Due to over-whelming demand - well, Chris Rodell asked me - here's my report on Bob Dylan last night, outdoors, at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. Terrific show - and, no, he didn't do anything from "Christmas in the Heart." He did an hour and forty minutes, including pre-encore break. Seventeen songs, seven from "John Wesley Harding" or earlier, ten from "Slow Train Coming" or after, including four from "Together Through Life."

Charley Sexton is one week back on lead guitar, after a seven year absence, and the band - six black-suited men, Bob with a scarlet shirt peeking through his vest - cooked. My favorites were "I Don't Believe You," "Highway 61 Revisited," (I'm always partial to tunes I know well), "Thunder on the Mountain." Biggest surprise was "Mama, You've Been on My Mind" (last performed Newcastle, Australia - 2/18/03) and one-I-could-have-most-done-without "Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll."

Bob seemed to have a good time. He played mostly keyboard but lots of harp and some guitar. He hauled from his ravaged vocal cords a junk yard's worth of rasps and croaks and wails. He "danced" a few steps and had some arm movements cranking. He changed some lines. (I caught "Ballad of a Thin Man's" "You should be made to wear ear phones" as "Next time make sure to telephone.") And in what I guess has become a convention, like Springsteen letting the audience sing into "Hungry Heart," during "Spirit in the Water," made sure we heard "You think I'm over the hill. You think I'm past my prime" in time to yell back "No!" Then, after "Watchtower," instead of turning his back and signaling the band to leave, he paused to receive our standing applause. It was, Adele said, like we were recognizing the wonder of his still being here, with all he has achieved; and, more wondrously, he has recognized that too, and, most wondrously of all, could accept our recognition in ways he could not other offerings we had sought to pin upon him.

It never got too cold. When the night had deepened, the sky had tinted red, like somewhere cities were burning. As always at a Dylan concert, when not anchored in the music, my thoughts ran to specific friends no longer with me and specific songs in specific cars or specific rooms or blowing across specific fields. Then we all - grey-haired and college aged and children towed to view the monument - shuffled toward the door.