Recommendations of the Editorial team
Three days after wowing audiences at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall with Van Morrison’s 2016 deep cut “Going Down to Bangor,” Bob Dylan went even further back in music history – about 180 years to be exact – andnd performed the traditional folk ballad “The Lakes of Pontchartrain” at the INEC Arena in Killarney, Ireland.
Irish standard with American roots
Unlike “Going Down to Bangor,” Dylan has performed “The Lakes of Pontchartrain” at previous concerts, but the last time was 34 years ago. He performed the song for the first time on June 7, 1988, when the Never Ending Tour began in Concord, California. The last time he played it was on July 6, 1991 at Holman Stadium in Nashua, New Hampshire.
“The Lakes of Pontchartrain” originally comes from America and refers directly to New Orleans and the surrounding region. Irish folk group Planxty revived the song on their 1974 LP Cold Blow and the Rainy Night, making it an Irish standard. So Dylan picked him up again in Killarney.
Cover versions of local favorites as a trademark
This isn’t the first time Dylan has surprised audiences with covers of local favorites. Already in 2023 he played a series of concerts where he covered Chuck Berry in St. Louis, Muddy Waters in Chicago, John Mellencamp in Indianapolis, Leonard Cohen in Montreal and many others. He also played so many Grateful Dead covers that year that many fans speculated he was recording some sort of Dead cover album. If that was the case, it hasn’t appeared yet.
Tour continues
Dylan’s tour continues with a second show in Killarney on Monday night before finishing in Dublin on Tuesday. There are no official dates yet for next year, but Dylan has already announced that he will be playing more Rough and Rowdy Ways shows. Let’s hope he sticks with these surprising covers. “Rough and Rowdy Ways” is great, but he’s already played many of these songs about 275 times. The show is much more fun when there is at least one surprise, even if it’s a 2016 Van Morrison song or an early 19th century folk ballad.
We’d like to see him play real deep cuts from his own repertoire, including most of the music he recorded between 1967 and 1997, but we know that just won’t happen. He’s more likely to play Van Morrison’s 2021 song “Why Are You on Facebook” than he is to play something from Street Legal or Empire Burlesque.