The Ottawa Citizen:
Blues legend lets music do the talking
Van Morrison showed little of his curmudgeonly streak as he breezed through a crowd-pleasing set on opening night of the Ottawa Bluesfest. It was a glorious christening for the spacious new site on the grounds of the Canadian War Museum at LeBreton Flats.
The audience spanned acres, from the hordes of lawnchairs packed tightly together in front of the sound board, all the way back to open grassy patches where hippie moms danced with their children.
Though he said few words to the audience and kept his eyes closed through most of his performance, which are often two signs of a shy performer, Morrison expressed himself through his music, the song selection letting us know he was pleased to be back in the nation's capital after something like 40 years.
His last concert here was a coffeehouse gig at Le Hibou in the 1960s.
But evidently he wasn't thrilled enough to play an encore. The concert ended, like clockwork, at 9 p.m., exactly 90 minutes after it started. There was a brief lull before the hypnotic strains of Morrison's final song, Gloria, were blasted out of our brains by the screaming guitar of Elmer Ferrer's opener, a full-throttle cover of Immigrant Song.
On the Rogers stage across the plaza, the Cuban guitarslinger was set up and ready to go moments after Morrison departed.
The Belfast Cowboy attracted a record crowd, estimated at 35,000, to the festival. On stage with him was a top-notch showband that included a full contingent of backing vocalists, as well as musicians on trumpet, organ, violin, banjo and pedal steel, along with the usual bass, drums and guitar.
While their individual contributions bolstered the songs, their strength as a band contributed a large part to the quality of the concert.
Morrison might have seemed a little one-dimensional if not for the talent and diversity of his band members' playing.
There was a sense of relief to realize that Morrison was aiming to please, musically.
His song selection offered plenty of familiar material to groove along to, and one of his most popular songs, Moondance, made a great icebreaker early in the set.
Not all of it was his, as Morrison also likes to tackle classic material, injecting plenty of blues into Baby Please Don't Go. A vintage vibe permeated last night's performance, which started with a loose, unhurried meander through Talk Is Cheap.
In a grey suit that lent an air of dignity to his pudgy frame, his face was all but hidden under oversize glasses and the brim of a straw fedora.
The soulful brass and earthy organ brightened up All Work No Play, while a summery banjo added colour to Bright Side of the Road.
Morrison also included the lightly funky Cleaning Windows, the heavenly Into The Mystic, and big bold Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile), and his tongue-in-cheek anti-drinking chant, Stop Drinking (it is worth noting Morrison was sipping water on stage).
At one point, as Morrison settled into a shimmering Days Like This, the tightly packed crowd immediately behind the sound tent became restless. It was still early in the concert, and they could hear everything, but couldn't see a thing and couldn't get any closer. To their delight, someone convinced the powers that be to tear down the tent's removeable walls.
Had Morrison happened to glance that far out in the crowd, he would have seen a few hundred more faces beaming at the view that was suddenly revealed to them.
-Lynn Saxberg
Canoe:
Bluesfest kicked off the 14th annual festival of outdoor musical mayhem with Irish soulman Van Morrison last night, and 35,000 fans packed the new LeBreton Flats venue to hear the legend at work.
The last time the Belfast Cowboy was in Ottawa was 1969, when he played Le Hibou in the Market.
Nearly four decades later, little has changed about Morrison. Both he and his amazing repertoire of blue-eyed soul have grown.
Accompanied by a 10-piece band and wearing his elegantly funky straw fedora, the 61-year-old opened his date with destiny with the wry Talk Is Cheap, with Morrison himself blowing harmonica off bouncy Hammond organ.
Not surprisingly, the notoriously private star didn't say a word for the first hour, but kept the show rolling one song after another with All Work, No Play and a Tower of Power version of Moondance with brass horns giving it even more of a Motown feel.
Morrison methodically built a seductive setlist, with a superb flow of songs that had an almost narcotic effect on the fans who were crowded like sardines in front of the huge MBNA stage.
With one of the most incomprehensibly delicious voices in all music -- one that was once described as a tenor saxophone jammed down Morrison's throat -- the seemingly ageless crooner showed why he's been wowing crowds across Canada on his current tour.
At times, you could hear his singing penetrate inside the Canadian War Museum. His voice is an instrument that seems only to have improved and mellowed with 40 years of use.
Happily, he stayed in a funkadelic soulful groove with an irresistibly bouncy boogie-woogie playing of Cleaning Windows Bopping before Days Like This, with the legend himself on sax and backup singers reminding him there would be days like this, a snappy version of Have I Told You Lately That I Love You, Brown Eyed Girl and an inspired and raunchy version of Gloria.
If crowds this large keep filing in, this year's edition of Bluesfest could be on track to annihilate past attendance records.
Which will be wonderful on paper, but not so wonderful if you're one of hundreds of fans stuck in a sea of thousands.
-DENIS ARMSTRONG
I thought it was awful:
Nothing in my little realm has led to so many heated disagreements this week as that blasted Van Morrison concert at Bluesfest on Wednesday.
I thought it was awful. Several others I spoke to, including a couple with solid musical grounding, thought it was wonderful.
It seems so often true of a musical performance that one person hears black, another white. How can this be?
It may actually be true that no two people attend exactly the same concert, just as no two people are identically affected by the same book.
We were given a pair of free tickets (face value $100) at the last minute and, after some frenzied packing and a little furious pedalling, arrived at
the rear gate at the stroke of 7:30 p.m.
We were sitting in the last quarter of the crowd, estimated at 35,000. The sound was muddy, to the point that it sounded like Morrison was talking the
lyrics, not singing them. A view of the large screens was blocked by those who chose to stand. When I caught the odd glimpse, the sound wasn't in sync with the picture.
The atmosphere in our petit coin was that of a family picnic. There was a young couple ahead of us with an infant. They were comfortably seated on
folding chairs. On occasion, she breastfed the little human.
There was this constant criss-crossing of human traffic. Everybody seemed to be going somewhere. There was much yakking, nothing approaching dancing.
When rock beauties like Domino and Brown-Eyed Girl are met with folded arms, something is out of whack. The real Van Morrison, meanwhile, was
somewhere way, way over there. Guy in the hat, they tell me.
It had rained that day, so the crowd was fully MEC-ed out. A family ahead of us had a large, roll-up camping mattress, upon which a couple of
kids lolled about. There was a lady in a wheelchair behind us. Many people had rain gear at the ready.
And grandma and grandpa were there. No, not mine. Everybody else's. My God, it's the same, timeless music. How did all you people get so old?
The location for Bluesfest is actually terrific, but not without shortcomings. For one thing, the site is too flat. A natural bowl shape would be a great improvement. However, access by transit, on foot, or on a bike path is ideal.
I had wanted a glass of amber refreshment, but took one look at the lineups and gave up. Me and the young lad settled on ice tea, raspberry-flavoured.
Maybe that was the problem. Perhaps a 61-year-old rocker, a testy one at that, is best digested in a state other than stone-cold sobriety.
What is it about Ottawa and the provision of food and drink to large crowds? We need help.
How, after months and months of preparation, do they run out of food at Lansdowne Park during a double-header soccer game, a marathon stretch
during which 25,000 fans were not granted in-out privileges?
It put me in mind of the time, at Lynx Stadium, that they ran out of hotdogs. It was the second inning.
So, the next night, for Bob Dylan, imagine how much wiser I am.
Cycled over again, but this time just stood on the south-side sidewalk with a clean view of a large screen. There were hundreds of people out there,
enjoying the show for nothing.
People were walking dogs, or strolling, or Rollerblading. The urban parade came and went.
The quality of the sound, if anything, was better than the night before. As for a little taste of something, well, forgive me Father, let's just say
I carried provisions on my person.
Met up with a couple of my regular rounders after the concert. The one lad, a keyboard player of minor reputation, absolutely gushed about the Van
Morrison performance. Band was wonderful, Van was in fine voice, a momentous musical occasion, yada nauseam.
It may simply be a matter that musical intimacy, with a crowd of 35,000 in the open air, is nigh impossible.
More likely, it is two other factors: location and expectation. If you love the Van already, arrived ripe with anticipation, found a good spot near the
front and had all the drink you desired, then it was probably a magical 90 minutes.
If you arrived late with but a moment's buildup, and were stuck at the back then you experienced a different concert altogether -- first you barely
heard the blues, then you sang them all the way home.
-Kelly Egan
Setlist:
Talk is Cheap
All Work and no Play
Moondance
Enlightenment
Cleaning Windows
Days Like This
Stop Drinking
Bright Side of the Road
Playhouse
Into the Mystic
Domino
Here Comes the Night
Jackie Wilson Said
Baby, Please Don’t Go
Real Real Gone
Wonderful Remark
Wild Night
Precious Time
Don’t Start Crying Now
Have I Told You Lately
Brown-Eyed Girl
Gloria
Stuart gives us his thoughts on the show:
