Van Morrison
Nov 10
It’s [Still] Too Late To Stop Now
Where: Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
When: 7 November 2017
Support: none
VM is one of my musical heroes and I have never seen him live before and fortunately he did not disappoint. There is not much new you can say about the 72 year old musical phenomenon who by Christmas will have pumped out 4 new albums in the last two years. You also know what you are probably going to get in a VM concert – a range of styles all superbly delivered by ‘The Man’ and a tight knit band but no real interaction from VM and usually a relatively short set (as my wife said ‘he’s no Bruce Springsteen’) – and tonight is no exception. The venue is all seating – and I hate sitting down in a gig – and it does mitigate against the atmosphere.
As well as singing VM also played lot of sax and some mean harmonica – he took a few songs (but what songs – ‘Moondance’, ‘Warm Love’) to get into his full vocal stride which meant at the beginning he was merely very good before moving through the gears of superb and excellent. As usual he was dressed as one of the Blues Brothers and there was plenty of blues in the set – overs of songs by Bo Diddley, Mose Allison and Sonny Williamson among them. After about an hour he walked off the stage while the band continued to play; after a few minutes, he returned and played a couple more songs before again leaving the stage to the band. It only then dawned on me (and I suspect much of the audience) that we had just heard the encores and the ‘The Man’ had left the stage for good.
He was backed by a six piece band – keys/organ/trumpet/band leader; guitar/steel guitar; bass/double bass; drums/backing vocals; female backing vocals (occasional co-vocalist); xylophone/percussion/keys/backing vocals (the latter had some nervous interactions with VM who seemed to occasionally tell her to change instrument or tempo). The whole ensemble was equally home at jazz, blues and soul and, mush like a typical jazz band, each were given solos in several songs. Also, after VM has finished his encores they treated us to a long jam session.
The songs covered his entire catalogue – from his first track on his first solo album (a crowd pleasing ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ as the first encore) to a track off his latest album, Roll With The Punches. I think we got songs from more than a dozen of his albums – we got soul, we got an excellent blues/Them medley (including ‘Here Comes The Night’), we got mystical religious songs (‘Whenever God Shines His Light’ is not a VM song I really listen to but was delivered with great verve and emotion tonight), we got an appropriately bright ‘Bright Side of the Road’.
So – despite the taciturn VM, despite having to sit down, despite the short set and no support band – I left a very happy VM fan – the legend lives!
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