Just after Bob Dylan's March 3 concert at Tokyo International Forum, music maven and broadcast personality Peter Barakan met with entertainment writer Philip Brasor at a Tokyo coffee shop to reflect.

Barakan: "I was surprised at how many of his greatest hits he actually did. I wasn't expecting so many."

Brasor: "A woman I met last week told me she saw him a few years ago in New Zealand. She was disappointed because he didn't do anything famous. I'm not sure what she meant -- that he just did stuff from the '80s?"

Barakan: "And I couldn't understand why he would employ somebody of the caliber of Charlie Sexton and give him only one [guitar] solo."

Brasor: "Well, it's because he himself played all the solos."

Barakan: "That's exactly what I mean. He's not exactly a virtuoso."

Brasor: "I've always had the impression that whenever Dylan is in a public situation -- be it a concert, an interview, anything involving interaction with people outside the recording studio -- he's basically putting you on. By the way, where were you sitting?"

Barakan: "About halfway back, to the right."

Brasor: "I was in the last row with the housewives. I couldn't make out what he was wearing."

Barakan: "It was some kind of suit, slightly countryish. There was a string tie. I think he always wears that kind of thing."

Brasor: "At some point, I think he actually wanted to be Elvis, and while I believe every rock star has to wrestle with the Elvis issue, I don't think Dylan ever had a problem with it."

Barakan: [uncomfortable laughter]

Brasor: "Look at the back of 'Street Legal.' He's wearing the Elvis suit. I mean, how seriously does he take himself as an entertainer? I'm sure by now he expects that we expect him to be ironic."

Barakan: " 'Masters of War' was really good. It was the first time in a long time that I'd heard it."

Brasor: "And it was fairly straightforward. Dylan is famous for changing his songs in concert, sometimes quite drastically."

Barakan: "I sometimes think he fiddles with the melody too much, though I was impressed by how well the Japanese audience seemed to know the songs immediately. Sometimes you could tell which song it was by the chord sequence, even before he started singing."

Brasor: "But that can be confusing, too. When he did 'All Along the Watchtower,' I first thought it was 'Hurricane.' If you take away the violin from 'Hurricane,' it's difficult to tell them apart."

Barakan: "Well, it is when you do the Jimi Hendrix arrangement [of 'Watchtower']."

Brasor: "Actually, he did the Billy Joel arrangement of 'To Make You Feel My Love.' It's not the version from 'Time Out of Mind.' "

Barakan: "I wasn't expecting him to sing that."

Brasor: "I certainly wasn't expecting him to be Billy Joel, though I suppose that's one idea of what an entertainer is."

Barakan: "What impressed me was that songs like 'Masters of War,' 'The Times They Are a-Changin',' and 'Desolation Row' still sound relevant now. I started thinking about things I'd read in the newspapers the past couple of weeks."

Brasor: "Regardless of when you hear it, the ending of 'Masters of War' is pretty heavy-duty: 'I hope that you die and your death will come soon . . . ' 'I'll stand over your grave 'til I'm sure you're dead.' It's not exactly Eminem, but it definitely makes an impression, even now. It's hardly the peace-and-love image everyone has of the '60s."

Barakan: " 'Love Sick' was good, too."

Brasor: "Speaking of which, what do you think of 'Time Out of Mind?' "

Barakan: "I think it's fantastic."

Brasor: "I don't play it that much any more. There's something perversely cranky about it."

Barakan: "I tend to appreciate it more in musical terms. Part of it is [producer] Daniel Lanois and part of it is that it refers to my favorite Dylan albums of the past, like 'Highway 61 Revisited' and 'Blonde on Blonde.' It seems to belong to that era."

Brasor: "I think it belongs to right now."

Barakan: "But the feel of it is of a piece with some of those earlier works. I lost interest in Dylan a lot . . . I mean, I never got into 'John Wesley Harding.' It's one of those records that everyone raves about."

Brasor: "I have a friend who just assumes he died in that famous motorcycle accident. That way he doesn't have to think about anything released after 1966."

Barakan: "Apparently it wasn't that serious, but it did give him a chance to get out of the public eye for a while."

Brasor: "To tell you the truth, my favorite Dylan album is 'The Basement Tapes.' The first time I heard it I thought it was stupid, just a bunch of guys goofing off."

Barakan: "Some of it is."

Brasor: "No, all of it is. Everybody has forgotten how funny people used to find Dylan. The only 'Basement Tapes' song he did at the concert was 'Down in the Flood.' It's such a crazy song: 'Sugar for sugar, salt for salt, if you go down in the flood, it's your own fault.' The only trouble is that it doesn't sound as funny sung by a 59-year-old in front of a worshipful mob than it does when it's sung by a stoned 26-year-old who's trying to get a rise out of his friends. Then again, I always thought Dylan sounded like an old man on his first album. The same thing occurred to me when I saw Dan Hicks a few weeks ago."

Barakan: "They're exactly the same age."

Brasor: "I thought, '[Dan Hicks] hasn't changed that much,' and then, 'Well, he already sounded middle-aged in 1972,' because of the kind of music he was playing then. It conveyed the sensibility of a man who'd been around and seen it all. It's the same thing with Dylan when he started. He wanted to sound like this tired, old blues singer. And now he actually is that old."

Barakan: "On the other hand, the kind of idealism that you often found in his early songs was something that you only find in young people."

Brasor: "And that's why 'Time Out of Mind' sounds like a cranky old man. All the songs sound constipated."

Barakan: "The new song, 'Things Have Changed,' has the same kind of outlook."

Brasor: "But it's snappier. It has a very definite rhythmic pull. It sounds like a single."

Barakan: "Well, it was, at least in Japan."

Brasor: "Did that qualify as an encore?" [note: Dylan played less than an hour, left the stage, and returned almost immediately with nine more songs.]

Barakan: "I think it was a ploy to get the audience on their feet. And it worked. He's not going to get off on the gig unless the audience are getting off. So I'd say in that regard he was in an entertainment mode."

Brasor: "To get the audience excited . . . "

Barakan: "In the end, it's to get himself excited. He has to raise the energy level so that he can give more of himself. That's the way I interpreted it. If you've ever been to a gospel gig, there's a way that they build. They start off really boring, and then about five songs into the set the energy level starts to climb. As soon as the audience gets off a bit, the performers give it back and then some. Then the whole concert just spirals. To a certain extent, all musicians instinctively think like that, Dylan included."

Brasor: "Well, the guy tours all the time. I mean, unofficially it's called the Neverending Tour. He's been doing like a hundred concerts a year for the past decade."

Barakan: "But it's not like he can't afford not to."

Brasor: "Let's talk about the band. At times I thought they did sound like the Band, while other times they came closer to ZZ Top, especially on 'Highway 61,' which was like a boogie."

Barakan: "Yeah, I don't care for that style, and to that extent I didn't get off on the band sound."

Brasor: "That's probably why you thought the show was weird. To me, it had a classic rock-show sound."

Barakan: "It did, and I can't say I appreciated it that much. I would have liked a little more detail. What was the other guitarist's name? Something Campbell? He also played lap steel, but it was on a stand. He had a variety of guitars and could have worked in something more."

Brasor: "How about that taped introduction: 'Ladies and gentlemen, Columbia recording artist, Bob Dylan.' It makes him sound like this up-and-coming folk singer from Minnesota."

Barakan: "But what about the tape that was on the PA before he came on? I can't help but think it was his idea."

Brasor: "Are those tapes usually chosen by the artists?"

Barakan: "It depends. But it was really cheesy cocktail jazz, and Udo, as a promoter, would never choose that to play before a Bob Dylan concert. It was so incongruous, and I couldn't help but wonder if he chose it and what he meant by it."

Brasor: "Now that you mention it, some of his singing was quite conventionally dramatic."

Barakan: " 'To Make You Feel My Love' struck me that way."

Brasor: "Yes, that one in particular. It reminded me of Tony Bennett . . . "

Barakan: (gasp)

Brasor: ". . . and, of course, Billy Joel, both of whom are also Columbia recording artists. Think about it. Actually, I've always thought Dylan was underrated as a vocalist. Critics tend to focus on what he writes or what he represents."

Barakan: "It's not a technical thing. It's more instinctual."

Brasor: "No one ever mentions how he deliberately changed his vocal quality -- not his style of singing, but the actual quality of his voice -- over the course of his career. He went from this old bluesman's croak to a rocker's sneer to a gentle, relaxed tone all before 1970. By the late '80s he sounded totally bizarre, like Donald Duck on helium."

Barakan: "It was very reedy. I didn't care for it at all. Do you think it was on purpose?"

Brasor: "I can't imagine him not doing anything on purpose. Anyway, I say this because I thought his singing the other night was very good. I think he's purposely trying to sing well. He very well may like that cheesy cocktail jazz."