You got a lotta nerve...

Last night was the night I'd been waiting for -- seeing Bob Dylan, my absolute favorite, live and in person, at the Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa. After grubbing on some fair food and beating out a bunch of little kiddies to win a stuffed lion (which wound up on my lap during the concert), as well as dropping lots of cash at the Dylan souvenir stand, the legend himself took stage.

Now, Dylan fans such as myself would still be pleased if he got up on stage and gargled (which, let's be serious, his singing sounds like sometimes anyway). But there were a few quirks:

Dylan only played guitar for the first two songs, and keyboard for the rest.

Dylan faced his band while playing keyboard, so only one wing of the house could see his face. I, on the other hand, got the other side: an excellent view of Dylan shaking his junk in the trunk and doing little occasional dance shuffles while boogalooing on the keyboard.

The set started well -- "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" -- which got the audience really excited, and then he went into "Lay, Lady, Lay" (then he ditched his guitar and showed us his backside). After that he did mostly new material, with "Tangled Up In Blue" thrown in. For the encore, he did "Thunder on the Mountain" from his latest album "Modern Times," followed by a jazzy, funkadelic -- OK, weird -- remix of "Blowin' in the Wind."

It was amazing to watch Dylan live, no doubt. But I couldn't believe he didn't play the song christened the greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine -- and my favorite song -- "Like a Rolling Stone." Shouldn't that be a concert staple? Another concertgoer was lamenting that he didn't play "Mr. Tambourine Man." I also wanted "All Along the Watchtower" and "Just Like A Woman." Luckily I had the "Greatest Hits Vol. I" CD in my car changer to get my fix after I left the concert.

Basically, I think that classic artists are still evolving and have every right to showcase their new music -- Dylan seemed to be going with an upbeat, jazzy, bluesy theme for the night -- but should also balance that with the classic tunes that fans are dying to hear. After all, we're shelling out big bucks for tickets nowadays. That being said, my affection for Mr. Dylan is undiminished and he remains the sexiest 66-year-old in a geeky sparkly cowboy suit with stripes down the pants legs out there.