THE first time I went to see Donovan in a live performance he didn’t turn up. The last time, nine days ago, he didn’t come back.

Absent in the first instance, a full half century ago, was the man himself. He simply didn’t appear, as I shall explain presently.

Missing in the second was the expected encore. Having mimed his way through Mellow Yellow as a climax to his show at Oxford Town Hall, he vamoosed, leaving some of his audience puzzled and feeling slightly short-changed.

He had a date, I think, at a party. A gentleman I was surprised to see in the audience – OK, it was Brian Mountford, former Vicar of the University Church – said he was off to the 70th birthday celebrations of Donovan’s US representative, so I suppose the singer would have been heading there too.

Why the star didn’t grace the Palais dance hall in Peterborough, on July 3, 1965, was never explained. The guess of disappointed members of the audience was that he was probably off his face.

The Scots lad, still only 18, had a notoriously rackety lifestyle with best pal Gypsy Dave, as he has revealed in his excellent autobiography, The Hurdy Gurdy Man, published 10 years ago. Alcohol or drugs were presumed to have left him indisposed.

What I did instead of watching the concert, I can’t remember. I certainly wouldn’t have gone to the pub, as I was only 13.

Donovan eventually performed a month later, when his recent hits Catch the Wind and Colours of course featured (as they did, as opening numbers, last Tuesday).

The star was garbed in his trademark denims, with ‘Donovan cap’ in place. His guitar carried the legend: “This machine kills.” The words were, of course, borrowed from Woody Guthrie, with his final ‘fascists’ eliminated.

Whether this was my first ‘pop’ concert I cannot say. In view of my age, very probably.

The experience certainly helped me towards forming a somewhat dim view of certain artists in respect of their attitude to fans.

My impression that some can feel a certain contempt for their audience was strengthened after a concert in 1972 by the rocker Jerry Lee Lewis, at which he climaxed – to the fury of fans hoping for Great Balls of Fire – with a rendition of The Old Rugged Cross delivered from atop his grand piano. He was in religious mood at the time.

On Tuesday, at the start of his act, Donovan told us that his 50th anniversary tour was a present for his fans. An unusual present, I thought, for which the recipient pays.

In giving this tribute to his admirers, he compared himself with Neil Young, one of many stars name-checked through the evening, which developed into a sort of who’s who of 1960s music.

The Young comparison struck a chord with me who, on entering the hall and clocking the aged audience assembled, found myself singing the first line of his Ambulance Blues: “Back in the old folky days. The air was magic when we played.”

Magic was what Donovan went on to provide in a set which, since he was alone, was largely confined to the star in his folky days, rather than his later, more experimental stuff, featuring much electrical stuff and collaborators like Jeff Beck and Ronnie Wood.

I have my own memories of the Donovan of this period, having been present at the Woburn Music Festival, on the Sunday afternoon of July 7, 1968, when he captivated the massive crowd assembled.

He was into his act when I arrived. The urgent rhythm of his Mad John’s Escape greeted me as I stepped through the audience, bangles and beads in place, the smell of joss sticks and Lebanese gold hash heavy in the air.

This and other of his fine songs helped supply the soundtrack of my youth, indeed my life.

Donovan was important, ahead of others in many ways, though perhaps not ahead of the man with whom he was so often to be compared.

Mr Leitch disagrees, writing of Bob Dylan in The Hurdy Gurdy Man: “His lyrics are without equal in all of popular music, but I think that I am the more creative and influential.”

Mellow Yellow versus Like a Rolling Stone? Posterity will decide.