Bob Dylan review: A moving Shane MacGowan tribute among the highlights at 3Arena, Dublin  

Bob Dylan completed his series of gigs in Ireland with a concert at 3Arena, Dublin, on Tuesday 

 A file picture of Bob Dylan, who played 3Arena in Dublin on Tuesday.  (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty)

Bob Dylan, 3Arena, Dublin,  ★★★☆☆

I invited my 19-year-old daughter along. “Do I want to see Bob Dylan? That’s like asking me if I want to go see Jesus!” And there’s the thing. Dylan is such a monumental figure in music, in world culture in general, that we venerate him like a religious icon. And forgive him a lot.

I’ve been going to see Dylan, at every opportunity, since 1991, but there’s no getting around the fact he’s hit and miss live. Sticking to much the same setlist as Belfast and Killarney, there were peerless classics like Desolation Row and It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue, but the cheers from a crammed and reverent 3Arena that recognised phrases in the former were surely for such a song existing at all rather than Dylan’s garbling of it. The latter was played as if by someone who’d heard of it but hadn’t actually heard it rather than by the godhead who miraculously created it.

Some reinterpretations worked. Bolting the Puttin’ On The Ritz riff to When I Paint My Masterpiece added to its Los Lobos on a bender feel although another solo from Dylan’s piano didn’t help. The opening I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight had a winning roadhouse groove to it and To Be Alone With You swung thanks to Tony Garnier’s double bass.

A recent image of Bob Dylan in concert. (Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images)

The shuffling Watching The River Flow provided an instant nod along moment, although again the piano seemed to belong to a different song, much like Dylan’s only guitar-playing of the evening which sought the appropriate key during the intro to It Ain’t Me Babe.

  Rough And Rowdy Ways (2020), which formed the majority of the set, is a great record, and My Own Version Of You, played by a straining-at-the-leash band, and a beautifully confident I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You, which featured Dylan’s best singing of the evening, stood out. Sadly, one of the album’s best songs, Key West (Philosopher Pirate), dragged without the faint but crucial drums of the recorded version.

And then with his voice coming fully back to him he gave out a gorgeous, moving Every Grain Of Sand, complete with heavenly harmonica, and finished with a rousing, respectful, and melodically perfect cover of The Pogues’ A Rainy Night In Soho. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. 

You realised that, Holy God, you’re in a room with Bob Dylan! I enjoyed every precious, raggedly-charming second. We won’t see his like again.