'Vanatics' Arrive From Far & Wide For Van Morrison Concert

Montreal Gazette
His name is Fred Durette. He is a most affable locomotive engineer residing in Shediac, N.B. At the prompting of a buddy, he pulls back the shirt sleeve on his left arm to reveal a tattoo to end all tattoos. It is a magnificently colourful and flawless rendering of the cover of Van Morrison’s 1970 album His Band & Street Choir. It took the tattoo artiste more than 13 hours to recreate this – as well as the actual Van Morrison autograph on the cover – on Durette’s arm.

Such are the lengths some Van Morrison fans will go to express their feelings for the Belfast Cowboy. Durette is part of a group of nearly 30 fanatics who gathered at Hurley’s before and after Morrison’s concert at Place des Arts on Thursday night.

They call themselves the Vanatics. They are mostly fifty or sixtytsomethings and they come from all walks – from Durette the choo-choo dude to performance analysts to publishers and, in one case, “a forcibly retired journalist.” And they come from South Africa, the Netherlands, England, the United States and beautiful North Bay, Ont. to celebrate one of the most enduring, intriguing and mesmerizing singer/songwriters of them all. Some in this group have seen Morrison in concert hundreds of times.

Now that’s devotion. But, hey, if you’re going to pick a musical guru, better Van Morrison than, say, Marilyn Manson.


Nor can I be entirely objective about Morrison, either. To my often unsettled mind, he is one of the most brilliant and original performers in the biz. Astral Weeks, his classic album, which he has reincarnated on his current tour, is, simply put, a masterwork. Problem was that I had never lucked out catching Morrison in concert in an earlier life. If memory serves – and it often hasn’t – I first took in a Morrison concert about 40 years ago at the mercifully defunct Autostade, which had to be the world’s worst music venue, and underneath an expressway to boot. Morrison had a meltdown on stage, and stormed off, something to do with a broken relationship. Two years later, I took in another concert at the defunct Capitol Theatre downtown. Better acoustics, but another Morrison meltdown, and Van abandoned stage prematurely again.


But just when it appeared that my appreciation for Morrison would forever have to be limited to disc, he blew us all away at his 2007 jazz fest show at Place des Arts. (Which, as colleague Bernard Perusse reported, was his best yet here, an absolutely intoxicating experience – with no non-musical intoxicants required.)

Bob Croll is the Montreal head of the Vanatics. Like other chapter heads around the world, Croll – an equipment liquidator, a “sensitive repo-man” – felt it was incumbent upon him to show the other Vanatics a good time here. So he has arranged a pre-game nosh at Hurley’s with Schwartz’s smoked meat and St. Viateur bagels.

Croll, too, was at that ill-fated Autostade concert, but remembers nothing. “What I do know is that Van’s music has been with me for 40 years, through good times and bad times. It is so healing. The man is unique.”

Durette interjects. “If our partners didn’t like Van, they weren’t our partners for long. He is a biblical experience for us.”

Shannon Vale, an ex-Montrealer now living in New Hampshire, caught Morrison at the Capitol Theatre in 1971 for the first time. Clearly not dissuaded, she has since seen him 75 times in concert and is writing a book about him. “There was just something about his voice. I was instantly hooked. Honestly, I had no clue about the lyrics then, but the music touched me then and continues to do so now.”



Ken Dawe is the executive-director of Baseball Newfoundland/Labrador by day. By night, he is a Van stalker – in the concert sense. “I’ve always been captivated by his intensity.”

Dan Murray is the aforementioned journalist who had to be forcibly retired from his gig in upstate New York over “ a difference of opinion with a boss.” He has taken in Morrison over 200 times. “Only a bachelor like me could be doing something like this. I guess you could say I’m in pursuit of the lost chord.”

Sean Andrews, an accountant from North Bay, has only done 60 concerts, but he plans to make up for lost time. “I always feel I’m in the company of genius when I hear him. I like Bob Dylan, too, but I wouldn’t be following him around the globe. Van makes music in the moment. Unlike almost everyone else, his concerts are not choreographed.”

Mike Millard is a retired performance analyst from Canterbury, England, who has seen Van 700 times over the last 40 years – which speaks not only volumes about his devotion but also about the money to be made as a performance analyst. Millard’s best year was 2003: he witnessed 56 out of 90 Morrison concerts. “What can I say? I love the man, his music and the gatherings. And I have yet to meet a fan who I’ve later wanted to avoid.”

Detroit publisher Michael Seltzer and his wife Laurie, along with Millard, are among the few Vanatics who’ve actually met the man. “A quiet, sweet man,” he says. “My friends have season tickets to the Pistons. I have season tickets to Van.”

A Van concert doesn’t come cheap. Tickets for the Montreal show fetched up to $325 each. When transport and hotel are factored in, these are some of the priciest season tickets around. “Especially when my wife and I go off to Spain or Switzerland to see him,” Seltzer notes.

Which explains why most of us fans will never be able to spend our lives on the cara-Van.

“But this is our biggest addiction,” Seltzer adds. “And, besides, Van never plays the same song, the same way twice.”

“It’s not about the fame or fortune for Van,” says Laurie Seltzer. “It’s all about the music and the man’s passion for it.”

“He’s the equivalent to a meditation high,” Vale rhapsodizes.

Which is to say Morrison will never be mistaken for Metallica.

Benjamin Croll, the 22-year-old student son of Montreal Vanatic-chief Bob, may well have been a Metallica fan if not for genetics. “Let’s just say the Stockholm Syndrome has kicked in,” muses the younger Croll, about to take in his second Morrison concert. “Sure, I could have jumped out of the car when my father first started playing his music, but I figured I might have hurt myself. Now I’ve really come to appreciate Van’s Zen-like qualities.”

And perhaps there is hope for the next generation.
-Bill Brownstein