In a concert of two halves, the band and Van himself, began slowly with a quick and apparently obligatory sprint through "the hits". Gradually though, they warmed up ... and boy did they, reaching an excited, expectant peak before an intermission.
The second half, Astral Weeks in it's entirety, melted into a solid, vibrant version of "Astral Weeks", and the album as a whole melted forth. Beside You - still my favourite track, seemed as tragically brief as ever... while Sweet Thing spiralled out into a bigger, newer, happier version of itself.
As the show progressed, Morrison was consumed - it's hard to know whether he's even aware we're there too - which is no bad thing at all. We were swept and carried along... like the best jazz it takes you away on a journey.
Most of his music is built on a blues groove abstracted out into jazz. In the enormous combined wealth of life and experience melded into his band, there are echo's of everything; sometimes it's old-time soul, other's it's gospel, or fat-swaggering chicago blues, or God's own showtime country, dynamically moving and falling, weaving and swelling. He'll take a song that seems like a standard big-band swing tune, all synchronised brass riffs and scat vocals, and syncopate the hell out of it freely tossing the lyrics around the beat, before driving it down into a sweaty swampy boogie.
Just fantastic.
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