ASBURY PARK, New Jersey (November 10, 2001) -- "But what's he sound like?" asked my date as we set out to see Dan Bern at the Saint in Asbury Park.

I was trying hard to resist collapsing all that raw energy, talent, insight and humor into a musical category, as the words to Bern's "Jerusalem" resonated through my mind: "Don't ask what kind of music I'm gonna play tonight / just stay awhile / hear for yourself awhile / and if you must put me in a box / make sure it's a big box / with lots of windows / and a door to walk through / and a nice high chimney ..."

"Well," she said, "who does he sound like?"

"Oh, I guess he sounds a little like Bob Dylan," I said, immediately regretting the implication of my judgment.

I had put Dan Bern in a box!

Comparisons to Bob Dylan have accompanied Dan Bern since 1996, when he arrived on the folk scene with a guitar and a six-song CD entitled Dog Boy Van. Although similarities in voice and delivery explain the comparisons, such parallels are hardly accurate. Bern himself comes out against such redolent references to the sixties, which seem to cast aside anything his generation has to offer as unoriginal or, in his words, "like some two-bit whore offering a discount rate."

Dylan comparisons aside, the specter that seems to follow Bern around is that of his earlier reputation. Since he popularized himself as a one-man act, many fans have been hesitant to see him perform with a band. After this show, I don't care if he ever plays solo again. Rather than diminishing Bern's talent, the addition of a five-piece band supplies his already crafty lyrics with appropriate energy.

Coming into the show, Bern had endured a week that featured nine shows and two radio sets. Earlier in the day, he drove from Massachusetts to New Jersey and played a long in-store show before arriving in Asbury, so I wondered if he'd be a bit drained. Shortly after he took the stage, my doubts were lifted. Bern delivered an endless display of raw energy and showmanship to a small, yet mixed, crowd that included forty-something professional types, college students who could have been their kids (were it not for a social chasm that makes the generational gap look like a crack in the pavement) and a sprinkling of older dreads who were probably their for some self-engendered cause. The diversity of the crowd was a testament to Bern's appeal.

With his emblematic sleeveless t-shirt and disheveled appearance, Bern performed nearly all of his latest album, New American Language, along with signature songs like the egoistical, but self-depreciating, "Tiger Woods." He also included "Marilyn," which ponders the potential fate of Marilyn Monroe had she married Henry Miller, instead of Arthur Miller. "And ok maybe / she'd have died the same, anyway / but if she did / she'd had have more fun," the song concludes. Bern got the crowd moving immediately with a pair of songs "Dress" and "To Love You," which were curiously left off his new album.

This lends to speculation that a long-awaited live album is in the not-to-distant future.

A solemn mode prevailed during a song about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center entitled, "New York City 911". At first, it seemed like the audience didn't know how to receive this song. But, like many of Bern's songs, it expressed a universal consciousness. This related both the collective human horror and the personal loss felt by everyone.

He followed the song with a melancholy rendering of "Albuquerque Lullaby," a song about the burnt and broken landscapes of New Mexico, with a refrain that worked well at this point in the show, "Don't let your heart get broken by this world." Any lingering gloom soon wore off as he launched into "Chelsea Hotel," a bubbly piece of nostalgia about the beauty of life and love with no strings attached. The show even featured a brief solo set, as the band left the stage and Bern remained in a familiar posture, alone on center stage with an acoustic guitar. He took the opportunity to interact with the crowd before launching into what seemed like an impromptu song that explored a series of hypothetical fifth Beatles scenarios if they'd stayed together and John Lennon had lived.

While the band jammed to "Baby Bye-Bye," Bern changed a string on his guitar and took out his contact lenses before continuing with "Wasteland," a song about the plight of his generation. During this he renders the following judgment, "I watched as the best of my generation abandoned their dreams and settled for making a little money." After two hours and 35 minutes with no intermission, Bern concluded with a supersonically paced performance of "Honeydoo!"

In an interview for Artist-Direct magazine last year, Bern offered his ideal concert experience, "when I come off the stage at the end of the show and I'm completely drenched and the audience is drenched and we're not sure what happened but we all want to do it again soon." I shared the same sentiment after this show.  As The Saint emptied out, and 200 or so lucky patrons hopped into their cars wearing silly grins, they did as well.