When Laurence discovered he’d accidentally booked tickets to see Don McLean in Dublin instead of the Royal Albert Hall in London, I shrugged. I knew he likely would not be able to sell the tickets on eBay and I felt that the trip would be worth it. I know most people of my generation can’t imagine why a couple in their twenties would go to a McLean concert at all, let alone fly and overnight in a hotel to go.

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But that’s because they don’t understand. I may have been born in the eighties but I’m still in love with the raw authenticity of the seventies. You know: the man alone with his guitar, singing his heart out on the stage, the words which linger long after the notes have faded, the absence of attempt to package him in the right clothes or the right body. I seriously dig it.

But what I’m not so thrilled with is the disappearance of the artist behind the legendary songs. And that’s some of what I felt happened at the Grand Canal Theatre (a truly impressive building) on Sunday night. McLean was like a juke box turning out the old classics. Crying and And I Love You So were breatha of fresh air in this set because they insist upon emotive engagement as were the few songs from his more recent albums Addicted to Black (2010) and Homeless Brother (2009).

He primed the audience from the beginning: he’d start off with a couple of Buddy Holly songs (“the old stuff” as he called it) and then play known and obscure songs from his albums including “that Madonna hit”, which got a laugh all round. Actually, he played American Pie one and a quarter times – a bit much, in my opinion, though the woman two rows in front of me was throwing her hands up in what looked like a spiritual encounter every time the chorus came around.

I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with playing old hits. In fact, when he came back for an encore I was amongst those routing for McLean to sing us Vincent and booing the lone woman who shouted, “Play Castles in the Air!” Don’t bite the hand that feeds you; give the people what they want.

At the same time, when I fell for his music at fourteen, it was the sheer might of the man’s artistry that allured me. On Sunday night, I found myself straining to hear whether it still inhabited him today. It does. When he got out his banjo for the second encore performance (yes, he went away and came out yet again) right at the end, he announced that he was now going to play what he wanted and it was fresh brilliance.

McLean’s voice is still strong and clear, though he cannot make the notes he once could as is expected for a singer of 65. He has earned a friendship with his audience that allows tolerance for all things. In fact, he made a gaffe by telling the Dublin audience that he hoped their prime minister would turn out to be better than George Bush and, aside from one gentleman who tried to inform him that Ireland was not part of the United Kingdom, the crowd seemed unable to be ruffled. It was the forbearance you hold for an old friend.

He clearly knows this is the relationship he has with his audience, since it is made of primarily of fans who have stuck with him since the seventies and agree that he was robbed of Grammy recognition back in the day, though American Pie was finally inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame eight years ago.

And as McLean knows, his songs have a life of their own. They still speak poetry into the pain, fear, loneliness and joy of today.

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Adele Jarrett-Kerr