By Eoghan McSweeney

Bob Dylan, one of the world’s most highly regarded, gifted and influential songwriters, became the biggest musician to ever play in Killarney.

The singer, who is estimated to have sold over 125 million records globally over the span of his six-decade long career, played at the INEC on November 23 and 24 during his Rough and Rowdy Ways worldwide tour.

These gigs are considered a part of his iconic Never-Ending Tour that has been ongoing since June 7, 1988.

Mr Dylan blessed the Killarney crowd with an impressive and mystifying performance in the tight, intimate and atmospheric venue of the INEC.

The display by Dylan and his band was subject to ubiquitously rave reviews which left all that were in attendance come to the common conclusion that “Dylan still has it.”

The setlist that lead to such praise sixty years into his career included songs like I Contain Multitudes, Key West (Philosopher Pirate), It Ain’t Me Babe and finished with a cover of Paul Brady’s Lakes of Pontchartrain with each song being greeted with an enthusiastic standing ovation upon conclusion.

Similar verdicts ensued from the other shows that featured in the Irish leg of his tour which were in The Waterfront Theatre in Belfast and Dublin’s 3Arena, where the 84-year-old Dylan closed the gig with a rendition of The Pogues’s Rainy Night in Soho in a touching tribute to Irish music great Shane MacGowan.

As the crowd, consisting of both long-time listeners and younger fans who were discovering Bob Dylan anew, shuffled into Killarney’s premium venue to witness the most notable concert in the town’s history, phones were sealed away in pouches and photographers were prohibited.

We currently live in a time where almost every concert is documented to the degree that its happenings can be revisited at any moment or even be vicariously experienced by people living anywhere across the globe.

But there is a beautiful sense of irony in the fact that it is the most prominent and impressive show to ever take place in the INEC and its memory is permanently untouched and unavailable to anyone not in attendance, leaving this once-in-a-lifetime show to live purely in the memories of those who were lucky enough to be there for either one of the two nights.

These exceptional circumstances were perfect to curate even more of an “in group” who will always be able to say “I was there” regarding Killarney’s most talked about and high-profile concert. In a way, it is the lack of memories from this titanic show, that make it special.