06-July-2012
North Sea Jazz Festival
Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Two years ago I swore I'd never go and see Van Morrison in a festival setting again, after having witnessed the by now infamous Peer concert. But there I was again, two years later, in the Nile hall of the Ahoy building in Rotterdam for Van's performance at the Northsea Jazz Festival the first Morrison concert in Holland in ages. I'm glad I went. It wasn't the best show I've seen, but it was a memorable one, musically speaking, nevertheless. It was the first time I saw Van striking a chord with a 5000+ audience, with the audience reacting, and Van reaching deeper and deeper inside as a consequence for about four minutes. This happened during the extended coda of Unchained Meldody the most outstanding track on yesterday's setlist, which included a relatively large number of jazz standards and few ballads.

The show started rather funny, when an announcement was made (in Dutch) that Van would come on five minutes late with the band launching straight into Brown-Eyed Girl and Van hitting the stage right thereafter.

If I'd have to give the show a title, I would suggest Van Morrison sings songs of love and regret. Something was on Van's mind yesterday, and it seemed to involve a woman, an argument of some kind. Although at first appearing distracted, Van became very talkative as the concert progressed (particularly after Paul Moran had played a beautiful line in Haunts Of Ancient Peace, to which Van responded with 'yeah, that's it!'), and I haven't seen him go through such a wide range of emotions in over 100 minutes (which would have been more if the Northsea crew hadn't asked him to stop during Ballerina, to which Van reacted by putting five fingers in the air). In my view, these emotions included distraction, anger, grief, regret, love, aggression, fun, power, cheerfulness and surrender. I've never heard Van sing so aggressively as he did in the second part of yesterday's concert (for instance, Ballerina sounded like a whole band storming into a ballroom to tell a ballerina they loved her). Among others, he mentioned 'being the only one who could be trusted' in a relationship, whispered 'don't let me break down in Rotterdam baby, you know you can stop this!', really exclaimed some of the lyrics of I'm Not Feeling It Anymore and rather casually sang that he didn't want to be bothered anymore by 'something about fingertips' in It's All In The Game. Juxtaposted to this, he did an impersonation and asked the audience who he was portraying, told the audience that he would now 'like to do some theatre', because that was what people often wanted, and remarked (after a lengthy power cut that marred Enlightenment) that he felt like 'being at a rugby match', given the crowd's cheery reaction when the power was restored.

I really enjoyed the show, and feel that Van has assembled a great, versatile band that is getting better and better (although I do miss Jay Berliner's contributions but I have to admit that the band is tighter than ever before). Even if he decides to throw in an extra verse, switches choruses and verses, or asks for a song the band hasn't played before, they can follow him on the spot. I wonder how big the book is they can currently choose from! OK, it was a festival setlist yesterday and it didn?t beat last year's Cardiff show, or what I've heard about the Brighton/Bournemouth sequence earlier this year, but what I saw was really good. I hope the Montreux show today will be at least as interesting!
-Ivo

Setlist (Thanks to Ivo)
Brown Eyed Girl
Only A Dream
Days Like This
Don't Start Crying Now/Custard Pie
How Can A Poor Boy?
Fever
Real Real Gone/You Send Me 
Haunts Of Ancient Peace
Bye Bye Blackbird
Foggy Day In Old London Town
Unchained Melody/The Waiting Game/Too Late To Stop Now
Moondance
Enlightenment
I'm Not Feeling It Anymore
It's All In The Game/You Know What They're Writing About
Ballerina
Gloria

Big Hand for The Band!
Chris White (saxophone)
Alistair White (trombone)
Dave Keary (guitar)
Paul Moore (keyboards)
Paul Moran (bass)
Jeff Lardner (drums)
Rod Quinn (percussion)