AUSTIN, Texas — An eager fan waiting to see John Prine take the stage at the historic Paramount Theater on Saturday proudly displayed the emblem on her shirt — a copy of a ticket from a 1975 Prine gig at the same place, on Congress Avenue in downtown.

"I just love him so much," she said with a wide smile as she waited excitedly for the folk/country/rock tunesmith to take the stage.

Prine didn't disappoint, offering a winding trip through the rockers, ballads and quirky observations of the human condition that have made him the poet of the common man through his 33 years as a writer and singer.

Reaching deep into the past, Prine offered "Sam Stone" (RealAudio excerpt), the wrenching ballad of a drug-addicted Vietnam vet that appeared on his first release, and went for the laughs with the song "Fish and Whistle," with a behind-the-scenes story of how the song came about, as a contribution to a movie soundtrack.

To an audience that hung on his every word (and sang many along with him) Prine, in his gravelly tenor, offered accounts of first love, true love, lost love, and the beats and offbeats of love of every sort.

Along the way, he kept the evening rocking with "Grandpa Was a Carpenter" and sharing his oddball humor in "Dear Abby," stopping off for a multilayered view of the days of life and the life of days in the lesser-known "Sins of Memphisto." He gave a powerful example of his ability to blend insight, humor, off-center worldview and skill at turning those into images in "Jesus: The Missing Years," which was done in an almost talking-blues style.

There was a poignant rendition of "Hello in There" (RealAudio excerpt), the song about aging that became a hit for Joan Baez, and an understated, straightforward take on his most enduring and widely known hit (through Bonnie Raitt's version), "Angel from Montgomery."

Guest Iris DeMent unexpectedly joined Prine (it had been reported that she was committed to another gig in Canada and couldn't appear) for four tunes from the onetime mailman's current album of duets, In Spite of Ourselves (1999).

"I've always been an ardent admirer of Iris DeMent as a singer and a songwriter," Prine has said of choosing DeMent to be on the album. "She's got that sort of wide-eyed wonder. ... Plus, there's a wackiness to her voice."

The pair had fun with the Prine-penned title track, and DeMent's dusty Plains soprano fit perfectly with Prine's rough-edged style on the weird wife-swapping nugget "Let's Invite Them Over Again," the wistful ballad "We Could" and the George Jones/Tammy Wynette classic, "We're Not the Jet Set."

More selections from the Prine songbook filled the evening, including an investigation of the layers of memory, "Souvenirs"; a tribute to love and landscape and fishing, "Lake Marie" (RealAudio excerpt); and the everyman anthem "That's the Way the World Goes Round."

After a standing ovation that reached the rafters of the packed house, Prine and DeMent returned to encore with two vignettes from life's darker side, "Elephant Boy" and "Unwed Fathers." Austin's own Sarah Elizabeth Campbell, who had provided a lively opening act with tunes including "Leavin' Bluesville Tonight," "Mexico" and "Good Summer Rain," was called back to the stage to add her warm earthy hill country alto to the finale, "Muhlenberg County."

"It was perfect," a concert-goer exiting the theater said. "He sang all his best songs, every one of them. We couldn't have asked for anything better."

Prine's current tour continues with dates this week in Pennsylvania, at the Greensburg Palace Theatre on Thursday and Philadelphia's Keswick Theatre on Saturday; two more in Ohio, at Cleveland's Lakewood Civic Auditorium on the 28th and Cincinnati's Taft Theatre on the 29th; then on May 4 and 5 in California with dates at Los Angeles' Royce Hall and San Diego's Spreckels Theatre.