Neither Cooperstown nor this Bob Dylan fan has seen anything like the rocking Bob Dylan gave us last Friday night. The 63-year-old "poet laureate of rock and roll," Nobel Literature Prize nominee, Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer, and recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors played for nearly two hours, performing 15 songs that covered the spread of his 40-year career. Eight of the tunes were from the 1960s, one from the 70s, one from the 80s, two from the 90s, and three from the current decade.

Dylan came out rocking with two straight tunes from the relatively obscure 1967 album "John Wesley Harding." The first had even a few of the hardcore Dylan fans a bit puzzled, but was called 'Drifter's Escape."

The five-piece band played furiously, setting the tone for a show more rollicking than mellow. With this song choice, Dylan continued his recent trend of reaching back into his songbook of hundreds of titles, rehabilitating and reinventing forgotten tunes along the way.

The next tune was the more familiar "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," a beautiful country-tinged love song. Many in the audience were surprised that Dylan played the keyboards instead of the guitar. I was surprised the first time I saw the band in that configuration myself about a year ago. Rumor has it that Bob is suffering from calcium deposits in his fingers which make guitar playing painful, and he is more than ably supported by a band which includes Larry Campbell (far right on stage) and Stu Kimball (next to Dylan) on guitars. Campbell has been with Dylan's band since 1997, though Kimball just joined this June. Bass player Tony Garnier has played more concerts with Dylan than any other musician, joining the band in 1989. Drummer George Receli joined in 2002, and played with fervor.

The third song was "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum," from his most recent studio CD, "Love and Theft," released in 2001. Then it was back to the country flavor for "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You," from Bob's most countryfied album, 1969's "Nashville Skyline," upon which Johnny Cash performed along with many of Nashville's legendary session musicians.

Next was another trip into relative obscurity for 1985's "Seeing the Real You at Last," from the album "Empire Burlesque," upon which newest band member, Stu Kimball, had performed as a session guitarist.

One of the real treats of this show for me was the next song, 1963's "Girl of the North Country," perhaps the concert's most understated highlight, as Campbell moved to acoustic guitar and Garnier brought out his standup bass. Then it was back to the high energy sound of 1997's "Cold Irons Bound," the first of two consecutive songs from Dylan's triple Grammy-winning "Time Out of Mind" CD. It was followed by "Make You Feel My Love," in many ways emblematic of Dylan's career as a songwriter.

Almost before Dylan released the song, it had been pounced upon by Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, and Joan Osborne, who all had hits with it in their own genres. Dylan played sweet harmonica on this track as he would throughout much of the evening.

My favorite song of the show was next, 1964's "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met.)" The band found a funkier melody in the song than I've heard before, and Dylan's vocals were stylish and clear, as he was all evening, at least compared to some of his other shows I've attended. "Honest with Me" (2001) ramped the tempo back up (this is one of four Dylan songs with a baseball reference, however obscure, in it as Dylan sings:)

My woman got a face like a teddy bear

She's tossin' a baseball bat in the air

A crowd favorite was certainly Dylan's 1974 "Forever Young," with it's appropriate lyric: "May your heart always be joyful may your song be ever sung, and may you stay forever young."

Then the band moved into supernova stage for the power-rockabilly number "Summer Days," from "Love and Theft." The band rocked through the number as though they were taking to heart one of its best lines: "I got eight carburetors, and boys, I'm usin' 'em all." At this point Dylan and the band left the stage but soon came out for a three-song encore, all 1960s classics: "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," "Like a Rolling Stone," and "All Along the Watchtower." Even those who haven't followed his career closely for the last thirty years had to have been happy with those three quintessential numbers. Besides enjoying the music during the encore, I thought how nice it was that as a Cooperstonian, I didn't have to drive home from Buffalo, Albany, the Meadowlands, or any of the other distant locales where Dylan frequently plays in the Northeast.

Just before the encore, Dylan spoke to the crowd for the only time (which is par for the course) introducing the band members, and telling one of his trademark corny jokes. Introducing Stu Kimball, he said "Speaking of baseball, Stu got a bat for his wife. It was the worst trade he ever made."

Overall, as a veteran of a couple dozen Dylan shows, I was impressed with the energy level Dylan brought to the performance, and I have never seen the band rock harder. Dylan of course can play in many different styles and modes, and he delights in never allowing himself to be pigeonholed as a "folksinger," or a "poet," or as a spokesman for his generation. What's great about Dylan is that he is all those things, and, like facing a great baseball pitcher, you just never know what's coming next. Throughout his long career, there have been times when he was not performing at his peak potential, but this was a virtuoso performance.

While I'm leaving a review of Willie Nelson's performance to my colleague Eric Enders, I will mention that the show was ably and charmingly opened by The Hot Club of Cowtown, a three piece western swing/standards band that seemed as excited to be opening for the two headliners as Cooperstown was to be hosting them.