From Peter Cooper in The Tennessean:

In the first show of his sold-out, two-night run at the Ryman Auditorium, Dylan gave us a sprawling, open-hearted and generous performance. This was his 70th show of 2007, and 2007 is his 45th year as a recording artist. And it´s the year he turned 66. Yet this was anything but just another night on the boards.

There was the startlingly emotional version of “You´re A Big Girl Now,’ in which he´d deliver a line, and quickly cut his eyes to the audience before delivering the next: “I can change, I swear,’ he sang, then he stared us down and growled, “See what you can do.’

There was a thrilling guest turn from Jack White of The White Stripes. White strode onstage, guitar in hand, and he, Dylan and the band launched into “Meet Me In The Morning.’ The crowd stood immediately, as an audience´s polite reverence morphed into spontaneous, fist-pumping giddiness. Two songs earlier, “Working Man´s Blues #2’ felt like Sunday church, but this was a prize fight. There was an epic intensity to the moment, heightened by the knowledge that Dylan had never before performed that song in a live setting.

And there was so much more. Tousle-haired and wired in the ´60s, earthy in the ´70s and rumpled in the ´80s and ´90s, Dylan is now spry and dapper. He wore a black suit, a sparkling black shirt and a yellow scarf, and his legs were in constant motion whether he was playing guitar (for five songs) or keyboard. He led the band – a group that included Nashville multi-instrumentalist Don Herron, a guy who logged thousands of hours playing across the alley at Robert´s Western World – with glances, shrugs and the occasional hand motion, signaling for solos to begin or songs to end.

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