EDMONTON -- You just have to think of Bob Dylan as a beautiful old bluesman - it makes everything way easier.

The reason for the qualification: last night's gig in front of 5,500 behind the Gretzky statue. His crowd was twitchy, not quite able to fully understand why, at 61, with a million reasons to not even have a voice at all, Dylan didn't quite sing like a 25-year-old boy, still madly in love with the colours and smells of the world. Because, of course, everyone else who's 61 just loves doing the same thing for 40 years. No, ask them.

So I will put an iron shield up in front of Dylan, here and now. Sure, he had, like, zero rapport with the crowd. But when he opened up with the Stanley Brothers' I Am the Man, a cocky bluegrass song to show off his hot quintet, he got me. Yes, Bob, anything you say, Bob.

Then, later, during a rousing Tangled Up in Blue, he started to verifiably get a lot of others, including himself. The former folk-singer started to smile around then, his dance steps under that black, pinstripe cowboy costume more noticeable, especially through $6 rental binoculars. And man, when he came back for his hit encore with a subdued but SO poignant Like a Rolling Stone and Knockin on Heaven's Door and a spoken-word All Along the Watchtower, he got everyone else, and all the people who doubted, well, they just kept quiet and stood up clapping anyway. As they should.

The breakless set moved from bluegrass to old folk to a couple of hits, spoken as often as sung, like Highway 61 Revisited, Lay Lady Lay off Nashville Skyline and Subterranean Homesick Blues, the original white rap song (well, maybe not).

Mr. Tambourine Man was a quavering shade of the original, mostly just whispered. But when he called out "Everybody must get stoned" in Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35, we sang along.

You know that new album, Love and Theft? Well, good, maybe you can tell me what songs he played off that. That one song he'd done at the Grammys, for sure, when he looked all mean and mad, maybe because someone else won in his category. Maybe not. Maybe he had his own reasons. He's Bob Dylan, he kind of gets to.

The moment that made me actually tear up a little, and forgive me for something highly personal, was Not Dark Yet off Time Out of Mind. It reminded me of waiting at home in Asahi, Japan for my girlfriend to come home, and especially how someone else does that now.

"I know sometimes it looks like I'm moving when I'm standing still," he sang in front of the curtain. "It's not dark yet, but it's getting late." Oh, life. Why are you so hard sometimes? If you really want to get in to Dylan you have to suffer a little, is the lesson. You could see that in his eyes when he sang Forever Young, backed up by the boys in grey flanking him.

A paradox to consider. His guitarist, stage left, looked right off of an episode of Six-Million Dollar Man, all tall, big-haired and mustached. Then he played blues so complex you could barely recognize it as such.

Dylan refused to be photographed, though The Sun managed anyway. The red shirts were gathering cameras like grapes. He really didn't warrant the worry, he looked fine, still with the skinny legs and occasional smiles. One problem with having such an immense catalogue is everyone's going to be disappointed they didn't hear their obscure favourite. Ah, to have such problems.

But really, Bob, it would have been nice if you'd said a SINGLE personal word to us not on the lyrics sheets. Like, you know. One.

He only talked to us to introduce the band, including Charlie Sexton on guitar. But at least he sang. Maybe that's more important than insincerely putting on an Oilers jersey.

IN THE SEATS: 5,500

BEST MOMENT: Not Dark Yet

SOUR NOTE: The nagging point of two hours without a 'hello'

JAM! Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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