The people made their way here on a crisp and clear Friday morning by bike and bus and tram, through the city and the gardens and the suburbs, from Birdwood Avenue and St Kilda Road and the Tan track.

Children with blushing cheeks sat on their parents’ shoulders. And as the early winter cold set some to shivering, old dry fingers cradled small chubby hands, each drawing warmth from the other. They had come to pay their respects and bear witness, to observe Anzac Day in the 99th year since a fateful landing of Australian troops on a fortified beach more than half a world away. And so they stood breathing steam in the darkness before the dawn, with the stars of the Southern Cross not yet faded and a fingernail moon looking on.

The ceremony is held at this hour – in a chilling half light that is not yet morning and no longer night – for a specific and military reason.

This was the time of day when battle came, when the enemy was weary, and one had to be alert and ready and attentive. We stand to, as they stood to.

Tanya and Kamahl Dorling came from Berwick, with daughters Matilda and Imogen, 6 and 7. It was the family’s first service. They woke at 3am. ''It’s a small thing, getting up early in the cold, but it’s a mark of sacrifice,'' said Mr Dorling. ''We owe that much.''

The crowds for the service grow greater every year with the likes of the Dorlings. Last year 50,000 came. It was a record. This year 60,000 arrived. In 2015 – the centenary year – planners are expecting 100,000.

There is a fear in some quarters that the outsized commemoration has morphed into a caricature of remembrance – something bombastic that glosses over nuance and meaning. Not so here at the foot of the Shrine of Remembrance.

Ask Isaac Cosson, who was born in New Zealand and has come to every dawn service in Melbourne for the past decade. He has seen the event change in one way and no other. ''Numbers,'' he said, the eternal flame dancing nearby. ''Numbers is the only difference at all. More and more people. And that can only be good.''

The question for many, however, is whether we have chiselled one dominant narrative in stone at the expense of other rich formative stories. There are pious concessions to this concern. The march was later led by veterans of post-1975 conflicts. The chosen speakers fought at Long Tan and Balibo and Baghdad.

There is a sense that we need to acknowledge the technological terror of new millennium war as much as those who died nearly a century ago.

Bill Mountford is part of the RSL team that runs the parade. He has volunteered since 1992, and has seen the complexion of the veterans shift well beyond those who served on the Turkish peninsula. ''Gallipoli is only one part. There are so many others,'' he said. ''You meet them. And to see the gratification and the emotion on their faces – it’s something worth doing.''

Anzac has become more than our creation myth – it has become our civic religion. April 25 is the date of our communal and secular requiem mass – a ceremony heavy with the stylised rites of our faith.

A new book, Anzac’s Long Shadow by veteran and author James Brown, captures the feelings of many in wondering whether it is right to curate an exorbitant ''festival of the dead'', but this was not that.

The ceremony began at 6am with the familiar rapid fire schedule of hymns, poems, a volley of shots, a minute of silence and a lone bugler.

There was an endearing simplicity in the poppies, the laying of wreaths, the flags at half mast, the gunfire breakfast, and anthems from both sides of the Tasman.

There are current-day advances, of course. Big screens were set up this year, for the distant crowds that spilled out and onto the lawns. Extra lighting was provided, too.

The people brought their own modern touches as well. The flash of cameras from apartment balconies. The blue blink of a hundred smartphones in the crowd. Selfies in the forecourt afterwards.

We have little perspective of what it was like for those who fought in the dust in Oruzgan province, or crawled through the jungles around Nam Dong, and especially not those who died in the Dardanelles.

At the dawn service, we attempt to imagine these Diggers as they were. But with no tangible connection to that past, we are often left searching for bridges that have long since fallen. The repetition of ceremony helps. There is comfort in its short, sharp sameness. The uniquely disastrous Gallipoli campaign lasted nine long and bloody months.

The observance of that event dwelt there – mercifully – only for a moment, long enough to put it in context, long enough only to remember.

Twitter: @KonradMarshall

Email: konrad.marshall@fairfaxmedia.com.au