02-Jul-10 Hop Farm Festival Kent, England Concert Review
Nosey's Review: Van came on ON time as usual, sat down at the piano and played Northern Muse (Solid Ground), then got up and moved to mic centre stage for Brown Eyed Girl which went down a storm with the "Festival" crowd, who finally stopped talking and starting singing along. This was not going to be a transcendental performance, the crowd wouldn't let Van take the music anywhere else (Down to the silky lower levels or any of those long drawn out places that we love to go). When he tried, the crowd (where I was standing) just got bored and continued to chatter amongst themselves.
We did, however get an "Entrainment", and (to me) and extraordinary introduction to "Into The Mystic" (I say that because I have heard any shows apart from Hampton Court this year). We got (not in any order) "Keep It Simple", Moondance" "The Mystery" "Help Me" and the show ended with "In The Garden", fitting in with the surroundings. No encore although the audience did try to get him back, but by the time they'd realised he wasn't, Van was probably on the motorway home.
Tony's review:Van Morrison and his band were sensational. The music was beautiful, it touched my soul. Why should he have to connect with the audience by speaking with them? It is so not necessary when he connects through the beauty of his music. He received a rapturous response. My only criticism is that it wasn't loud enough and I'd question having him on the same bill as Blondie. There were a lot of people in the audience who had no appreciation of an artist like Van Morrison - mainly rowdy young intoxicated males who thankfully, after two or three songs became bored and retreated to the bar. as for Brown Eyed Girl, by Van's own admission it is far from being one of his best songs and was probably performed for the benefit of the masses.
Irish Independent
Reclusive singer Van Morrison emerged from the Dalkey mansion he shares with his wife Michelle to headline his friend Vince Power's Hop Farm Festival on Friday night.
It seemed that Van had gone to ground since that ridiculous baby story broke last December. So it was good to see him back on the road.
He flew in from Dublin on a private jet on Friday afternoon to a private airport with his long-time personal manager John Rogers. He went to a hotel and rehearsed with his band for the afternoon.
I had travelled to Kent on a hopeless mission: maybe I might get to talk to Van for a few words about life or Yeats -- or, maybe, why his wife is suing Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council over the trees and shrubbery between their home and neighbours.
The backstage area was sealed when Van arrived. No one in. No one out. It would have been easier to get President Obama on the phone for a chat.
From about 70 metres away I saw him arriving backstage, dressed in a white suit and a hat to match. Van, who is not exactly snake-hipped, looked like a West Belfast butcher on a stage weekend in his suit.
Spread out in front of him was a devoted and rustling horde of 25,000 fans. They all started to dance in unison as he burst into a soulful version of Brown-Eyed Girl. He played Have I Told You Lately That I Love You and the whole south east of England seemed to be dancing in ecstasy.
Van is Ireland's greatest ever singer -- and it showed amid the lush landscape and rolling fields. He played the sax and he moved about a little on the stage. Van doesn't do dance. Movement embarrasses him. Just as well. He then played a soft, serenely perfect version of And the Healing Has Begun. "I want you to put on your pretty summer dress,'' he sang, "You can wear your Easter bonnet and all the rest ... and I wanna make love to you, yes, yes, yes when the healing has begun."
I kept expecting to see a breathless Michelle prancing about the sunset-dappled hill in a billowing summer dress, silk ribbons in her hair, and her decolletage showing off bosoms as smooth as freshly plumped pillows.
Then the Belfast bard flung himself with great gusto and dash into Moondance. And yes, the moon deigned us with her presence as Van sang those beautiful words. And there were tens of thousands who agreed with Van that it was a marvellous night for a moondance, a fantabulous night to make romance.
- BARRY EGAN in Kent
Uncut:
He’s sitting at a piano, resplendent in a white suit that probably fit when he bought it and a matching hat. He looks positively regal, soul royalty with the imposing heft of Solomon Burke and a voice that remains a thing of time-defying wonder.
He’s feeling his way into a magnificent version of “Northern Muse (Solid Ground), a sweet meandering through many familiar aspects of his music. And now, here’s a surprise: a funky, sultry take on “Brown Eyed Girl”, ungrudgingly played, as if this beautiful summer night has taken the edge of even his legendary truculence. The audience accept it as the rare gift it might actually be.
And here’s something else I wouldn’t have expected, a long, mesmerising version of “Fair Play”, the opening track from Veedon Fleece that drifts and circles, falls back upon itself, any given moment from the original script likely to inspire some digressive extrapolation, gusts of extemporised brilliance, no telling where any of this will go. His voice glides breathlessly through changing stratospheres as effortlessly graceful as something with wings riding currents of air.
It ends when he decides it’s over, with the clipped instruction to someone called Chrissie to say goodnight.
Van’s surlier side, whatever the weather and even on a might as magical as this, is never, I guess, that far away. And after a beguiling “The Mystery”, from Poetic Champions Compose, we get an angry “Keep It Simple” and the bitter rant of “Talk Is Cheap”. Then there’s a gorgeous “Have I Told You Lately?” which gives way to a seething “Tear Your Playhouse Down”. The extended joyful vamp of “Moondance” is perfect, of course, in this setting, a cool swinging celebration that carries over into “That’s Entertainment”, which in turn is followed by the questing beauty of “Philosopher’s Stone”.
A stalking bass line introduces “Baby, Please Don’t Go”, with Van on electric guitar, the song segueing into a jumping “Parchman Farm”, which is followed by a long and unbelievable version of “Into the Music” that unfolds slowly, revealing itself incrementally, the few brief minutes of its original incarnation extended in the manner of something like “Almost Independence Day”.
As the song drifts into silence, I can’t imagine for the moment he could do anything better. But he does, with the sublime “When The Healing Has Begun”, from 1979’s Into The Music, and then a sublime “In The Garden”, from No Teacher, No Guru, No Method.
It’s his also his last number, so there’s no encore either. When he walks off stage, the band still playing, he stays there. But there’s nothing as there sometimes might be that’s churlish about his departure. He came to do what he does, did it wonderfully and then it was time to go.
-Allan Jones
Setlist
Northern Muse (Solid Ground)
Brown Eyed Girl
Fair Play
The Mystery
Keep It Simple
Talk Is Cheap
Have I Told You Lately
Playhouse
Moondance
Entrainment
Philosopher's Stone
Baby, Please Don't Go
Into The Mystic
Healing Has Begun
In The Garden
Big Hand For The Band!
Jay Berliner-electric guitar
David Hayes-double bass
Bobby Ruggiero-drums
Tony Fitzgibbon-violin, viola
Richie Buckley-flute, saxophone
Paul Moran-grand piano, trumpet & organ
{Thanks to Maurice for photos}
Here's Ivo's review:
I’m still trying to figure out what I saw. It definitely was a show with two halves: a good (but not great) second half, and a first half that was filled with problems, which had me thinking that Van could leave the stage at any time. The playing, as a consequence, suffered during the first five to six songs.
As usual, the bar was closed at the start of the concert, which did not go down very well with the already rowdy blues crowd. On top of this, the video screens did not function either, so that only the first ten rows could see what was happening on stage. The other 70 rows or so (I guess the crowd was about 6,000 people) could not. This led to a lot of booing, yelling and whistling during Northern Muse, which the first rows tried to overcome by clapping along, which caused the band and Van to play and sing more loudly. The same problems marred Brown-Eyed Girl. Then, the video screens were turned on and the bar was re-opened, but Van was very unhappy with the band at that point, which he thought was overpowering him. He continuously asked them to keep the volume low. There were also sound problems on stage, in particular with Van’s and Jay Berliner’s guitar and the bass. Several times, Van ordered David Hayes and Jay Berliner to switch from electric to acoustic (or the other way around) mid-song, and kept on giving cues to Bobby Ruggiero, the drumming apparently not being what he wanted either. After and extremely lackluster Keep It Simple, I thought the gig would be over given 
Van’s unhappiness during and after the song, certainly when Fair Play was played at a much faster speed without the by now familiar extended coda thereafter (but then again, all ballads were rushed yesterday, perhaps because of the noisy crowd, apart from Have I Told You Lately). To my great surprise and happiness, nobody left the stage and things turned around completely thereafter, when The Mystery was played with great gusto, and went down very well with the crowd. From then onwards, the entire (and also Van’s) mood changed considerably and what I saw was a good gig – not exceptional, but good, including one real gem: a long version of Into The Mystic. Surprisingly, given the 75 minutes he had been allotted, Van played (the usual) 90 minutes, ending with Gloria which had the crowd cheering along big time. He was then escorted by two police cars off the premise and flew away in an already waiting helicopter – destination unknown.
