27-January-2014
St. David's Hall
 Cardiff, Wales

Brendan made the trip to Cardiff & here's his take
It was a cold dreary Monday night in Cardiff but not in Saint David's Hall where Van Morrison provided an evening of great music and warmth for the captive audience.

After opening as usual with Celtic Swing, Van's vocals were first exercised on Close Enough for Jazz before a stirring version of Rough God Goes Riding with Van and Shana Morrison singing alternate verses to great effect. Enlightenment followed with nice harmonica from Van before he took a seat to perform Keep It Simple while playing ukulele. Van commented afterwards that the problem with writing such lyrics was in trying to live up to them(or words to that effect). Incidentally the exciting news for fans who missed out when the album was first released is that the re-introduction of Keep it Simple into the set has coincided with the reappearance of the Keep it Simple t-shirts on the merchandising stand.

After the quick fire delivery of I Get a Kick out of You,Magic Time and the recently revived and re-arranged Back on Top, Van brought us into mystical territory with a beautiful version of So Quiet in Here which included Van bringing proceedings down to a whisper (as only he can do) while repeating the song title over and over at the end. This was immediately followed by the sublime Queen of the Slipstream which encapsulates brilliantly what I love most about Van's music. Van was really into the song and throwing his hand up like he used to do when singing Don't Look Back all those years ago.

Following really strong versions of Baby Please Don't Go and Sometimes We Cry, Van went into coasting mode for a while with Brown Eyed Girl,Whenever God Shines His Light, Moondance, Crazy Love (which was particularly good) and Days Like This following in quick succession.In the Garden brought us back into mystical territory but as it was a shortened version it didn't reach the great heights it normally does. Help Me quickly brought us into the home stretch with a pounding Gloria delivered as the encore.

Van was in extremely good humour throughout, interacting with the band and audience (who certainly appreciated it)and he really seemed to be in the mood (set length clocked in at 1h 42m).At the end Van thanked the audience for coming out on a Monday night and said that he and the band were privileged to play for them!!! You don't hear that very often but then again Van traditionally doesn't play a huge number of Monday night shows!
-Brendan Hynes

Setlist (Thanks Patrick A.)
Celtic Swing
Close Enough For Jazz
Rough God Goes Riding
Enlightenment
Keep It Simple
Magic Time
I Get A Kick Out Of You
Magic Time
Back On Top
So Quiet In Here
Queen Of Slipstream
Baby Please Don't Go
Sometimes We Cry
Brown Eyed Girl
Whenever God Shines His Light
Moondance
Crazy Love
Days Like This
In The Garden
Help Me
Gloria

Big Hand for The Band!
Chris White (Saxophone)
Shana Morrison (Vocals)
Alistair White (Trombone)
Dave Keary (Guitar)
Paul Moore (Bass)
Paul Moran (Keyboards)
Jeff Lardner (Drums)
Bobby Ruggiero (Percussion)