Bob Dylan
3Arena, Dublin
★★★★☆
As a young songwriter in the 1960s, Bob Dylan represented the future of both music and culture itself – but during an often fascinating, sometimes idiosyncratic show at Dublin’s 3Arena, he is an artist moving backwards through time.
On the latest leg of an Irish tour that has included dates in Belfast and Killarney, Dylan rewinds to the pre-rock’n’roll era with an evening dominated by bluesy reworkings and country-style meanderings. Dylan has gone eclectic, and – in ways both gripping and baffling – it is something to behold
What there isn’t much to behold of is the artist himself, who spends much of the two-hour set behind his piano. Now and then his bristly outline surfaces – and occasionally there is a smile. More often, this is an icon content to have the spotlight elsewhere.
Still, the audience is respectful and solemn – aware perhaps that, aged 84, Dylan won’t be touring forever. They coo appreciatively as he starts with the earthy, roiling one-two of I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight and It Ain’t Me Babe. However, the set list is dominated by Rough and Rowdy Ways, his 2020 rumination on the creative process and his place within it.
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These aren’t songs in a conventional sense. Instead, Dylan – his voice now a soft and not unpleasant rasp – reflects on art, life and what they do or don’t mean while his band nod and noodle. If this gig contained any more jams, you could put them on your toast.
The hits arrive as warped and rollicking distortions of the originals. Desolation Row from Highway 61 Revisited is reimagined as a shamanic rap that sends the Dylan die-hards into paroxysms.
In such moments, there are glimmers of the dangerous charisma that made him so adored – and which was the driving energy behind the Oscar-nominated Timothée Chalamet biopic A Complete Unknown.
In Killarney, Dylan performed The Lakes of Pontchartrain, a traditional air made famous by Paul Brady. In Dublin, he pays tribute to his late friend Shane MacGowan with a dusky take on The Pogues A Rainy Night in Soho.
Having sat largely in silence through the previous two hours, it is an excuse for the crowd to spring to its feet as Dylan serves up yet another helping of meditative medicine for the soul.
