels about him hasn’t been invented yet. The host of “Tangled Up in Blues” (heard from 7 to 10 p.m. Sundays on Y-103 FM) will be attending his 128th Dylan concert on Saturday.

I decided to talk to the biggest Dylan fan I know to find out what I was missing.

“I know who I’m going to see there (on Saturday),” Bogdan said. “It’s going to be some of the hardcore musicians in Youngstown that I’ve known for years and years, and all of them will leave with a smile on their face.”

Bogdan compared Dylan to an old traveling blues musician, uncompromisingly playing what he wants to play on any given night. That’s one of the reasons a music legend who could be riding the coattails of a commercially successful, Oscar-nominated biopic and playing a greatest hits arena tour is playing theaters and devoting half the setlist to his most recent album, “Rough and Rowdy Ways.”

“There is probably not any more of a wordsmith in all of music,” Bogdan said. “I can’t think of one anyway. He’s 83 years old. He’s got some sheet music on his piano, because he changes the songs up every night, and he likes to freak with his band. Here’s a guy that is, when he is up there, he’s laser focused.”

Bogdan admitted that hasn’t always been the case (he saw some of the same listless, late ”80s shows that I did). But Dylan always has traveled with a talented band filled with musicians who can follow whatever whim he decides to pursue on any given night.

In an age where it’s easy to see the setlist from every show and read reviews from multiple sources, Bogdan believes there’s no reason for someone to show up at a Dylan concert and be “shocked” that he didn’t play all the songs they heard Timothee Chalamet sing in “A Complete Unknown.”

“He tells you, ‘I am going to play 80% new songs. I am going to do this every night. And, also, the songs that I do play from back in the day, I’m going to do rearrangements of it.’ You know what you are going to get. Everybody looks at setlists nowadays. Everybody reads the critics and what they’re writing. So he lets you know up front, ‘I am not an oldies artist.'”

Bogdan has taken many people to see Dylan over the years. Some have loved it and now buy tickets of their own; others complained because they didn’t know half of the songs and didn’t recognize the ones they did.

He understands a Dylan show is an acquired taste. And he has some advice for those “A Complete Unknown” moviegoers curious to see the real thing or the casual listener who wants to see a legend live while they still can.

“I tell those folks, you’re probably better off sitting on your back porch putting on Bob Dylan’s ‘Greatest Hits Vol. 1,’ and lighting up a joint,” Bogdan said. “That’s probably the best thing, because it ain’t going to be like that. And that’s what I love about him, and that’s why I’ve seen him 128 times.”

Bogdan almost makes me wish I’d bought a ticket.

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com