Just kidding – Bob Dylan didn’t say this. He didn’t say anything – not a word - to the almost-capacity crowd assembled at the WEC last night. 

And fair enough. Small talk is a lesser-star’s game – something for non-legends and people who haven’t written some of the greatest songs ever. 

Yet I had to twist my companion’s arm to go to this show. He was bruised by Dylan’s last showing at the WEC a few years ago and still complains about the indecipherable, “mumbling” lyrics and unrecognisable arrangements.

It has been an unpleasant and now well-chronicled experience for some fans to hear Dylan rip apart beloved, decades-old songs and glue their pieces into foreign new numbers. 

Dylan has done away with his guitar for this leg of his “never-ending tour”, which began in the mid-1980s. At 77 he stands legs splayed, all lean, metallic-jacketed energy at the keys as his five-piece band reels without warning into the opener, Things Have Changed. 

Some songs fare better from their reworking than others. It Ain’t Me Babe is piano loung-ier. Almost unrecognisable. Interesting. Not unpleasant. I could come around to it. 

The lights are down for Simple Twist of Fate. He’s gravel-voiced, as suits some of his bluesier, knowing, with-age-comes-wisdom numbers. Highway 61 doesn’t mind a bit of this fraying around its edges, nor does Gotta Serve Somebody.

Make You Feel My Love – since re-purposed by Adele – is hopeful and earnest back in the decades-older author’s hands. 

Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright is the night’s highlight - a beautiful lullaby, surprisingly near to the original and proof Dylan can sing clear enough when he wants to. The last of the night’s harmonica solos, a jaunty head tilt from the man and I’m nostalgic for a time I didn’t live. 

Much of the crowd is Dylan-era though. A boomer in the fifth row is ready with a set of bells in hand and gets to his feet in raucous stance, when the line arrives – “my bell still rings” – in Early Roman Kings. This and cries of love and requests – “Just Like a Woman!” go unacknowledged from the stage. 

A few in the crowd walk out mid-show with their jackets in hand. They won’t return. All of this re-arranging is not for everybody. 

But beside me, I can see my companion thawing as the night progresses. He later tells me he enjoyed the show – far more than the last one – and that the key to this had been in letting go of trying to find the old song and the old words (Dylan fiddled even with the lyrics, in some songs), and taking it all “as music”. 

Dylan’s got gravel in his pipes again for the first of the encores – a much-reworked, violin-backed Blowin’ In the Wind. 

At Ballad of a Thin Man, I cannot help it, the jaunty disruption of the lyrics irks me and I long for the original.

At this Dylan leaves his piano seat and gets in line with his band. The audience gets hurriedly to its feet. A few quick bows and he’s gone again. A line echoes from his closer – “something is happening here and you don’t know what it is”. I’ve got no idea what it is, but I hope it happens again soon.