More than 40 years after all that fuss over Dylan going electric, it is remarkable to see how audiences are still left divided by his concerts. There are the die-hard fans who relish their hero's unpredictability on stage and delight in three fine albums on the bounce from rock's only living genius. Then there are those who go along to see a legend and are appalled to find an old man in a hat growling from behind a keyboard, casually mangling his greatest songs, while refusing even to acknowledge those who stumped up £45 a ticket.

Thankfully, the Bob Cats formed the great majority at Birmingham's NIA last week, for a two-hour performance showcasing material from Dylan's acclaimed Modern Times album. For this was an audience that went into rapture at the opening of his superb Working Man's Blues and roared with mock horror as he sang: "You think I'm over the hill/You think I'm past my prime" in Spirit on the Water. By comparison, applause for Highway 61 was merely polite.

Dylan even looked younger as he came on behind his excellent band that can seemingly bring freshness to just about anything in his back catalogue. All dressed in black under impressive hats, they ripped into Cat's in the Well, with Dylan, for the first time in years, playing guitar. The Fender was to stay around his neck for five numbers, before he moved to the keyboard. It Ain't Me Babe was as good as The Rolling Thunder Tour version, while It's Alright Ma showed this band can rock as well as swing to Dylan's new-found taste for crooning ballads.

d=2,2,1There were intelligent reinterpretations of his greatest work like Tangled Up in Blue and the more rarely performed Ballad of Hollis Brown. And if the venom has gone from Like a Rolling Stone, it has been replaced by something altogether more knowing. Strangely, though, it was the slower new material that most severely tested his increasingly limited vocal range. But there was clearly pride in those songs and his band.