Summertime in England – with Van the Man

Holidaying in Europe this summer, Adelaide Van Morrison devotee Andrew Robertson finally caught up with his main man in SW England. His report of two Van gigs is such a thoughtful rumination on where Morrison’s live art stands these days, it doesn’t matter that it’s a bit dated:



Some quick context: my only other Van concert was here in Adelaide during his only Australian tour in 1985, so it's been 22 years since I've seen him live. Much has been said and written about that Australian tour, so I won't revisit it here - suffice to say that the fact he hasn't been back probably confirms the reports that it was not a happy experience.

Since 1985 of course, Van has played a huge number of concerts, many of which have been extraordinary. As a listener from afar, I still rate the Caledonia Soul Orchestra of the ITLTSN era as the peak of his live performances, but having said that I would have been very happy to have been in the audience at Montreux 90 or Dublin 96, to name just 2. But it wasn't to be. Instead I found myself at Poole and Plymouth in 2007.

The night before leaving Australia, however, we had the great fortune to see Bob Dylan in Adelaide. Some people thought we were crazy going to a concert the night before a gruelling Adelaide to London journey, but no way would I have missed Dylan. This was his fourth concert in Adelaide in the past 10 years, something Van should try to emulate!

And it was the best - although I reflected afterwards that the set list included none of what I consider Dylan's "icon" songs eg Hard Rain, Desolation Row, Johanna, Watch Tower, Rolling Stone. It wasn't wishful thinking to hope for those songs, because looking at the set lists in the concerts before Adelaide, he alternated between Watch Tower and Rolling Stone as the finale, and had done one of the others in every concert.

In Adelaide he closed with Blowin' in the Wind, a stellar performance and interesting bluesy arrangement that was a fitting end to a great concert.

The standing ovation that followed seemed to go forever, and while the crowd wanted more, one sensed that this ovation was more of an expression of gratitude than a clamour for another song.

It was quite a moving moment, Dylan stood there looking at the audience, doing strange hand movements that were half finger pointing and half thumbs ups. He seemed uncomfortable with the attention, but was graciously accepting it - as if he could feel the honest appreciation being expressed.

To me it felt like the ovation was partly for the great concert he had just delivered, and partly for the lifetime of inspiration he has provided to us all - with a sense that this may have been the last time we'll see him making it all the more important to just say "thanks Bob".

Anyway, as I reflected afterwards, this was a great concert that was Bob's setlist, not mine. It included about half the tracks from Modern Times, his most recent album and as I've said, none of those "drop dead" tracks that have made Dylan Dylan. Even Blowin' in the Wind, as great a song as that is, and as relevant as it still is, has been so popularised that it suffers from the "familiarity syndrome". A bit like Satisfaction for the Stones and, say, Moondance for Van.

Do you see where I'm going with this? This was the perfect concert for me to see before seeing Van, because I knew it was likely that I was going to get a similar concert from him - more of his recent output, less of what I consider to be his "icon" songs, and probably a "popularised" encore. Would I have enjoyed Dylan more if he'd sung my set list? I don't know - but what I do know is that I really loved the concert that he gave, end of story.

Don't get me wrong, there were some great songs - notably Masters of War and John Brown, which along with Blowin' in the Wind gave the concert a bit of an anti-war theme; Lay Lady Lay, You Ain't Going Nowhere, Highway 61 and It's Alright Ma among the oldies; and from Modern Times, Workingman's Blues was probably the highlight of the night, Beyond the Horizon and Ain't Talking were also great. And so on. Incidentally, it was the first ever live performance of Beyond the Horizon - but I didn't find that out until someone at the Poole concert told me (the all pervasiveness of the internet is amazing - there were already people with boots of that concert only 3 days later on the other side of the world).

Enough of Dylan. That was Tuesday night in Adelaide, by Thursday morning we were in London, and on Friday on a train to Poole, which we were told was the venue for the first Pokers and Linda Gail gig - considered by some to have been the end of the era of the last great band of Van's.

Anyway, that's all history, all I know is that Poole was great - and I thought the band was great, particularly the keyboards, pedal steel and violin.

Chris Farlowe joined Van on 6-7 songs and having read posts from people who don't like him, I was initially concerned that this might blow the concert. On the contrary, I enjoyed Farlowe's contributions and also thought he brought the best out of Van. If I could pick one song as my highlight, it was probably Cry for Home with Farlowe doing the "Tom Jones part" as Van put it. Their duets on Sometimes We Cry and Baby Blue were also highlights, as was Tupelo Honey - and indeed Stranded. Perhaps my only complaint about Farlowe's presence was that they encored on Stand By Me and although I like that as a song, I thought our 90 minutes with Van was too precious to spend any of it on a song like Stand By Me (if he'd wanted to do a cover, there were plenty of others I would have preferred).

While Farlowe looks like a bit of a caricature, I thought he sang powerfully and gave a really committed performance which seemed to lift Van to greater heights. Does Tupelo Honey need another singer to duet with Van? In principle, no, but it worked and when Van was belting out "men of granite, men with insight" etc, I felt that it was all the more powerful for having had the other voice leading into it.

Perhaps there have been nights when the two of them make light of it all? If so, Poole wasn't one of those nights. Or perhaps it was simply that this was the first time for me, not the umpteenth - I'm not sure I'd want to see Farlowe again, notwithstanding that I thought he did a great job.

If Cry for Home wasn't THE highlight of the night, it would have been Not Feeling It Any More - a great song, and one that allowed the band to stretch out.

Other highlights included Magic Time, a superb I Can't Stop Loving You (on which Van played piano), Don't Start Crying Now and Little Village. This was an eclectic collection of songs (reminding me of the Dylan concert in that sense). But one that simply worked.

I particularly liked Little Village, and saw how some songs can be so much better live - while it was one of the better songs on WWWTP, I still couldn't really warm to it (perhaps just because of the context - WWWTP was an album I just couldn't get into) however live it became a different song. I know I'm telling most of you what you already know!!

I even enjoyed the so-called Las Vegas version of Have I Told You Lately - what's not to like? Again, perhaps because it was my first time hearing it. Would I have preferred the original arrangement? It's an irrelevant question - just like, would I have preferred the sand on the beach at Positano to have been soft and white like in Australia? If so, I should have stayed home and gone to the beach with an iPod to listen to Avalon Sunset! The fact is, I liked the different arrangement, just as I liked the countrified (banjo driven) Bright Side of the Road. And if Dylan can rearrange Blowin' in the Wind ....

All in all, a great concert. And I was very pleased to hear the other Van fans saying the same after the concert, so it wasn't just me.

A very pleasant drive through the English countryside from Poole to Plymouth for the second Van concert in two nights - most people who knew we were doing that thought we were crazy (including, I suspect, my wife Gayle) but so be it!

Plymouth was spellbinding. And it was a very good decision to go to both - there were 9 different songs at Plymouth. And no Chris Farlowe meant that the dynamic of the night was completely different.

Two highlights: Foreign Window and Celtic New Year that morphed into The Healing Game. These were awesome, and worth the trip on their own. In Healing Game we got a taste of Van taking it down, then bringing it up to a great climax - I can only begin to imagine some of the concerts from days gone by where he's done that to a much greater extent, but what he did that night in Plymouth was, for me, simply wonderful.

Other new songs in Plymouth included Blue & Green, Jackie Wilson, Moondance, Help Me, St James Infirmary and Stop Drinking - with the exception of the latter, a great selection of songs. I've read of people being sick of Moondance - and I will never know how I would react if I'd heard it live 50 times or whatever, but to hear it once was for me a huge highlight. Same with Help Me, which he really delivered on.

This was a seriously good concert - with Little Village again, Foreign Window, Celtic New Year / Healing Game and Blue & Green, it had an ethereal feel to it, interspersed with some rollicking good times with Bright Side and Jackie Wilson, and some sophisticated swing with Moondance and Magic Time. Among the others.

I was rapt - this was the concert I'd come for. And again, after the show, the other Van fans agreed. What was particularly pleasing was how "into it" Van seemed on both nights - and how much sax he played.