HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Bob Dylan, whose anti-war anthems made him the face of protest against a war that continues to haunt a generation of Americans, finally got his chance to see Vietnam — at peace.

The 69-year-old Dylan took to the stage in the former Saigon on Sunday, singing such favorites as “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” and “Highway 61 Revisited.”

Only about half of the 8,000 seats were sold to a mix of Vietnamese and foreigners who danced on the grass in the warm evening air as Dylan jammed on guitar, harmonica and the keyboard at RMIT University.

With more than 60 percent of the country’s 86 million people born after the war, many young people here are more familiar with pop stars like Justin Bieber.

Still, Dylan’s music during the tumultuous 1960s touched thousands of people in both nations.

“Bob Dylan’s music opened up a path where music was used as a weapon to oppose the war in Vietnam” and fight injustice and racism, said Tran Long An, 67, vice president of the Vietnam Composers’ Association. “That was the big thing that he has done for music.”

An was a student in Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City, during the war and took to the streets with other Communist sympathizers calling for the killing to stop. He remains a big Dylan fan and has a large collection of the singer’s records.

For some who were fighting in Vietnam’s jungles, Dylan’s music was a source of hope.

“We listened to anything that spoke of peace. We called him the peace poet,” said Stan Karber, 60, of Fort Smith, Arkansas, who served in Vietnam from 1969 to 1971 and has lived in Ho Chi Minh City for the past 15 years. “I’ll be dancing here in a minute.”

The fighting ended on April 30, 1975, when northern Communist forces seized the U.S.-backed capital of South Vietnam, reunifying the country. About 58,000 Americans were killed along with some 3 million Vietnamese.

Sunday’s concert coincided with the 10th anniversary of the death of anti-war Vietnamese folk singer Trinh Cong Son, known as the “Bob Dylan of Vietnam.” The opening Vietnamese acts played a tribute to Son, who remains highly popular.