19-June-2015
Forest Hills Stadium
 New York, USA

New York Times (source)
“Road, the road, the road, the road, the road it never seems to end,” the newly knighted Sir Van Morrison sang on Friday night at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, in the only United States show on his current tour. At 69, Mr. Morrison has accumulated considerable mileage. But he was feisty and focused in this show.

When Mr. Morrison starts turning words into mantras, as he did with “the road,” he’s headed toward his most improvisatory mode, toying with rhythm and searching for nonverbal meanings. The song was “Magic Time” from 2005, one of his many songs invoking an idyllic past. Yet as he melted down the lyrics over the tune’s easy jazz shuffle, repeating them percussively or stretching them into melismas, and picked up his alto saxophone for a solo of insistent trills and growls, he sounded as if he was wrestling with the song’s nostalgia, not fully embracing it.

Mr. Morrison has always been poker-faced onstage: saying little between songs, concealed (in recent decades) behind dark glasses and a hat, standing nearly still until he wants to cue his band. The performance is in his voice, his choice of songs and the liberties he takes with them. For a singer with a catalog as huge as Mr. Morrison’s has grown — he started recording in the mid-1960s — each concert tour is a way to reassess his message, to locate himself in pop history and to recast the memories of his longtime fans. Mr. Morrison made this concert mostly about positive thinking and reassurance. Between obligatory hits, he chose determinedly optimistic songs, like “Close Enough for Jazz,” and avowals of faith, like “By His Grace.” Shana Morrison, his daughter, joined him for the ominous “Rough God Goes Riding,” about faith in a desperate era, as she does on his latest album, “Duets: Re-working the Catalogue.” When he did sing hits, he treated some like their studio versions — a crisp “Wild Night” — and thoroughly reworked others, like a Jamaican-tinged “Brown Eyed Girl.”

For nostalgia, Mr. Morrison aligned himself with the jazz and blues he grew up on. “Moondance,” his swinging 1970 hit, had solos quoting “My Funny Valentine” and Miles Davis’s “So What.” Venting antisocial impulses that aren’t in his own songs, Mr. Morrison chose blues full of heartbreak turning to rage: Guitar Slim’s “The Things I Used to Do,” John Lee Hooker’s “Think Twice Before You Go.”

He was, in a way, unfusing the fusion that has been his greatest achievement. Mr. Morrison’s most memorable albums, from the late 1960s and early 1970s, were idiosyncratic and inspired blends of blues, rock, soul, jazz, country, folk-rock, Celtic music and stream-of-consciousness lyrics. Afterward, he often separated out what he had woven together.

“We’ll walk down the avenue again/ And we’ll sing all the songs from way back when,” Mr. Morrison sang in “And the Healing Has Begun,” from 1979. But he started changing lyrics, played some lead guitar, scat-sang along with his solo and, as the band vamped, what had been a spoken-word coda became an open-ended incantation, with bits of lyrics like “ease on up” and “backstreet jellyroll” dissolving into ecstatic babble. He started swaying like someone testifying in a gospel church. He wasn’t remembering a song from way back when. He was living it anew.
-JON PARELES

Mike Fishman share his thoughts on gig
The weather cooperated and a welcome breeze drifted through the outdoor venue over the near-capacity crowd as Van strolled on stage. One thing never changes at a Van show and that is the palpable sense of excitement and anticipation among crowds that are almost always comprised of fans who have seen him dozens of times and those seeing The Man live for the first time. A good show, Van in fine form and animated, giving us the blues, a few classic growls, some golden oldies and finally a bit of the sublime when the Healing finally began. The up crowd responded strongly to the blues and classics like Moondance, Here Comes The Night, Wild Night and a re-invigorated Brown-Eyed Girl. Van gave us a gorgeous slowed-down Days Like This, appeased the hardcore fans with By His Grace and Bright Side Of The Road and finally took us to the realm only Van can with a beautiful And The Healing Has Begun. Set list perhaps a bit heavy on the hits for some but even in the songs that at first may feel disappointing there is always a lesson to be learned, ie, Precious Time is slipping away.

Van moaned into the blues harmonica, drove the drummer on, did his Clint Eastwood impersonation and sang like only Van Morrison can, his voice still rich, warm, supple and occasionally startling. He could have blown the metaphorical roof off the stadium into the starlit Queens night but the powerful magic Van has access to was reigned in for a crowd looking for a fun time, filled with nostalgia perhaps, but not in the mind-set for introspection. This was most evident in the shortened version of In The Afternoon, a song Van has often taken to the stratosphere but last night cut short after going nowhere special. In fact, with the exception of And The Healing Has Begun, Van declined to truly take any song down the ancient highway. As usual, Van has assembled an outstanding band to support his unique style of inspiration and they seriously rocked on a long instrumental jam at the end of the expected closer Gloria, Van long gone but the swirling sound from the stage thrilling in its intensity.

Setlist
Celtic Swing
Close Enough For Jazz
By His Grace
Carrying a Torch
Baby Please Don't Go
Magic Time
Moondance
Days Like This
Wild Night
Rough God Goes Riding w/Shana Morrison
Precious Time
Enlightenment
Here Comes The Night
In the Afternoon
Whenever God Shines His Light
Brown eyed Girl
Real Real Gone
Bright Side Of The Road
And the Healing Has Begun
Gloria

Big Hand for The Band!
Dave Keary (Guitar)
Paul Moore (Bass)
Paul Moran (Keyboards)
Bobby Ruggiero (Drums)
Dana Masters (Vocals)
Special Guest: Shana Morrison (Vocals)