I believe this is the third time I have seen Bob on Halloween, but never have I seen such a happy-go-lucky, devil-be-damned Bob. Whatever shows may have been in the top five before, sorry former number five, you are out. This one was a real keeper.

I saw the set list from Friday and thought, oh, “Every Grain of Sand”, I missed it. Never mind. Plenty of other songs last night. “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking” opened it. When I saw he was opening with this song rather frequently, I recalled the hard driving version song from The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan and hoped that when it was my turn, I would be fortunate to get it, and I did. And I must say, sometimes you can tell from the opener, you are in for a “treat” that night—well, were we ever.

They rocked. Even a song I never felt the need to hear live, “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” was excellent. Songs like “It’s All Good” were transformed into rocking delights.

Typical crowd pleasers like “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Thunder on the Mountain” and the standard “Like a Rolling Stone” were elevated to new levels. To go on would sound too much like a Bob fan gushing over Bob, but I’m not kidding—it was that good. “Ballad of a Thin Man” in the final spot before the encores is tremendous. We may not know what’s happening, but we know enough to like it.

I almost feel sorry for Stu and Donnie, who disappear into their complimentary roles as Charlie’s return is heralded by us Bob-junkies, but make no mistake—as Bob’s muse, he is unparalleled. Can that guy play or what? He seemed to do by himself what three guitars were doing in the “glory years” of 2000-2002. Welcome back and don‘t ever leave again, you hear?

The band was clad in leather, and never before have I seen the shoulder-shrugging, center stage-strutting Dylan so animated and obviously enjoying himself. They laughed amongst themselves continuously throughout the night, and yes, Bob spoke. I swear he did. Twice. First, he introduced his special guest Tom Waits, who turned out to be Stu, who took the mic to sing a verse of a song entitled “Jesus Gonna Be Here”. Then, he tried again to welcome another guest, Willie Nelson, but it appeared that he could not coax Tony, of all people, to play along with the gag, and they moved on.

My running buddy Dave and I enjoyed our usual unexpected occurrences. What Bob excursion could be complete without them? This may have topped our trip to the Val Aire in Des Moines, which upon arrival, appeared to resemble an Elks’ Club, or our 14-hour drive back from Cape Girardeau, in which Dave, in the passenger seat, woke up just in time to wake me up so that we collectively missed the semi to our right. This time, we met a visitor from Milan, Italy, who was seeing his 80th Bob Dylan concert. Oh, I felt so small to admit that I was only on number 28. But this did not take place until after we shared nachos at a nearby gay bar. Dave saying to me, “Dave, I think this is a gay bar.” And I, confirming his speculation after returning from the bathroom and reporting back that an autographed picture of Greg Loughanis adorned the wall above the urinal. We can laugh about it now.

So move aside Springfield, the Kohl Center, World Music Theater, we need more room for this Aragon show to stand beside you. Just release the live CD and DVD of this show now and be done with it.