Donovan in Cork review: Folk legend brings 1960s hits to home county for 80th birthday
Donovan played in Cork on Saturday as part of a tour to mark his 80th birthday.
★★★★☆
Folk-pop icon Donovan’s singing voice may be somewhat diminished by age, but his sharp wit and yarn-spinning skills more than compensate in this storytelling masterclass in the Everyman, Cork, on Saturday night.
The last of six Irish revival shows as Donovan marks “my 80th summer travelling around the sun”, this was a fittingly victorious homecoming for the psychedelic Scotsman who has lived for the past 30 years and more in an old rectory house near Mallow, Co Cork.
His spoken voice and diction are compelling. His recall is total, seemingly enhanced rather than hindered by the truckloads of cannabis that are a constant in his 1960s anecdotes. The stories are hippy, trippy and totally stellar, all heavily populated with tie-dyed music icons, all gently seasoned with hallucinogens.
The scene: A peaceful, quiet Sunday morning in 1966, his flat in London, no cars, no people on the streets. Donovan has a new tape recorder and he’s busily writing songs. Ding dong, who could that be at the front door?
“It was Paul McCartney dressed up in his suit and tie, with his guitar in hand, so I let him in. What are you doing? Writing songs. So am I. Paul says he can’t come up with a line to finish a song for Ringo. I go into the bathroom with my guitar and I come back a minute later. Yellow Submarine.”
Donovan does a great Mersey accent, plays a phrase from which Paul had yet to finish writing.
Ding dong. Who can be at the door now? It’s a young bobby, shocked to be greeted by a real life Beatle. “It’s you, Mr McCartney, he says and he bows and scrapes. ‘Is it like that for you all the time now?’ I ask Paul. ‘Yes, they think we’re royalty.’ The young copper says ‘Is that your car down the street, with the door left open and the radio on, one wheel up on the footpath?’ Yes, it is. ‘If you would like to give me the keys, I’ll park it properly for you, Mr McCartney.”
Another yarn features Donovan headlining a seaside promo show on a bill that also includes The Who (water-pistol-toting Roger Daltrey and Keith ‘Moon the Loon’ are in the orchestra pit squirting up at Donovan during his one-song set, his debut hit ); The Walker Brothers; a comedian and a ventriloquist, a nodge of weed that goes missing on the beach as 150 screaming girls run after Donovan and his mate Gypsy, they try to hide out in Billy Fury’s B&B, everyone is running away from a snowballing intersecting hordes of screaming girls; Peter Noone is in the loo ("What was his band called again?" muses Donovan. "The Tremblers," says a member of the Everyman audience); Graham Nash turns up in the story; and right at the very end so too does the missing nodge. “And that’s my story,” concludes Donovan.
It reads like some legendary lost episode of but it has that strong odour of truth about it, one that no deodorant can soften.
Donovan looks fantastic, every inch the Sunshine Superman, the mane of Goldilocks, resplendent in his cool gear and funky green guitar. His guitaring is as rhythmic as ever, beautiful clean finger-picking. And he’s sharp as a pin with those stories.
Above all of this, his bravery and endurance win the day with this hugely appreciative audience. He is helped onto the dimly-lit stage by two torch-wielding aides. The lights stay dim all night. The hush is respectful, it is also admiring.
The tremolo in his ageing singing voice probably dictates some of the song choices, but he does play most of his hits, along with a selection of jazz and trad compositions, along with other poetic and quixotic found items that he has accumulated over the decades.
The setlist included: and The highlight was the audience singing every word of
A guest appearance by legendary folk guitarist Steve Cooney brought beautiful colour to the middle section of Donovan’s set. John Blek’s warm-up set was excellent. A fine night all round, in the presence of a true legend.
