“Here’s another one you may remember, New York,” Bob Dylan declared midway through his set full of hits so true to their iconic versions that, if not for the addition of two keyboardists, one could have sworn they were the original recordings. “I want to hear all the fellas in the audience singing along.”

But of course, this did not happen. As with all Dylan concerts, his Wednesday performance at United Palace—the second of three nights at the gaudy Washington Heights theater—steered clear of most classic-rock cliché. The artist does not encourage his audience to clap, bask in his accomplishments and dexterity, or recall a period of their own youth. That is, he does not pander to his patrons or submit to the base desires of mass-market rock & roll. Some find this position frustrating: Whenever he plays, a stream of baby boomers, having lumped Dylan on a shelf with the world’s Paul McCartneys and Billy Joels, trickle away. Younger fans—and in particular music nerds—tend to remain glued to their chairs. Long one of the most famous people in the world, the singer here becomes something more interesting: a cult artist.

The focus of a latter-day Dylan concert is not his legend, vocals or even songbook, but rather his band. In this sense, Dylan indulges in his own form of nostalgia—specifically for the time he spent fronting the Band in the mid-’60s. It is the saloon rumble of that group that his five gray-suited backing musicians conjure, a ferociously alive style that shuns empty flashiness—this is not a jam band—but demands subtle virtuosity. In many ways, the star of last night’s show was not Bob Dylan—and certainly not “Bob Dylan”—but Charlie Sexton, the guitarist who backed the singer between 1999 and 2002 and rejoined the fold this year. The concert’s strongest songs played to the band’s roar: “Thunder on the Mountain,” “High Water (for Charley Patton)” and, especially, a knockout “It’s All Good,” the lone masterstroke from this year’s Together Through Life. (Alas, the concert featured not a lick of his other 2009 album, Christmas in the Heart.)

Dylan, who has spent recent years hiding behind a keyboard in concert, approached center stage on a few occasions, at times stripped of an instrument, like an old-fashioned crooner. (Dion opened.) In this stance, the singing poet displays a single physical gesture, throwing his hands up in a half shrug, like an awkward uncle who gets lured to a wedding’s dance floor only to realize that he knows but one move. Yet it was from center stage that the band presented one of the set’s most climactic moments, “Ballad of a Thin Man.” Lit as a giant shadow, Dylan resembled a preacher—a cute nod to United Palace’s late occupant, Reverend Ike.

“Ballad of a Thin Man” was the rare ’60s selection to rise to the occasion of the concert. As usual, songs of the past decade better fit Dylan’s growl and attitude. His concerts present the opposite sensation to most shows by aging artists: Here, you sit on your hands during old hits, tossed off like bones, and wait for the newly penned and more mysterious. Not for nothing is this the one classic-rock icon to remain vital.

As is his ritual, Dylan concluded with “All Along the Watchtower,” performed as Hendrix’s rock song rather than his original folk song. It is a punch line Dylan clearly relishes—encoring with a cover of a cover of himself. It provides a neat complement to his concert’s opening joke, in which Dylan is introduced with a mock-triumphant insult, à la Rickles. Both gestures, bookending a stage show rife with change, give sufferers of obsessive-compulsive disorder a true American hero.

Larry Charles, won’t you give this man his Curb Your Enthusiasm guest spot?

(For a set list and fan reaction, see Dylan’s website.)