grumpy ole bastard

It was great to finally see Van Morrison. But I got the impression he wasn’t too pleased to see me.

There are few people left in the music world that I have a burning desire to see. There are a few old farts that I wouldn’t mind seeing still…Clapton maybe, Laurie Anderson, Gabriel, Billy Bruford, Prince, Oasis, King Crimson if they ever got their cool line up back together. That’s really it. The rest are the smaller type guys who might be interesting to see in a club ala the great Tony Levin Todd Rundgren show I saw late last year.

Van Morrison was one of those guys. Have a lot of his albums and even like the more obscure ones. I didn’t go to last night’s concert at the MTS Centre to hear the greatest hits package. I went to see someone who is a great performer, vocalist and someone who has a great body of work from which to draw on. Someone who is adept at reinterpreting his own songs. I also realize he is sixty and hardly likely to blow the roof off the place but… who thought you would leave a Van Morrison concert and be home in bed, sober, at 10.20?

As Sick Boy says in the film Trainspotting “he was good but not great.??? The sound was way too low for that size venue. And the band was, well just way too mellow. That might have been a great show for the Folk Festival, outside, warm summer night, sun going down type feel…but for an arena on a cold Thursday night the show didn’t cut it. I heard some people say they really loved it and the laid back vibe of the whole show. I am not sure I would go to Van Morrison to be laid back. He’s not a jazz singer. He a full out blues, soul, rock singer.

Van’s voice was great although that mumble got tiring after a while — there were a couple of sings that if you didn’t know the riff already you would not have recognized from the lyrics which for the entire evening were unintelligible. But then Van has always been that way I guess. I was impressed by the amount of sax he played…he is a great sax player I’ll give him that. But the band while tight really didn’t get going …just noodled through songs, hardly rocking out or pushing it. Restrained would be how I describe them. A great contrast was Dylan a couple of years ago when he brought along Charlie Sexton to liven things up. And even Morriosn has toured with Georgie Fame and Candy Dulfer to liven things up. (mmm Candy Dulfer….but i digress)

And how many freakin’ piano, violin and steel guitar solos can you fit into one concert? In fact, every song had one of each.  I think last night set the record for most bass solos. My rule for bass solos is one is two too many. And the solos hardly blew anyone’s socks off. It really did seem like people jamming in a kitchen. Which might have been what Morrison was going for, and he might feel ok about charging 150 bucks for people to join him in his kitchen but it was a bit rich to charge that much and then put on that type of show in an arena.

He wasn’t going to do a greatest hits thing — he always does obscure stuff from his back catalgue and a few old standards mixed in, which is to be expected and that is fine as he usually does awesome renditions. Last night featured, oddly, nothing from the new album but a bunch of songs from “What’s Wrong With This Picture” of a couple of years ago. But he didn’t really come up with anything exciting for me.  And I am not sure I was alone, as the crowd really didn’t get into it until he played one of the more famous hits ‘Domino,’ and then rather than run with energy that generated he just slowed it down again. Finally, the show wrapped it up with an encore of sorts which consisted of  ‘Gloria’ and ‘Brown Eyed Girl.’ And to be frank, he really looked like he couldn’t be arsed about doing the hits at the end. It was an obligatory run through. Gee.Ardh.Arggh.Arggglll. Eyeyeyeye. Gaaaaaarghieeey eh. It seemed exciting at the time because the rest of the show was so slow. So no ‘Wild Nights,’ no ‘Have I Told You Lately,’ no ‘Here Comes the Night’ nothing from “Astral Weeks’ nothing from his last album oddly, no ‘Caravan,’ no “Jackie Wilson Said’ no “Queen of the Slipstream’ and most disappointingly no “Into The Mystic’ etc…

Apparently, Morrison does a 90 minutes set not a second more…If that is the case I would like to get my 90 minutes of Van Morrison and not 20 minutes of Morrison and 110 minutes of  Hammond organ solos.

Here is the set list:  My Own Business (band only) T-Bone Shuffle (band only). Wavelength. All Work and No Play. Stranded. Whinin’ Boy Moan/Symphony Sid. Domino. Little Village. They Sold Me Out. Cleaning Windows. In the Midnight. Baby Please Don’t Go. Days Like This. Moondance. St. James Infirmary. Goin’ Down Geneva/Brand New Cadillac. Help Me. Brown Eyed Girl. Gloria