Live Report: James Taylor Takes Home an Irish Flag

James Taylor is taking an Irish flag back to the US. During the course of his show at 3Arena on Monday night, the superstar American singer-songwriter was asked by a female fan to sign a tricolour – which he duly did. Then, job done, he politely asked the fan could he keep it! She let him have the flag. It was, you might speculate, an honour to be the source of a gift to a true American gentleman.

Taylor’s gesture hardly came as a surprise. In garrulous form throughout the evening, explaining the background to his songs in a humorous, self-deprecating style, and generally entertaining with his informed, intelligent and witty patter, he also made a point of saying how grateful he was to be back in Dublin – for a gig that, because of the intervention of Covid, had been more than three years in the planning, and rescheduled a number of times.

Taylor opened with ’Something In the Way She Moves’ from his eponymous 1968 debut album. That was followed by ‘Country Road’ from Sweet Baby James, and the title track from his 1974 album Walking Man. It is a measure of James Taylor’s extraordinary popularity – with over 200 million album sales, he is one of the best-selling artists of all time – that every song felt like a hit.

The first half of the show featured the iconic 'Sweet Baby James’, as well as the powerful ‘Millworker’ – written by Taylor for the Broadway musical Working, it has since been covered by numerous artists including Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen, Bette Middler, Eddie Vedder and Jennifer Warnes. But there is something uniquely poignant in Taylor’s intense delivery.

His voice remains a lovely, well-tuned instrument – age adding depth and lustre. He returned after the interlude – during which he signed autographs for fans – with a cover of a jazz song with lyrics by Sammy Cahn, 'Teach Me Tonight’, originally made famous by Dinah Washington in 1955. And there were other covers – of the John Sheldon song ‘Bittersweet’ (a huge hit for Taylor in 2003), and during the encore, both his own Carole King-written classic ‘You’ve Got A Friend’ and a delicious cover of the Holland-Dozier-Holland classic with which Marvin Gaye had a hit (as did both Junior Walker and the All Stars and Taylor himself), ‘How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)’.

But there were other Taylor-written classics too. ‘Fire and Rain’ is one of the great early ‘70s songs and his version in 3Arena was unforgettable. So too with ‘Carolina In My Mind’, also from his debut album. "Can't you see the sunshine?,” he sang, "Can't you just feel the moonshine?” Even indoors in the 3Arena, the answer was a resounding ‘Yes!’.

He finished with ‘Your Smiling Face’, a hit single from the 1977 LP JT, before being called back for three encores. 'You’ve Got A Friend’ and 'How Sweet It Is’ accounted for, he brought the night to a close with 'Song For You Far Away’, from That’s Why I’m Here, released in 1985.

There is a palpable sadness to the song that resonated for an audience that has itself seen fire and rain – and a whole lot more besides.

"Mention your name, and I'm gone again,” he sang, "Oh, I'm gone again/ This is a song for you far away from me/ And you're far away from me/ Talking about far away/ Far away from me…"

Not tonight though. This was a warm and inspiring concert from one of music’s gentlemen. Long may he flourish – and wave the Irish flag he took away with him… – HMcC