I’ve been nervously anticipating this gig for the last two weeks. That was when the reports from the front line began coming in - mangled corpses of songs, appalling sound, the Great White Wonder’s indifference to his legacy and audience. It sounded like a Dylan I hadn’t seen since the late 1980s - believe me I've seen bad Dylan gigs. Back then the novelty factor had kept me coming back, but those days are long gone.

The venue wasn’t promising - the O2 Dublin is a big arena and recently reconfigured to accommodate even larger crowds. We were about 40 feet from the stage, just left of centre. The view wasn't that good - are there no short Bob Dylan fans?

The set kicked off with a rollicking version of ‘Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat’, with Bob at the Casio. Amazingly the sound was great, the band were tight, and Bob was leaning in close to the mic. Moving guitar for ‘Don’t Think Twice’ - his voiced has dropped a notch or two and he's singing well, and clear. This was what the crowd had come to see, and they responded accordingly. The first spine-tingling moment of the night was a stunning version of ‘Just Like A Woman’. The arrangement largely intact the crowd picked up the chorus refrain before Bob. He seemed to like it and by the third pass he was clearly deliberately leaning back on the chorus to let the crowd pick it up.

For me the heart of the set - and a pretty clear statement of where Dylan sees himself - came with three key songs, the first of which was ‘John Brown’. Delivered in a deep clear voice, there was no mistaking the feeling that he invested in the lyric. This carried through to ‘Masters of War' and 'Ain't Talking' set amidst yellow uplighting that cast long sinister shadows on the backcloth. This was the real deal - just a blues singer and his band.

For all the apocalyptic air, Bob genuinely seemed to be enjoying himself. On electric guitar he refused to let go of nagging little refrain at the end of 'Under A Red Sky', his leg twitching at the hand of some unseen puppeteer. He lead the band through 'Thunder On The Mountain' and, to the clear astonishment and amusement of the bass player, indulged in a lengthy instrumental break leaning into the keyboard again and again while the band tried to second guess when if ever he was going to head into the final verse. This a fantastic band, and the newer material let them stretch out.

The only occasion on which I felt both Bob and the band came close to going through the motions was on "Like A Rolling Stone' served up in an odd, truncated version that - apart from the opening rim shot that sounded like a pistol crack - lost all the dynamic of the original. A small complaint set against the fact that the second song of the encore was the debut of 'If You Ever Go To Houston' from the new album.

You should have been there. Really.