By
Kevin McGrath
Submitted On February 15, 2016
Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Bob Dylan and then who? Marvin Gaye?
Brian Wilson? or, perhaps, Aretha Franklin, to take their place
alongside those legendary figureheads on Rock 'n' Roll's very own Mount
Rushmore? Well, my own vote would go to the iconic Van Morrison (in fact
I'd put him front and centre of that monumental line-up). The facts -
Morrison is the recipient of a half-dozen Grammys and a Lifetime
Achievement Award from the Brits, as well as having been inducted into
the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame and its equally prestigious song-writing
equivalent - don't, by themselves, fully explain the esteem in which
Morrison has been held by successive generations of fans, critics and
musicians alike. Ultimately, of course, it's about the songs and whether
they stand the test of time. It's fair to say that come jukebox jury
judgement day, Morrison won't exactly be quaking in his boots.
Morrison's record matches up to any other songwriter in the rock 'n' roll era, having penned classics like "Gloria", "Brown Eyed Girl", "Moondance", "Listen to the Lion", "Domino", "Into the Mystic", and "Madame George" before he'd even reached his 25th birthday! What's more, these songs are still only the tip of a magnificent iceberg; there are countless other Morrison compositions that stand comparison with anything in the pantheon of popular music. Van sings the blues, soul, country, Jazz and good old-fashioned rock 'n' roll with a truly unimpeachable conviction. Forget the debate that rages over the significance of his stream of consciousness poetry, his toe-curling mysticism and his unappealing personality. It's always been about his songs.
Part of the ritual of attending a Van Morrison gig is the anticipation that he'll play one of your absolute favourites, something way out of left-field that he's seldom performed before, balanced against the palpable frustration afterwards, when you ruminate on a set full of middle-of-the-road material ("Stranded" and "Magic Time", anybody?), of what might have been.
Judging by the fascinating website Setlist.FM, which gives a running total of Morrison's live performances, we can expect to hear Moondance, a song which has become part of the easy-listening lexicon and which Morrison has performed a grand total of 233 times, but not the enchanting "And it Stoned Me", which inexcusably, Morrison has only played a paltry six times in 45 years!
The first surprise of the evening comes when the band takes to the stage. Morrison is backed by a small, five-piece combo, which incredibly, given his reputation as the best arranger of horns in the business, doesn't include a brass section. Morrison himself does all the heavy lifting, doubling up on the saxophone on virtually every number. It's a tribute to the quality of the ensemble, ably led by musical director Paul Moran who contributes on piano, organ and trumpet, (sometimes all in the same song!), that the often unfamiliar arrangements work so well.
The gig started with perfunctory versions of "Higher than the World" and "Close Enough for Jazz" but really caught fire with an extremely rare take of the glorious "Full Force Gale" (only the ninth performance ever!) from the much underrated album Into the Music (1979) and a scintillating duet with backing singer Dana Masters on "Carrying a Torch".
Morrison is joined on stage, mid-way through his set, by P.J. Proby for a tub-thumping duet of the Sam Cooke's classic "Bring it on Home", which turned out to be one of the highlights of the evening.
Indeed, this was a gig where Morrison was keen to emphasis his R&B roots and happy, even, to dust down some of his quintessential Them songs. There was a blistering reprise of "Baby Please Don't Go", a top-ten hit in 1965, which segued perfectly into the prison blues of Parchman Farm and there were unbelievably thrilling renditions, too, of Morrison favourites "Turn on Your Love-light" (Bobby Bland) and "I Believe in my Soul" (Ray Charles), the latter having been a staple of his live shows in the halcyon days of the legendary Caledonia Soul Orchestra.
While the accent tonight was firmly on Morrison's affection for the blues, there was still time for a sublimely sympathetic rendition of the Tony Bennett classic "Who can I Turn To?" which Sinatra himself would have been proud of, a well-received "Whenever God Shines his Light" as well as a predictably re-jigged, but entirely acceptable version, of "Moondance" ( Van's thankfully never fallen into Dylan' self-indulgent trap of making his re-worked songs entirely unrecognisable to the average fan). A fine gig, then, but The Belfast Cowboy still had a trick or two up his sleeve that made for a stunning finale.
Astral Weeks has long been my favourite album, but I've never been lucky enough to witness even a single performance of any of its eight tracks in thirty years of attending Van Morrison concerts. Even when Morrison recorded Astral Weeks live at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009 and embarked on a world tour to promote it, he had run out of steam by the time he rolled up at the Welsh Millennium Centre, refusing to play anything from it at all! Even during his sequence of majestic gigs at the King's Hotel in Newport in the nineties, when he was often at his most animated and inspired and where, on one memorable occasion, he jumped off the stage in the middle of "Gloria" and broke into a verse of "Auld Lang Syne", did he ever contemplate knocking out something from Astral Weeks!
So, I refused to believe my ears when the band began to strike up "Ballerina", perhaps the greatest song on that landmark album. It was an impassioned, almost delirious reading of the song, ending with Morrison standing alone in the wings, repeating over and over again the spellbinding new lyric, '22 blocks high in the concrete jungle / here comes the fuzz'. It was surreal and supremely moving, certainly worth the thirty year wait. To round off an excellent gig, Morrison encored with another masterpiece the soul-stirring "Into the Mystic"; perhaps the greatest of all his songs.
With Duets; Re -working the Catalogue still nestled in the top 50, it was perhaps a surprise that tonight's two-hour show featured only three songs ("Higher Than the World", "Carrying a Torch" and "Whatever Happened to P.J. Proby") from his well received 40th studio album). Morrison, of course, has always been something of a conscientious objector when it comes to voluntarily enlisting in the promotion of his own records, and whilst he's sometimes taken his un-civil disobedience to notorious extremes, there is surely something admirable about an artist who's refused to "sell out" for over half a century.
Ultimately, this was an engaging set, one which covered most of the phases of Morrison's unique career, albeit with a refreshing emphasis on the blues. Morrison was in fine voice throughout and he put his heart and soul into each and every number. What more could you ask of the old champion?
Morrison's record matches up to any other songwriter in the rock 'n' roll era, having penned classics like "Gloria", "Brown Eyed Girl", "Moondance", "Listen to the Lion", "Domino", "Into the Mystic", and "Madame George" before he'd even reached his 25th birthday! What's more, these songs are still only the tip of a magnificent iceberg; there are countless other Morrison compositions that stand comparison with anything in the pantheon of popular music. Van sings the blues, soul, country, Jazz and good old-fashioned rock 'n' roll with a truly unimpeachable conviction. Forget the debate that rages over the significance of his stream of consciousness poetry, his toe-curling mysticism and his unappealing personality. It's always been about his songs.
Part of the ritual of attending a Van Morrison gig is the anticipation that he'll play one of your absolute favourites, something way out of left-field that he's seldom performed before, balanced against the palpable frustration afterwards, when you ruminate on a set full of middle-of-the-road material ("Stranded" and "Magic Time", anybody?), of what might have been.
Judging by the fascinating website Setlist.FM, which gives a running total of Morrison's live performances, we can expect to hear Moondance, a song which has become part of the easy-listening lexicon and which Morrison has performed a grand total of 233 times, but not the enchanting "And it Stoned Me", which inexcusably, Morrison has only played a paltry six times in 45 years!
The first surprise of the evening comes when the band takes to the stage. Morrison is backed by a small, five-piece combo, which incredibly, given his reputation as the best arranger of horns in the business, doesn't include a brass section. Morrison himself does all the heavy lifting, doubling up on the saxophone on virtually every number. It's a tribute to the quality of the ensemble, ably led by musical director Paul Moran who contributes on piano, organ and trumpet, (sometimes all in the same song!), that the often unfamiliar arrangements work so well.
The gig started with perfunctory versions of "Higher than the World" and "Close Enough for Jazz" but really caught fire with an extremely rare take of the glorious "Full Force Gale" (only the ninth performance ever!) from the much underrated album Into the Music (1979) and a scintillating duet with backing singer Dana Masters on "Carrying a Torch".
Morrison is joined on stage, mid-way through his set, by P.J. Proby for a tub-thumping duet of the Sam Cooke's classic "Bring it on Home", which turned out to be one of the highlights of the evening.
Indeed, this was a gig where Morrison was keen to emphasis his R&B roots and happy, even, to dust down some of his quintessential Them songs. There was a blistering reprise of "Baby Please Don't Go", a top-ten hit in 1965, which segued perfectly into the prison blues of Parchman Farm and there were unbelievably thrilling renditions, too, of Morrison favourites "Turn on Your Love-light" (Bobby Bland) and "I Believe in my Soul" (Ray Charles), the latter having been a staple of his live shows in the halcyon days of the legendary Caledonia Soul Orchestra.
While the accent tonight was firmly on Morrison's affection for the blues, there was still time for a sublimely sympathetic rendition of the Tony Bennett classic "Who can I Turn To?" which Sinatra himself would have been proud of, a well-received "Whenever God Shines his Light" as well as a predictably re-jigged, but entirely acceptable version, of "Moondance" ( Van's thankfully never fallen into Dylan' self-indulgent trap of making his re-worked songs entirely unrecognisable to the average fan). A fine gig, then, but The Belfast Cowboy still had a trick or two up his sleeve that made for a stunning finale.
Astral Weeks has long been my favourite album, but I've never been lucky enough to witness even a single performance of any of its eight tracks in thirty years of attending Van Morrison concerts. Even when Morrison recorded Astral Weeks live at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009 and embarked on a world tour to promote it, he had run out of steam by the time he rolled up at the Welsh Millennium Centre, refusing to play anything from it at all! Even during his sequence of majestic gigs at the King's Hotel in Newport in the nineties, when he was often at his most animated and inspired and where, on one memorable occasion, he jumped off the stage in the middle of "Gloria" and broke into a verse of "Auld Lang Syne", did he ever contemplate knocking out something from Astral Weeks!
So, I refused to believe my ears when the band began to strike up "Ballerina", perhaps the greatest song on that landmark album. It was an impassioned, almost delirious reading of the song, ending with Morrison standing alone in the wings, repeating over and over again the spellbinding new lyric, '22 blocks high in the concrete jungle / here comes the fuzz'. It was surreal and supremely moving, certainly worth the thirty year wait. To round off an excellent gig, Morrison encored with another masterpiece the soul-stirring "Into the Mystic"; perhaps the greatest of all his songs.
With Duets; Re -working the Catalogue still nestled in the top 50, it was perhaps a surprise that tonight's two-hour show featured only three songs ("Higher Than the World", "Carrying a Torch" and "Whatever Happened to P.J. Proby") from his well received 40th studio album). Morrison, of course, has always been something of a conscientious objector when it comes to voluntarily enlisting in the promotion of his own records, and whilst he's sometimes taken his un-civil disobedience to notorious extremes, there is surely something admirable about an artist who's refused to "sell out" for over half a century.
Ultimately, this was an engaging set, one which covered most of the phases of Morrison's unique career, albeit with a refreshing emphasis on the blues. Morrison was in fine voice throughout and he put his heart and soul into each and every number. What more could you ask of the old champion?
Kevin McGrath writes for the respected cultural commentary website http://www.walesartsreview.org/. His blog http://www.kgmcgrath.tumblr.com covers a variety of musical genres and is essential reading for news of the best new bands in Wales.
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