Manchester Concert Review 27-Mar-06

Van Morrison @ Bridgewater Hall
Paul Taylor
ON GOOD FORM: Van the Man
27/03/06
THERE is a showbiz parlour game called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon which assumes that everyone in Hollywood has worked with someone who has worked with someone who has worked with that jobbing thesp.
You could play a similar game now with Van Morrison and music's rootsy luminaries, Van having shared a stage with everyone from Lonnie Donegan to Ray Charles, the Chieftains to Solomon Burke. He has ticked blues, jazz, skiffle, Irish folk, rock'n'roll and his own brand of Celtic mysticism off the to-do list. Now it is time for him to share a stage with the ghost of Hank Williams.
The songs from Morrison's country album, Pay The Devil - including gems like Webb Pierce's There Stands The Glass - did not dominate proceedings.
But the country air was there in the plentiful pedal steel and violin licks even as Morrison ambled through highlights from the rest of his catalogue.
Trying on the shoes of the likes of George Jones seems to have sharpened Morrison's act.
Indulgent
There was much less of that stuttering, ecstatic delivery he all too often falls into, much less of the slightly indulgent jamming. But this was not Morrison at the Grand Ole Opry, more like a very superior Irish showband.
And that lent a particular poignancy to songs like Celtic New Year, with all the familiar themes of longing for a lost time and place, and Stranded, where the whiff of old soul music and gentle doo-wops conjure halcyon days.
No lyrical ramblings then, just good songs well sung, his new piece Playhouse given a particularly lusty reading. Gloria, Moondance and Here Comes The Night were served up straight, lean and mean.
There were no smiles, no banter, no frills and, as he exited the stage at 9.34pm, no encores either. A short but sweet gig by the man they call Van.
Van Morrison performs at the Bridgewater Hall again tonight (Tuesday, March 28). 8pm. £28.50, £32.50. Call 0161 907 9000.

www.setlist.com
Bridgewater Hall - Manchester, England
Boogie Woogie Country Girl, Keep Mediocrity At Bay, In The Midnight, Back On Top, Magic Time, Days Like This, All Work And No Play, Stranded > Don't Look Back, Moondance, There Stands The Glass, Pay The Devil, Big Blue Diamonds, Precious Time, It's All In The Game > You Know What They're Writing About > Make It Real One More Time > Rainbow '65, Brown Eyed Girl, Here Comes The Night, Jackie Wilson Said, Celtic New Year, Playhouse, Don't You Make Me High, My Bucket's Got A Hole In It, Gloria

Lineup: Ned Edwards, David Hayes, Matt Holland, Mark T Jordan, Bobby Ruggiero, Martin Winning

Source: http://www.wavelengthltd.co.uk/