14-Sep-07 London Concert Review

Dail was at last night's Royal Albert Hall show:

The Albert Hall concert was a good night, its certainly got better towards the end.
The highlights for me were a brilliant St. James...great sax playing from Van, "Early in Morning "was another great song...Tupelo Honey another fine performance by Van, but again I wish it hadn't been a duet with Chris F..... "Help Me" - I love this track, nice bit of slow sax as the intro.
Baby Blue....started well when Van was singing, but another duet!!! and to me it lost its appeal, I don't think their voices blend too well.
Love this new Guy on piano and organ, (don't know his name.)..Chris Barber a wonderful input on St James and Early in Morning and totally enjoying himself.



Good concert......good atmosphere....but lacked the polished performance considering the Venue, Van could have taking it to a higher level...instead we stayed in the stalls.
-Regards Dail














Chaz wrote this review:

Friday 14th September I attended the Royal Albert Hall (for the first time ever) to see Mr Van Morrison in concert.
The venue is superb and I would love to go again sometime.
Support act Chris Farlow took to the stage at 8pm entertaining the audience with a mix of blues and rock n roll songs,saving his biggest hit until the end when he was, literally, "Out Of Time".
It was fantastic to see and hear an old rocker belt out some classic numbers.

He had a great voice and he really warmed to the crowd from the start with some good humoured banter; his backing band were spot on as well, really tight musically with additional vocals... superb.

Then came Van the Man!!!

A great backing band provided the perfect musical accompaniment for Van The Man to go through his repertoire of hits, from Moon Dance to Brown Eyed Girl, nothing of any great note was missing and the crowd loved it.
He was very professional, yes, good voice, great music of course but there was no audience interaction, no breaks between the songs, just straight from one to the other and it left me feeling that he wasn’t really singing to the crowd there, just going through the motions.

Even the guy behind me who insisted on shouting "Woah!" after every song(wonder if he ever got that horse to stop?) couldn't get me feeling as though the man of much talent would or could inter-act with his adoring fans.

The audience loved it but even at the end he didn't even do an encore finishing the the crowd seemingly wanting more ....with the fantastic GLORIA finishing off the evening.

I enjoyed the concert overall even inspired enough to purchase a Chris Farlow cd today on the net..that man has a voice!!!!
The crowd appeared to respond to him more and vice versa;
Van The Man, been there, done it, do the minimum and get out of there!!!
That’s very much a personal view, the audience loved it, despite the fact he didn’t do an encore they all left the Albert Hall happy with what they had.

Setlist:

Did Ye Get Healed? > Yeh Yeh [instr.]
Magic Time
Goin’ Home
Bright Side Of The Road [Satchmo ending]
Sometimes We Cry [CF]
Walkin’ My Baby Back Home [CF]
I Can’t Stop Loving You
Moondance
Stranded [CF]
Have I Told You Lately [Las Vegas version]
Playhouse
Saint James Infirmary
Wonderful Remark
Foggy Mountain Top
Help Me
Precious Time [scat ending]
Tupelo Honey [CF]
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue [CF]
Cry For Home [CF]
Early In The Morning (‘Bout The Break Of Day)
Brown Eyed Girl
Gloria > Who Do You Love [CF]

[CF = w/Chris Farlowe]