Live at the Marquee: Paul Simon

HE never achieved the kind of God-like adulation accorded to Dylan, and Paul Simon may have played Martha to the Minnesotan’s Mary, but in terms of legacy, the 70-year-olds are level pegging.

In Cork, however, Simon is in the ascendant because tickets for his gig sold out faster than Dylan’s, based on the expectation of a better effort on the New Yorker’s part than Dylan’s notoriously diffident efforts on stage.

Simon mines the same vein of public and private angst that Dylan does, but moves from major social topics to private grief in the blink of an eye against the background of a driving, optimistic rhythm.