The 6-foot-11 Bob Dylan fan standing next to me dubbed the show ``phenomenal.''
And basketball great Bill Walton wasn't the only one in the near-capacity crowd at San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium who felt that way.
Dylan, fresh off the overwhelming critical and popular success of his recent ``Modern Times'' CD, showed Monday that he's still got a lot to offer as a live performer.
From the opening number, an unexpected ``Lenny Bruce'' (perhaps in honor of the late comedian's birthday, Oct. 13), Dylan and his band kept fans on their toes with some surprising selections from the songbook, excellent new material and bold rearrangements of familiar tunes.
As in recent years, Dylan spent the whole evening playing organ sounds on an electronic keyboard.
He didn't touch a guitar, although he did pull out his harmonica for several of his distinctively primitive solos.
Dylan was backed by a solid five-piece band consisting of longtime bassist Tony Garnier, drummer George Recile, lead guitarist Denny Freeman, rhythm guitarist Stu Kimball and utility man Donnie Herron, formerly of BR549. Like Dylan, all were dressed in black and were wearing black hats, except Herron, who was sporting a David Spade-esque coiffure.
This quintet has coalesced into a tight unit over 18 months on the road, and big showbiz endings on several tunes showed that some effort went into the arrangements.
Not everything worked. ``It's All Right, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding),'' for example, was nearly unrecognizable; the song's torrent of words was chopped up into awkward, rushed phrases that had little to do with the music.
But more often than not, the older songs sounded fresh, and Dylan seemed committed to the material and in sync with his band.
The rarely performed ``Se or'' was a pleasant surprise, and Dylan's first harmonica solo of the night was greeted warmly. ``I'll Be Your Baby Tonight'' sounded great as a nice and easy country shuffle with plenty of pedal steel by Herron.
A tough, no-nonsense ``Highway 61 Revisited'' had the fans fired up.
But it wasn't all about the oldies. This show was also the first chance for Bay Area fans to hear material from the acclaimed ``Modern Times'' album, and Dylan didn't disappoint, playing four songs from the album.
``When the Deal Goes Down,'' a heartfelt waltz with Dylan doing his best old-fashioned croon, was a high point, as was ``Workingman's Blues #2,'' Dylan's ruminations on a theme from Merle Haggard.
Although non-Dylan fans might find the distinction difficult to make, those who had seen Dylan in recent years agreed that he was in fine voice Monday. Despite his voice's obvious limitations, he was putting the songs across well.
Still, it was regrettable that he has totally given up on the guitar. When he first emerged out of his extended creative funk in the mid-'90s, his electric guitar explorations gave the artist another ``voice'' through which to express himself. His organ accompaniment just doesn't have the same impact.
After a closing ``Summer Days,'' a song from 2001's ``Love and Theft'' delivered like something out of a 1950s roadhouse, the band left the stage without a word from Dylan, before returning for a three-song encore.
``Thunder on the Mountain'' from the new album was followed by a rather low-key ``Like a Rolling Stone,'' after which Dylan spoke for the first time, introducing the band.
``All Along the Watchtower,'' pitched about halfway between the original arrangement and Jimi Hendrix's souped-up version, ended the night in style.
At the show's end, Dylan and the band stood at the lip of the stage and accepted the crowd's ovation. Dylan, typically, didn't say a word, didn't wave and didn't smile.
The acoustics at the Bill Graham Civic often are maligned, but the sound was quite good throughout the evening, both for the full-tilt rock of openers Kings of Leon and for the more refined sounds of Dylan and his band.
Kings of Leon played well, but the band's hard-rocking songs, though concise and powerful, were too rarely memorable.
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