We Are Thinking Of You, Mick!

All Your Friends Are Thinking About You And Are With You!!!!!

Get well, soon!
-Van Fans

19-May-07 Santiago, Spain

Reviews from the Spanish papers were pretty thin on the actual concert itself (see below). Most focus seem to be on Van's pre-show "requests":

The artist has requested for him and his equipment a suite of hotel and 30 rooms. For its stay, the “lion of Belfast” asked for water, drunk low in calories and natural juices of orange, to the time that needs that “it does not want anything with alcohol”. Also it requested much English tea, fresh fruit and the bread and the paste it must be in wheat germ.
In addition, the Irish artist, who left the tobacco does little months, does not tolerate that those that are to his around smoke, reason why demanded to be in spaces smoke books. Thus, in Multipurpose the Fontes do Sar is prohibited to smoke. Also, of express desire of the singer, in the dressing room he will be in favor fisioterapeuta to its complete disposition. (Translated via Google)

El Correo Gallego Review
Van Morrison saldó, y con creces, su deuda con Santiago. Cuatro años después de tener que cancelarse su concierto previsto en julio de 2003 debido a la lluvia, ayer no defraudó y abarrotó el Multiusos del Sar. Miles de fieles al rugido del León de Belfast vibraron durante todo el concierto, en el que no faltaron fans que vinieron a Santiago, ex profeso, desde toda España, principalmente desde Baleares, Cataluña y Madrid.

Como gran estrella que es, Morrison vio, llegó y venció, y nunca mejor dicho. Y es que el mítico artista irlandés aterrizó en el aeropuerto de Lavacolla en su jet privado a las dos y diez de la tarde de ayer. Tras descansar un rato en el hotel, se dirigió con su séquito al Multiusos del Sar, actuó y, tras terminar el concierto, aún con los aplausos encendidos de sus fans pisándole los talones se marchó de las tierras gallegas, eso sí, dejando ganas de más.


Para mayor gozo de sus fieles, Van Morrison no sólo hizo un recorrido por su amplia trayectoria musical, sino que deleitó a los más de cinco mil espectadores que abarrotaron el Multiusos con temas inéditos que no se oirán en ninguna emisora y no se podrán comprar en ninguna tienda de discos hasta el próximo mes de junio, en que salga publicado su nuevo trabajo, donde no faltan duetos con otros grandes de la música como Ray Charles, John Lee Hoocker o Tom Jones, de los que el León de Belfast es un gran admirador.
Aunque el Multiusos de Sar tiene capacidad para siete mil espectadores sentados, el gerente del recinto y promotor del concierto, Santi Cuadrado, aseguró ayer a este periódico que "la organización decidió elevar las tribunas C y D algo más de treinta centímetros para dar una mayor visibilidad a los miles de fans de Morrison.
Dos horas antes del concierto prácticamente las entradas estaban agotadas, a pesar de que los precios oscilaron entre los 23 y los 38 euros, un dinero que muchos fans no dudaron en gastar.

Y es que el León de Belfast gustó. Santiago se convirtió ayer en el centro de peregrinación de muchos fieles, aunque no precisamente al Santo Patrón, en plenas fiestas de la ciudad, sino al León de Belfast, que continúa teniendo un gran tirón.
Ahora toca esperar a una nueva cita del artista con sus fieles de la ciudad del Apóstol.

11-May-07 London Concert Review

TimesOnline: Roundhouse, London Review

As he reaches pensionable age, it might be too late to expect Van Morrison to start displaying tangible signs of happiness. At his peak though, Belfast’s questing blues emissary has been peerless when it came to playing out his internal conflicts on a stage, repeating phrases until they turned into redemptive mini-mantras; using a harmonica to pull away from the rhythm of his band, then suddenly locking back into a groove you thought had come
apart.

At this Roundhouse show just a couple of those moments would have probably been enough to appease the diehards. Instead, Morrison played the parodically grumpy old man with a volley of songs about tabloid intrusion ( Talk is Cheap) and the solitude of fame ( Back on Top). Wearing his customary hat and shades, he seemed uninterested
and uncommunicative. In the case of these songs and selections from Pay the Devil, his recent country album, it was tempting to blame the choice of material.

That was something you couldn’t very well do in the case of Moondance. Across the decades Morrison has reinvented the song countless times, but this version – in which his three backing vocalists handled the entirety of the second verse – was tantamount to a decommissioning.

Finding new ways into old material is a problem for many a venerable singer. Recent shows by another great white 1960s blues singer, Terry Reid, demonstrated how vital a younger group can be when helping an artist to rediscover himself. If we presume that Van Morrison assembled his own band, what did this gang of middle-aged session musicians, going about their business with deferential precision, say about him? That old age has made him value virtuosity over spirit?

You could drop the needle on an album by Them – the R&B urchins fronted by Morrison in the early 1960s – and remember how the opposite used to be true. When he played two songs from that era – Baby Please Don’t Go and Gloria – you might have expected the touchpaper of memory to spark just in time to rescue them from the hotel-lobby R&B arrangements of their current incarnations. But no.

Amid all this listless professionalism, only Brown-Eyed Girl lifted the torpor. That was less to do with the singer and more to do with the “sha-na-nas” of an audience that had paid for the chance to sing them.
-Pete Paphides

Setlist:
The Train Kept A-Rollin’ [*, NE]
Talk Is Cheap
Back On Top
Cleaning Windows > Boppin’The Blues > Be Bop A Lula
Days Like This
Stop Drinking
Moondance
Don’t Worry About A Thing
There Stands The Glass
Playhouse
My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It
Don’t Start Crying Now > Custard Pie
Real Real Gone > You Send Me
Bright Side Of The Road
Baby Please Don’t Go
Precious Time [scat ending]
All Work And No Play
Jackie Wilson Said
Wild Night
Domino
Brown Eyed Girl
Gloria

07-May-07 Ronnie Scott Awards In London

Van Wins International Male Singer
Some of the biggest names on the jazz scene have been honoured at the inaugural Ronnie Scott Awards.

The international male singer award went to Van Morrison, while the female prize was given to Jane Monheit.


Ronnie Scott's is not the cutting-edge jazz club it used to be



In the arts, awards have the same dubious appeal as star ratings: everyone pretends to despise them while privately acknowledging their irresistibility. And while the Ronnie Scott's Jazz Awards, whose first winners were announced in London this week, should be welcomed as evidence of an interest in promoting an idiom engaged in a perennial struggle for existence in the world of show business, the choice of winners will have many fans clutching their heads in despair.


Reading through the list, there can be only one response: it's like John Coltrane never happened. According to the awards, Van Morrison and Jane Monheit are the world's greatest jazz singers, Scott Hamilton is the world's greatest saxophonist, the Yellowjackets are the world's greatest small group and Kyle Eastwood, son of Clint, is the world's greatest bassist. Oh, and Jeff Beck, once of the Yardbirds, is the blues artist of the year. To be blunt, this is a list that could have been compiled by the booker for a mainstream TV show rather than by someone concerned with the continuing evolution of an artform defined for almost a century by its lust for growth and change.

When new owners took over Ronnie Scott's Club last year, the music policy became noticeably more conservative. Fair enough. In order attract a large enough audience to sustain an establishment in Soho, with rents in central London the way they are, no doubt compromises have to be made and non-specialist listeners must not be actively repelled. So the Scott Club, where Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman once held forth, will never again be at the music's cutting edge. But if the place is to be more than just a stage for smoothly marketed revivals of past glories, it needs to acknowledge some of the many currents that are carrying jazz into a fascinating future. The awards would have been a good place to start.
-Richard Williams


The week according to Piers Morgan
Monday, May 7 To the inaugural Jazz Awards at the beautifully restored Ronnie Scott’s tonight.

Just 200 of us watched stunning solo performances from artists such as Van Morrison, Jamie Cullum, Jeff Beck, Mica Paris and Courtney Pine.


Most had played to huge audiences before, but playing to a tiny crowd of their peers was very different.

As Jeff Beck admitted to me, "That was the most nervous I’ve ever been."

When one astonishing young pianist played out of his skin to rapturous applause, I leant down, tapped Jamie Cullum on the shoulder (quite a reach, because he’s about 5ft 2in) and said, "No pressure there, then."

He looked at me with genuine wide-eyed apprehension, "No s***, mate… Christ!"

At 2am, they all clambered up together and jammed for an hour. It was one of the great musical experiences of my life.

Van Joins Rolling Stones European Tour

Van Morrison To Open For The Rolling Stones

Van Morrison has been announced as the opener for The Rolling Stones on two of their upcoming European dates.

The veteran rocker (that’s Van Morrison) will support The Rolling Stones on June 5th at Werchter Park, Belgium and June 8th at Goffret Park, Holland.

The dates will not be the first time Van Morrison has opened for the band. He played two North American dates with the band last year.

The Rolling Stones dates featuring Van Morrison:

Werchter Park, Belgium – June 5
Goffret Park, Holland - 8

30-April-07 Boston Concert Review

For fans, Van Morrison's magic is worth the wait
(Boston Globe)

No one in the sold-out Opera House Monday night seemed to expect a greatest-hits show from Van Morrison. There were no boors howling for "Gloria" or "Brown Eyed Girl" from the cheap seats at every quiet moment, behavior that regularly annoys at shows by Morrison contemporaries like Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Good thing, because he didn't play them. And the rapturous reception of his typically diverse set list seemed to buoy Morrison to the point where he showered a little of the old magic
on us. Article Tools

Hard-faced and sleepy-lidded behind his glasses, wearing a suit and fedora, Morrison looks more like late-period Robert Mitchum now than the dreamy
Belfast Cowboy of 1967. His show is a sort of country/R&B supper club revue, in which he sings and plays guitar, sax, and harmonica in front of a
polished 10-piece band that includes steel guitar, fiddle, and organ. They're fine, but the magic is all in Morrison's unique, growly voice.

Things began at 7:30 sharp with a dreary middle-of-the-road intro from the band alone. They didn't really pick up until the sixth number of the
set, a chipper "Magic Time," on which Morrison and the band seemed to finally feel each other.

Audience favorite "Cleaning Windows" found a little of the old Zen, and "Back on Top" gave fans lines to cheer. There were versions of "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" and "I Can't Stop Loving
You," plus a Sonny Boy Williamson blues and a duet with his daughter, singer-songwriter Shana Morrison. Her proud dad's voice overshadows her
less-distinctive instrument, though how could it not?

Morrison's best singing may have been on the boozy weeper "There Stands the Glass," a Webb Pierce hit he covered on his 2006 country album, "Pay the
Devil." He seemed to notice that the audience responded, and drew out the "it's my . . ." tagline for a long moment, complete with a drum roll before
finishing: ". . . first one today!"

"Moondance" may be mandatory, but Morrison sang less on it than any number all night, preferring to play sax. His two swaying backup singers took the
entire "I want to make love to you tonight" verse. Not awful, but not exactly transcendent either.

The show ended just after 9 with "And the Healing Has Begun." Morrison played guitar on this song, but he also sang with the rolling and tumbling
semi-improvised phrases that are his version of speaking in tongues, when the music is "ringing in your soul, and the heart, and the soul, and the
swing, and the healing has begun. . ."

That was what we all came for.
-Joel Brown

Van's short shrift

May 6, 2007

Joel Brown was generous in his review of Van Morrison ("For fans, Van Morrison's magic is worth the wait," Living/Arts, May 2 ). If only Morrison was a bit more generous in the length of his concert. He wasn't onstage for the first two numbers and was off and on the stage for the final song. I figure he was singing for maybe one hour and 15 minutes, not what I expect for a pricey night out. Brown may have called the crowd "rapturous," but I saw some jaws drop when the lights went up.
Article Tools

I did get a laugh after reading the review, because on the same page was a nice juxtaposition in the Names column. Morrison was seen eating dinner after the concert with a couple of friends for two hours . If only he could have managed to spend a couple of hours earlier with a full house of his fans. Hope you were full, Van. I left with an empty stomach.

-THOMAS FENNELL Medfield

Despite obscure tunes, it’s a marvelous night for Van fans
(Boston Herald)

None of Van Morrison’s peers have his autonomy.
From Bob Dylan and Paul Simon to James Taylor and Jimmy Buffett, fans have come to expect hits when they shell out $50-plus for an icon’s show
(Lord save us from the resulting riot if Buffett were to skip “Fins,” “Volcano” or “Margaritaville”). The performers may callously rearrange fan favorites, as Dylan often does, but they all deliver them.
But Morrison didn’t need to pad his set with greatest hits to satiate a sold-out Opera House on Monday. And he boldly flaunted that fact with a
show full of obscure tunes.


The night started anemically with a Van-less band running through “Train Kept A-Rollin.’ ” Any wedding reception would have been thrilled, but for those waiting for The Man, it was anticlimactic, not to mention a poor cover choice as hometown boys Aerosmith do it far better. The disappointment continued with the appearance of Van’s daughter
Shana Morrison to sing a version of her dad’s “Naked in the Jungle” fit for cake cutting and toast making. When Morrison finally showed up, the crowd greeted him with an instant standing ovation.
Morrison’s transformation to tasteful blues-jazzman has long been complete. His uniform remains a fedora, tinted glasses and sophisticated
suit - and he didn’t look back for this show. As he ran through album cut after album cut from his post-’70s catalog, including “Talk Is Cheap,”
“Magic Time” and “Have I Told You Lately,” he sounded more like idol Mose Allison than the man who recorded 1974’s “It’s Too Late to Stop Now,”
maybe the best live album since James Brown’s “Live at the Apollo.”
Morrison played to his strengths and his pre-rock tastes. While he was vocally buttoned-down - the lion’s roars were few and far between -
Morrison’s instrumental talents now almost match his vocal and compositional skills. All night long he blew tasteful sax and harp solos and even added one of the set’s best guitar solos to “The Healing Game.”
What was missing from the show were his biggest radio staples. Only “Moondance,” which fit perfectly, came from the storied first eight albums
that make up his classic 1968-1974 period.
But Van’s devotees didn’t seem to care. Lesser hits “Cleaning Windows” and “Bright Side of the Road” and cult number “Foreign Window” got ovations
usually reserved for warhorses such as “Gloria” and “Domino.”
But such is Morrison’s appeal. He does what he wants, how he wants, and you like it.

-Jed Gottlieb

After his show at the Opera House,Van Morrison huddled for two hours at Henrietta's Table with pal Peter Wolf and Phoenix Media exec David Bieber.

Setlist:

Train Kept a Rollin' (Ned Opener)
Naked in the Jungle - Shana with band
Talk is Cheap
Stranded
HITYL
Magic Time
Don't Worry About A Thing
Bright Side of the Road
Foreign Window
Cleaning Windows
There Stands the Glass
Playhouse
Back on Top
Sometimes We Cry - with Shana
Moondance
I Can't Stop Loving You
Precious Time
Help Me
And The Healing Has Begun
(Thanks Shannon)