Bob Dylan kicks off the Pawtucket Arts Festival at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket. (AP)

So that's what he looked like.

Rick Massimo will be doing the review for projo, and you can get the set list soon on Expecting Rain, if you're curious.

Dylan's voice was terrible doing good old songs. Phrasing was bizarre, no news there, but it got extreme enough on Buckets of Rain to sound like William Shatner doing Dylan. The voice barks, mumbles, scatters.

Masters of War drew big applause. Somebody yelled, "Play Freebird." Dylan played Just Like A Woman, I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall. He seemed to wake up and sing on Tangled Up in Blue, just a whiff of clear passion pushed. The encore was something like Like a Rolling Stone.

This is not a complaint. We check out how it's going with Bob every now and then.

Joe said, "I'll be your baby tonight, but I won't be your Bobby tonight."

It was a lovely night to be outdoors in New England, cool, and I'd never been on a baseball field at night, under the bright lights that came on between acts.

They lit up an all-ages crowd.: A sea of denim, khaki, solid colors. The costumes and characters are gone, and it seems funny seeing old people comfortably at rock concerts, but otherwise it could be seeing Dylan any time in the last 40 years. Except for the roolz. More about that later.

The stage was in front of the outfield bleachers, between the scoreboard and the clock. We originally found a piece of grass near first base, between the infield dirt and the foul line. Portafloor covered the outfield a few feet away, and the crowd stretched so far ahead that the musicians' heads were the size of small peas.

No cameras. No smoking. No beer sold after Dylan started. Lots of security. No energy.

We made our way to the stands, where the sound was better. It was a full house except for some nosebleed seats on the end and an entire section on the third-base line with no sightline, thanks to a peaked tent probably covering sound equipment. We settled into the spacious ambience of the fourth row, alone in the section except for a couple dancing between the first row and the rails.

A security guard came down and told them to stop dancing. They sat down.
Down on the field there was spotty polite swaying.

Maybe near the stage people had peak experiences, but this sedentary grandstand crowd lacked only a guy coming down the aisle with peanuts and hotdogs.

Rock and roll is not meant to be a spectator sport.