01-Oct-09 Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier of Place des Arts, Montreal Concert Review
Montreal Gazette
During a no-nonsense, 100-minute set at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier of Place des Arts last night, the man on stage never seemed to connect with his audience or his band in any conventional way.

If the performer were anyone else but Van Morrison, that would be a problem. With Morrison, however, it's kind of what you want. You need him to be somewhere else, speaking in tongues, repeating words like "never" and "very" so often within a line that the simplest phrases take on fresh meaning as they simultaneously become meaningless.

From the moment he sat down at the piano - just once - to open the show with a slow, subtly bluesy Northern Muse (Solid Ground), Morrison showed more engagement with a live performance than he's let us see in some time.

Whether it's the challenge presented by the concert's centerpiece, Astral Weeks in its entirety, or whether it's the sheer fun of shocking the fans by putting utterly unexpected gems in the set list, Morrison seemed fully inspired at every moment. Quite simply, it would be hard to argue that last night's performance was anything but the best show he has ever given in this city.

The finest of Morrison's work sounds like it's part of one long, perfect song. And that's how the concert unfolded. A playful Brown Eyed Girl - with the audience singing the sha-la-las and Morrison tossing back "Like that!" - yielded easily to a dreamy, jazzy Fair Play that wanted to go on all night.


Yet it all seemed mere prelude to a hushed, sublime and mystical In the Garden, with Morrison invoking the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost as the strings in his nine-piece backup group swelled up and rose around him.

A 45-minute Astral Weeks followed, managing to sound both turn-on-a-dime tight and like it was being created right in the moment - a testimony to both the singer and his stellar musicians, among whom were guitarist Jay Berliner, who played on the original album.

With Sweet Thing and The Way Young Lovers Do swinging and Ballerina rocking like never before, the revamped, resequenced Astral Weeks has now taken on a life of its own, well beyond the one-off celebration it started out as last year.

Still, the biggest surprise came at the end. A lyric sheet was brought out in case of emergency, the band started a slow, pastoral swirl and Morrison, swaying back and forth, offered a recitation of On Hyndford Street, delivering its last lines as he walked off the stage without doing an encore.

Five minutes after the lights went up, an incredulous crowd began to shuffle out only when the crew started removing instruments from the stage.

But really, how could he have followed that ?
-Bernard Perusse
Setlist
Northern Muse (Solid Ground)
Brown Eyed Girl
Fair Play
The Mystery
Philosophers Stone
In the Garden
Astral Weeks
Beside You
Slim Slow Slider
Sweet Thing
Cyprus Avenue
The Way Young Lovers Do
Ballerina
Madame George
And the Healing Has Begun
On Hyndford Street

Big Hand For The Band
Paul Moran
Tony Fitzgibbon
David Hayes
Richie Buckley
Jay Berliner
Bobby Ruggiero
Richie Buckley
Michael Graham
Terry Adams
Rick Schlosser