24-May-2015
Town Hall 
Early Show
 Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland

Brendan Sends in his thoughts on First of two gigs
After the unsurprising opening Celtic Swing, Van Morrison moved firmly into jazz territory to deliver Close Enough For Jazz and If You Only Knew before performing a rare rendition of Meaning Of Loneliness which featured nice organ from Paul Moran and guitar from Dave Keary. As a tribute to the late BB King Van then performed stirring versions of Early in The Morning (which Van recorded with BB some years back) and Rock Me Baby. Van was in great form during these numbers aided in no small measure by his excellent band who fairly motored along.An extended In The Afternoon followed and provided the high point of the performance for me with Van taking things right down before bringing the song towards it’s conclusion as he repeated the phrase Burn Baby Burn over and over to the hushed audience. I Believe To My Soul was brilliant as always and saw Paul Moran excel on trumpet. Talk Is Cheap and Sometimes We Cry were followed by a rendition of a Chuck Willis number in What Am I Living For? which was pretty ordinary. Baby Please Don’t Go/Parchman Farm/Don’t Start Crying Now were lapped up by the blues appreciators who made up the majority of the audience before Van brought things way down for a really good In The Midnight which saw Dave Keary’s high pitched vocal range put to the test again much to Van’s apparent amusement. Rapid fire renditions of Things I Used To Do and Help Me incredibly triggered Van’s departure before a quick return for Gloria.

This show was solid and enjoyable without reaching too many lofty heights. As always with these double shows in one evening (but hopefully not at the forthcoming Cyprus Avenue concerts) the show was shortened considerably clocking in at a pretty miserly I hour 18 minutes leaving the audience somewhat short changed to say the least.

-Brendan Hynes

Set List
Celtic Swing
Close Enough For Jazz
If You Only Knew
Meaning Of Loneliness
Early In The Morning/Rock Me Baby
In The Afternoon
I Believe To My Soul
Talk Is Cheap
Sometimes We Cry
What Am I Living For?
Baby Please Don’t Go/Parchman Farm/Don’t Start Crying Now
In The Midnight
Things I Used To Do
Help Me
Gloria