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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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CONCERT
REVIEW by Nick Morgan
VAN MORRISON
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Hammersmith
Apollo, London, January 18th 2008
Sometimes
there’s nothing better than being lulled
off to sleep by wonderful music. This hugely indulgent
experience is probably best enjoyed after a great
meal and a couple of pleasant glasses of something,
especially on a Friday night after a long week
back at work. |
| It’s
a long-standing formula, but we put it to the test
yet again with a visit to the
Gate in Hammersmith (one of London’s finest
vegetarian restaurants) and then on to the Apollo,
a few strides away, for an evening with
Van Morrison.
It’s very busy – an interesting combination
of ardent fans, half the clientele of the Irish
Centre over the road, and dark wind-screened, limo-borne
corporate hospitality merchants. |
| Of
course, as many of you realise, you never quite
know what you’re going to get with the sometimes
tempestuous Van Morrison, notoriously uncommunicative,
notoriously prone to stage fright, and notoriously
given to tantrums. When I last saw him back in 1999
at the Fleadh a faulty microphone at his piano drove
him into a fury – the road crew reluctant
to approach for fear of becoming innocent targets
for his rage. There’s no such trouble tonight.
The sound is almost perfect (you should see the
“it’s not my fault boss” expressions
on the band’s faces when there’s even
a hint of feedback) – certainly as good as
it gets for the Apollo. |
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| The
ten-piece band is spread in a semicircle and just
off centre is the Man, grey suited, wide-brimmed
Fedora almost entirely obscuring his face, hands
held close to his sides, fists tightly clenched.
And it’s some band. There’s Van Morrison
veteran John
Platania (he first played with Morrison in 1969
and features on the Moodance album, amongst others)
on guitar and the equally long-serving Crawford
Bell sings and plays guitar (and a mean trumpet
on ‘St James Infirmary’). Prominent
in the arrangements is Sarah Jory’s pedal
steel guitar and the fiddle of Tony Fitzgibbon who
give a pleasing country feel to many of the tunes,
and who, like drummer Neal Wilkinson and bassist
Paul Moore, have been with Morrison since he first
toured his country and western covers album, Pay
the Devil, in 2006. |
 |
Tonight’s
set is more eclectic, going way back in the Morrison
songbook with offerings like the almost inevitable
encore, ‘Gloria’ and ‘Moondance’
(did you know, by the way, that Mr Morrison has
performed the former 638 times on stage, and the
latter 1,010
times?). We’re given a Frank Sinatra cover,
‘This love of mine’, Ray Charles’
‘I can’t stop loving you’ and
the New Orleans classic ‘St James Infirmary’,
with Morrison exchanging saxophone riffs with Bell’s
trumpet. He plays the sax a lot at the start of
the set, and plays it well – former associate
and musical director Georgie
Fame joined the band for a version of ‘Stranded’
early on - and as the evening progresses Morrison
swaps sax for guitar. |
| He
also begins to indulge in some extensive vocal improvisations
– most notably in a mega medley of ‘In
the afternoon’ ‘Ancient highway’
‘Joe Turner sings’ ‘Don't you
make me high’ ‘Raincheck’ and
‘Mystic church’. Part of the vocal callisthenics
involves taking the band down to a whisper, which
he does by flapping his fists behind his back like
an angry puffin. Remarkably you can almost hear
a pin drop. |
Van
Morrison and Georgie Fame |
 |
| And
as he adds these vocal layers and colours to the
songs it’s hard not to be carried away to
what we call the Land of Nod. I’m well gone
during ‘Vanlose Highway’, while the
Photographer drops off during the long medley. Morrison’s
scat singing, picking up vocal phrases – repeating
them, welding them together, taking the band high
and low. Sometimes he’s as quiet as a mouse
– at others it’s as though he has Tourette’s
syndrome. And I think he’s hungry, because
his vocal meanderings take on an increasingly culinary
hue - “I’m going down the Astral Highway
to the Gourmet Buffet for some back street Jelly
Roll”. He flaps to get the band as soft as
they can be, and as the lights fall and the Photographer
gently snores he leaves the stage. It could have
been quite cool had he not bumped into the bass
player, dropped the microphone with a crash, and
woke my companion, amongst many others, with a violent
start (she later claimed to have been dreaming about
eating Golden Wonder crisps in a mystic church).
There are some nervous giggles from the crowd as
the band crane their necks to see if the Man might
return. He does, and he repeats the sequence (without
the mike drop) for ‘And the healing has begun’,
‘Help me’, and finally ‘Gloria’. |
It
is by any standards a good value Van Morrison gig.
Mr M. seems happy (it’s hard to tell), the
band seem happy and the audience are largely ecstatic.
And if you’re a Van Morrison fan you may care
to know he currently has a greatest hits album on
the go (2007’s platinum Still on Top), and
in March will release the entirely self-penned Keep
it Simple. Over forty years, over 35 albums –
whatever they say, he’s some man. -
Nick Morgan (concert photographs by Kate)
Kate's
Van Morrison photo album  |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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