Bob Dylan at the Marquee in Cork

It doesn't get much better than this! Bob Dylan ending his first concert after turning 70 with Forever Young and the Cork crowd singing back
May you stay forever young.
And he enjoyed it, standing stage front, no guitar, just harmonica, lapping it up.

A great concert, one of the best ever I thought but I could be biased. The venue is great, lots of parking, well organised, lots of space, a good seat and a great crowd - exactly as it was when I saw him there on his last visit.

The show started at four minutes past eight and from the start it was clear Bob was engaged, happy, and in great form. We had heard he had been spotted in west Cork a day or two previously so the scenery must have agreed with him. He looked well, did a lot of stage-front facing the audience, throwing shapes.

A nice setlist, starting with Gonna Change my Way of Thinking and including many of the great hits and a few from recent albums. He sang two of the Mississippi-floods apocalyptic-doom songs discussed at the recent Bristol conference The Levee's Gonna Break and High Water.

Apart from the finale the stand out song was a terrific Tangled Up in Blue sung as I have never heard it before. Centre stage, it was as if Bob was saying Come here, I have this fantastic story to tell and he told it with a slow paced delivery which gave a completely new feeling to the song.

There's a harmless little piece on the Irish Times website about the concert, most of which could have been written without attending the show. The picture isn't from the Cork concert - he wore a black hat.

Anyway as you might gather I enjoyed the night!