Gerry Moriarty
Funny old world, journalism. One moment of a wet Saturday in Belfast you're listening to Orange Order bands banging out the "Sash" near the Whiterock in the west of the city; the next you're over in the east where the sun is shining, being electrified by an ancient white rocker.
You never know what to expect from Bob Dylan. Recently he's been advertising lingerie and accepting an honorary degree from a Scottish university, although he did spoil that latter occasion by appearing to doze off at the academic gig.
So, when thousands of us traipsed to the huge Odyssey Arena in east Belfast on Saturday night to hear Bob and his band all we were sure of was that we could expect the unexpected. Bob came on stage dressed in black hat and mid-length black coat, looking like a pilgrim father or cowboy preacher. He didn't say hallo. Dark broody Bob.
What we got from the first note was Bob Dylan and his band in G-force form. Bob and the boys thundered into Maggie's Farm and it was forward thrust all the way for the next two hours when he concluded with a second encore of that strange, apocalyptic song, All Along the Watchtower.
Belfast on Saturday night must have been like London and Dublin in the mid-1960s when Dylan upset the traditionalists by switching from acoustic to electric, from protest to soul, head and heart-searching.
The dominant sound on Saturday was the lead guitar of Larry Campbell, backed up by drummer George Recile, Tony Garnier on thumping bass and Stuart Kimball on guitar. Bob can afford the best. The sound was electric and exhilarating. Most of the time Dylan just sat banging on the keyboard, playing gorgeous harmonica and singing.
As for his voice? Well, 63-year-old Dylan, the hobo, sounded just as you would expect after more than 40 years on a long, hard road. But even in the gravel voice you could still hear some of that former indefinable sneering, angry, nasally sound that makes his voice so curiously affecting.
He played a number of songs from his 2001 album, Love and Theft including Tweedle Dum & Tweedle Dee, Summer Days and the lovely, lyrical and even romantic, Moonlight.
But for most of the night he was revisiting his back pages. In his first encore, the snarling Like a Rolling Stone you could still marvel at the passion, energy and curmudgeonly humanity that drives this genius of a troubadour.