Winnipeg 01-Mar-07 Concert Review

Morrison offers choice pickings from his oh-so-rich musical past

He rarely makes eye contact, he hates having his picture taken and his concerts last just 90 minutes -- not a second more.

So after all these years -- not to mention all those eccentricities -- is Van Morrison still capable of delivering on his decades-old hype? You better believe it.

Belfast Cowboy, blue-eyed soulster and all-round musical genius, Van the Man treated a crowd of 11,000 to a truly wild night yesterday, picking and choosing a masterful set list from his storied back catalogue of genre-straddling, spiritually inspired sonic odysseys.

And even though we know he had a clock on stage with him, counting down the minutes till his contractual obligations were through, we still couldn't help hanging on every word.

Though fans had been instructed to arrive at MTS Centre by no later than 7:30 p.m. -- or risk having to wait until the next song break to be seated -- the 61-year-old Irishman waited a good 20 minutes after that before finally making his entrance, giving his stellar 10-piece band a chance to warm up with countrified versions of My Own Business and T-Bone Shuffle.

When he arrived onstage, nattily attired in a black jacket and grey fedora, Morrison was blowing soulfully into a tenor sax, trading licks with his trumpet player and organist before launching into the lyrics of Wavelength, from the 1978 album of the same name.

Morrison's voice -- one of the most distinctive in the history of rock -- is still in fine form, retaining every shred of the wind-instrument-lodged-in-the-windpipe quality that's made him such an unflappable icon for so many generations.

After Wavelength came All Work and No Play, on which Morrison indulged in some jazzy interplay with his trio of backup singers, jerking his body back with every syllable of the chorus before segueing neatly into Stranded, which benefited last night from some nifty organ noodling, doo-wop harmonies and a slide guitar solo cribbed from the '60s gem Sleepwalk.

A brassy trumpet solo lifted Whinin' Boy Moan skyward, a heavenly scat solo shot Little Village even higher and by the time Morrison dropped his froggy growl down to a whisper on the blue-collar hymn Cleaning Windows and then fired it back up again for a Be-Bop-a-Lula refrain at the end, it was as if the show had been transformed into some sort of classic rock church service, with the Celtic iconoclast serving as preacher and saviour.

Van drew smiles from his singers with a spoken-word interlude midway through In the Midnight, tipped his hat to his early days with a fiery version of Baby Please Don't Go and even -- can it be? -- cracked a joke before launching into the worldweary anthem Days Like This.

Played for president

"This is a song we played for the president," he smiled, addressing the crowd for the first and only time. "Of the United Farmworkers Association."

There were hits, too -- a sexed-up Moondance, and the now-obligatory closers Brown Eyed Girl and Gloria.

But for our money, the evening's high point came when Morrison took the jazz standard St. James Infirmary from a barely-audible blues trill to an epiphany of sax and brass, the vertical stage lights behind him exploding with colour until they resembled nothing less than a neon pipe organ.

Countdown clock be damned -- we loved every second of it.

****1/2

Setlist:

1) My Own Business (band only)

2) T-Bone Shuffle (band only)

3) Wavelength

4) All Work and No Play

5) Stranded

6) Whinin' Boy Moan/Symphony Sid

7) Domino

8) Little Village

9) They Sold Me Out

10) Cleaning Windows

11) In the Midnight

12) Baby Please Don't Go

13) Days Like This

14) Moondance

15) St. James Infirmary

16) Goin' Down Geneva/Brand New Cadillac

17) Help Me

18) Brown Eyed Girl

19) Gloria