As part of his Australian tour, Dylan took to the Tivoli stage for what was billed as a "once in a lifetime concert".

The hyperbole reflected reality.

Fairfax journalists were in the audience and are singing forth the honour of his name, making his praise glorious.

Cameron Atfield: The Brisbane Times

Seeing Bob Dylan live, it is often said, can be a little hit and miss. But there's no doubt that seeing Bob Dylan brilliantly on song is a near spiritual experience.

At the Tivoli, Bob Dylan is on song. And his peerless back catalogue that stretches over six decades evokes so many emotions, so many memories, as it sends the audience members back through their timelines.

All Along the Watchtower takes me back 20 years, to sneaking out of home and drawing on my first joint (hi Mum and Dad, if you're reading), discovering Dylan through Jimi Hendrix's impossible licks.

Tangled Up In Blue takes me back 15 years (oh God, it really is 15 years) to university, dissecting one of music's great narratives when I should have been paying attention in my lectures. Dylan's truncation and lyrical changes prevent a sing-a-long, but if anyone's entitled to tinker with a Bob Dylan classic, it's Bob Dylan.

Love Sick takes me back five years to the break-up that stung more than any other before or since, when the opening track from the 1997 album Time Out of Mind served as a soundtrack to my misery.

And that most seminal of Dylan songs, Blowin' In The Wind, has me at The Tivoli, on Wednesday, August 27, 2014. Dylan shows he can still reinvent himself, with the song's ragtime arrangement almost unrecognisable from the familiar classic, pared down folk anthem.

Dylan sounds every one of his 73 years, yet at times he still sounds as fresh as the freewheeler of 1962, or the young rebel who plugged in that electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival.

No wonder fellow music royalty Tim Finn and Robert Forster could only look on from the crowd in awe, no doubt on their own personal journeys through the decades.

Nick Wiggins: Fairfax Radio 4BC

With the words "if you're travelling in the north country fair" a cheer, then hushed awe fell over the crowd.

For the first time in the show you could hear every rasp and crack in his weathered voice.

You could hear the low purr of a bow across the double bass strings. I stood, mouth open in amazement. I'd read the recent set lists, this wasn't on them.

Here was the song I'd listened to countless times on CD or iPod.

The 21-year-old singing on "Freewheelin" didn't do it justice.

Fifty-two years on, Dylan poured a lifetime of love and loss into each word.

"See for me if her hair hangs long, that's the way I remember her best."

Tony Moore: The Brisbane Times

To get a feel for Bob Dylan in 2014, imagine New Orleans in the 1940s and 1950s, before the rock and roll which Dylan helped shape even existed.

Bob Dylan in 2014 swings hard; his excellent band playing the glorious ragtime stomp and rockabilly of his last three albums with relaxed polish.

I stole two favourite moments from my Dylan at the Tivoli experience.

First among them was the ragtime delight of Duquesne Whistle from his latest studio album, Tempest.

It's a gorgeous swinging triumph where bassist Tony Garnier shines and guitarists Charlie Sexton and Stu Kimball just lock into drummer George Recile's groove and just swing.

You'll never hear it on a radio station in Australia, but the first film to use it as part of its soundtrack has a sensational few minutes ready, willing and waiting for that old train to keep on rolling.

A Dylan show nowadays is no longer a greatest hits package.

It's a treat of that swinging ragtime and stomping blues that existed side by side with the folk music that Bob Dylan first revered in the very early years of the 1960s.

Bob Dylan now mines that territory - not the folk music - for his inspiration.

It's Little Walter and Muddy Waters in a Chess studio playing for their lives.

But there are still concessions to Dylan's catalogue of close on 500 songs.

My second moment was one of those: A completely unexpected majestic version of Ballad of a Thin Man where you could feel every cold-blooded word.

It was tense and beautiful, bitter but not poisonous.

For four minutes, the crowd of well-worn - and still wearing-well - fans at the Tivoli thought back to 1965, or the very first time they heard Highway 61 Revisited.

It bought the Tivoli crowd to silence and ended in jubilation.

It closed the show before the encores of All Along the Watchtower and Blowin' in the Wind.

Even Bob Dylan seemed to want to tell Mr Jones that something had just happened.

Luckily for Brisbane, it happened at the Tivoli.

Overall - despite very few nods to one of the most influential back catalogues in rock's cupboard - the Tivoli was a swinging success for Dylan in 2014.

I hope some of it eventually makes its way to YouTube.

Danielle Cronin: The Brisbane Times

As a long-time lover of his music but a first time Dylan concert-goer, well-meaning friends sought to manage expectations.

He doesn't really interact with the crowd. Sometimes, he plays with his back to the audience. He isn't always in the best form.

I didn't care. He could have performed the entire show on a pitch black stage. I would have been sated by simply hearing that growling, raspy voice live.

Dylan was magnificent, backed by a band that switched between musical genres with effortless skill.

The set list combined newer hits and old favourites such as Tangled Up in Blue, Ballad of a Thin Man, Blowin' in the Wind and All Along the Watchtower.

The highlight – a quiet rendition of Girl from the North Country full of angst and longing, leaving a lump in the throat.

Hallejah. Bless Robert Zimmerman.