Thomond Park, Limerick Sun Jul 4, 2pm €81.25, €70.70, €65.70, €60 0818-719300

God forbid if you dare to criticise Bob Dylan; his often too fervid fans come out of the woodwork every time he sets foot in Ireland, and choose not to see that their hero not only has feet of clay but that sometimes they’re stuck firmly in the mud.

There is no point in denying that the man has an incredible back catalogue, and that a reasonable portion of this catalogue constitutes some of the building blocks of contemporary music, but Dylan has surely now reached the point in his career where his live shows (and not his studio albums) straddle the divide between farce, tragedy and very little enlightenment.

And yet only an idiot would completely write him off. Maverick, mercurial, whimsical and a bit of a genius – his previous live appearance in Ireland was last year at Dublin’s O2 where he phoned in a gig of such staggering banality it could have been viewed as a type of performance art.

This time? Well, he could be brilliant.

Who knows? Not even Dylan himself, perhaps?

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AirThursday, Belfast