18-August-2012 Glanus Park, Wrexham, Wales

via Flick (Steven Shingler)

Virtual Festivals (source)

There's festival moments and then there's Van Morrison at Green Man 2012. Never one for procrastination, this was the time Van kicked off a rousing 75-minute-set with 'Brown Eyed Girl', gave us rapturous performances of 'Baby Please Don't Go' and 'Jackie Wilson Said' and is in a helicopter before his band has even finished a stupendous 'Gloria'.

It's a set that follows the classic Morrison tradition. No set list, songs decided on the go, but with all the urgency, passion and utter professionalism that is as much a standard for the Irish legend as the blues, R&B and soul that no doubt flows through his cranky veins.

Ah yes, the grumpiness. The myth is of an artist that dials in gigs, with little passion or care, who Rolling Stone called "an enigma shrouded in a Celtic Garb". But this set shows him full of head-down, no-messing determination. Standard black suit, trilby and shades. Standard crowd full of love, raising their hats and dancing to a riotous 'Baby, Please Don't Go', a sublime 'Haunts of Ancient Peace' and a blistering 'Jackie Wilson Said'.

'Gloria' is a genius set closer. The b-side (b-side!) to Them's 1964 cover of Big Joe William's Baby, Please Don't Go, Van's seven piece band make the garage classic sound as immediate as the day it was released, Morrison leading the crowd through that driving chorus, right up to the amazing giddy shout of "G-L-O-R-I-A!"

"I watch her come up to my house/She knocks upon my door/And then she comes up to my room/I want to say she makes me feel all right/G-L-O-R-I-A!"

And then he's off - into a car that delivers him into an adjacent field and a chopper that is in the skies before his band is even reaching the final notes of a wondrous Green Man experience.

-Kai Jones

Setlist
Brown Eyed Girl
Only A Dream
Young Lovers Do
Days Like This
Baby Please Don’t Go
Here Comes The Night
How Can a Poor Boy
The Mystery
Haunts of Ancient Peace
Jackie Wilson Said
All in the Game/No Plan B/Time is Running Out
Precious Time
Higher Than The World
Whenever God Shines his Light
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)