Review of Texas Show
Van is brief but brilliant
Morrison returns to N. Texas for first time in 2 decades
By ROBERT PHILPOT
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
GRAND PRAIRIE -- Sometime around 1978, after the release of Wavelength, Van Morrison left radio behind. Or, rather, radio stopped having the energy and imagination for someone like Morrison, who just couldn't be nailed to one format.
Morrison went off into the mystic, releasing a series of recordings that were by turns earthy and ethereal, a curious, restless artist putting his stamp on pop, rock, soul, blues, jazz and, with today's release of Pay the Devil, classic country songs.
So here Morrison was, that familiar, unique and ageless bellow still booming more than 40 years after Morrison started singing. Here he was at Nokia Theatre, fronting a band that had a core of nine members and sometimes swelled to 14, traveling across genres yet remaining impossible to classify.
Here he was, in North Texas for the first time in two decades, in a concert that was just over an hour and a half. During those 90-plus minutes, Morrison took Moondance to new limits, allowing for a solo by each member of a group that reminded you what the word swing means. He pushed the Tommy Edwards chestnut It's All in the Game as far he could, stretching syllables till they almost snapped, repeating words in a soulful stutter so that lines came out something like "and he'll ... caresscaresscaress your waiting fingertips." He ripped out cuts from the new album, adding that Caledonia soul to covers of country songs such as There Stands the Glass and My Bucket's Got a Hole In It.
It was roots music that moved forward while looking back, exploring the possibilities in a word, a steel-guitar solo or a burbling Hammond organ, and if you were there for the radio-friendly stuff, well, he did Brown-Eyed Girl toward the end.
The thing is, it should all be radio-friendly stuff. This was musicianship that was both tight and broad, challenging and yet accessible.
If the concert had a flaw, it was that it was too short -- with the show's 7:30 p.m. start and the sometimes nasty traffic getting into Nokia, many in the crowd arrived after the halfway point, missing a lot of early highlights. It's not often that you can fault a show for its brevity, but quality over quantity may be just what Morrison had in mind.
GRADE: A-
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