19-March-2017
The Theatre At Ace Hotel
Los Angeles, USA
Van Morrison Pays Tribute To Chuck Berry At L.A. Show
What better way to spend St. Patrick’s Day weekend than with one of Ireland’s greatest musical exports, Van “The Man” Morrison? The Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer spent three nights, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, at the Theater At Ace Hotel in Los Angeles.
Reflecting an incredibly eclectic more than 50-year career that includes some of the greatest songs in rock history – “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Moondance,” “Saint Dominic’s Preview,” “Gloria” and countless more – Morrison concerts in recent years can be whatever the singer/songwriter feels like at that time, be it troubadour, folk rocker or, most likely, a jazz and blues cat.
It was the jazz and blues cat that took the stage for the closing show of his three-night stand. Even the gorgeous ballad “Have I Told You Lately,” was transformed into a swinging jazz number by Morrison and his superior band.
Looking the part in a dark suit, hat and sunglasses, Morrison worked through a mix of hits, such as “Moondance,” the upbeat “Wild Night,” the 1987 single “Someone Like You” and the agical closer “Into The Mystic,” and lesser-known fare like 1991’s “Why Must I Always Explain?,” a highlight for the way it was extended into a jazz jam, last year’s “Every Time I See A River” and the brilliant “Ballerina,” from the landmark Astral Weeks.
One of the highlights of the final night was a nod to rock and roll founding father Chuck Berry, who passed away this weekend, at the age of ninety. Morrison introduced his band’s cover of Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” as a tribute to the late rock legend, starting with a strong guitar solo, followed by Morrison’s lively and reverent interpretation of Berry’s timeless 1958 classic, one of his biggest commercial successes, hitting No 2 on the Billboard pop charts and No 1 on the R&B charts.
Of course musicians all around the world rightfully paid tribute to Berry this weekend, but seeing an artist of Morrison’s stature, a fellow Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer, added a sense of gravitas that only a handful of living musicians can match.
That applies to Morrison’s concerts in general. Though he is never going to be the type to play a greatest hits set, that is not who he is nor has he ever been as an artist, his place as a true rock icon and one of the greatest vocalists in the history of the genre is unquestionable. Just seeing that presence and listening to “the voice” still sound so powerful and compelling on songs like “Into The Mystic” make for spine-tingling moment that every true rock fan should experience at least once.
-Steve Baltin
Setlist (Thanks John M.)
Look Beyond the Hill
Have I Told You Lately
Magic Time
Someone Like You
Going Down to Bangor
Wild Night
Sweet Little Sixteen "Tribute to Chuck Berry"
Playhouse
Sometimes We Cry
Moondance
Precious Time
Days Like This
Cleaning Windows/ Johnny B Goode
In the Afternoon/ Ancient highway/ Raincheck/ Sitting Pretty
Baby Please Don't Go/ Parchman Farm/ Don't Start Cryin' Now/ Custard Pie
Why Must I Always Explain
Help Me
Ballerina
Into The Mystic/ High on the Hill/ Sense of Wonder
18-March-2017
The Theatre At Ace Hotel
Los Angeles, USA
Setlist (Thanks Mike S.)
Look Beyond the Hill
Have I Told You Lately
Magic Time
Someone Like You
Moondance
Carrying a Torch
Cleaning Windows
Sometime We Cry
Baby Please Don't Go/ Parchman Farm/ Don't Start Cryin/ Custard Pie
In the Afternoon/ Ancient highway/ Raincheck/ Sitting Pretty
Wild Night
Days Like This
Precious Time
Whenever God Shines His Light
Enlightenment
Help Me
Ballerina
Brown Eyed Girl
Gloria
Big Hand For The Band!
Dave Keary (Guitar)
Paul Moore (Bass)
Paul Moran (Keyboards/Trumpet)
Mez Clough (Drums)
Sumudu (Vocals)
Dana Masters (Vocals)
17-March-2017
The Theatre At Ace Hotel
Los Angeles, USA
Van Morrison brings Irish heartbeat to L.A. for St. Patrick's Day
Lightning, we’re often told, doesn’t strike the same place twice. Instead, it hits unpredictably — a principle also true of a Van Morrison live performance.
On Friday, at the first of three nights at the Theatre at Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, the veteran Irish singer, songwriter, poet, saxophonist, harmonica player, guitarist and sometimes shaman once again cast spells and summoned the kind of artistic forces that have made his music exceptionally rewarding for more than half a century.
Where most musicians find the high points of their shows in their iconic songs and biggest hits, Morrison used them Friday chiefly as signposts pointing to the vistas he was most interested in exploring.
The result was a performance that was generous with his most familiar numbers — “Moondance,” “Wild Night,” “Have I Told You Lately,” “Bright Side of the Road” — but which soared most convincingly in songs that got little mass public exposure when he first released them.
He delivered the hits efficiently, in an almost business-like way, but with remarkable nuance and definition thanks to the savvy support from his band of four instrumentalists and two singers.
But he truly ascended into the emotional stratosphere when he called on “Too Many Myths,” a cut from his 2003 album “What’s Wrong With This Picture?”
Lyrically, it’s another of his essays on the price of fame — ”There’s too many myths/Can’t you see I’m just trying to stay in the game” — but in the moment, it became a meditation on a sincere search for what’s real in life.
The spiritual side of things is frequently at the crux of Morrison’s music-making, and Friday he also addressed matters of the soul in “Enlightenment,” in which he shared his struggle with the quest for meaning: “Chop that wood, carry water/What’s the sound of one hand clapping?/Enlightenment — don’t know what it is.”
Those two songs encapsulate key themes Morrison returns to repeatedly, ideas that form a yin-yang exploration on his recordings and in concert: on one hand, his struggle not to succumb to forces that would hold him down, and on the other, a yearning to connect with humanity’s higher nature in an effort to be lifted up.
As those themes were expressed Friday, Morrison elicited cheers and shouts from the near-capacity crowd. So did his blues excursion that began with “Baby Please Don’t Go,” the standard with which his first band, Them, had a hit in 1964. The song was the first part of an extended medley that segued into Bukka White’s “Parchman Farm,” Morrison’s Them-era song “Don’t Start Crying Now” and a boogie-woogie version of Sonny Terry’s “Custard Pie.”
When the 71-year-old Belfast, Northern Ireland, native subsequently dipped into his groundbreaking 1968 album “Astral Weeks” for “Ballerina” near the end of the set, he shifted onto yet another emotional plane, delving deep into the meditative possibilities in its jazz-soul-folk mix. Guitarist Dave Keary served up an exquisite solo on a Spanish classical instrument that beautifully answered Morrison’s plaintive vocal.
Oh, yes, and Friday was St. Patrick’s Day. Yet anyone who came hoping to hear one of Northern Ireland’s most celebrated musician of the rock-era take on “Danny Boy,” “Whiskey in the Jar,” “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen” and the like probably also still expects Bob Dylan to play “Like a Rolling Stone” just like it sounded on record.
Still, Morrison did acknowledge the occasion, turning to the traditional “Star of the County Down” from his stellar collaboration in 1986 with the Chieftains, “Irish Heartbeat.” In doing so, he gave it an entirely new treatment, replacing the stately march of that rendition with a rollicking arrangement that turned it into a kissing cousin of Del Shannon’s “Runaway.”
“Happy St. Patrick’s Day,” he said at the end.
His set didn’t include “Into the Mystic” this night, but that’s just a technicality. He took his audience there anyway.
-Randy Lewis
Setlist (Thanks Mike S.)
Too Late
Have I Told You Lately
Magic Time
Sometimes We Cry
Precious Time
Days Like This
Wild Night
Moondance
In the Midnight
Why Must I Always Explain
Star of the County Down
In the Afternoon/ Stretching Out/ Sittin' Pretty
I Can't Stop Loving You
Bright Side of the Road
Whenever God Shines His Light
Baby Please Don't Go/ Parchman Farm/ Don't Start Cryin Now/ Custard Pie
Enlightenment
Ballerina
Gloria
Big Hand For The Band!
Dave Keary (Guitar)
Paul Moore (Bass)
Paul Moran (Keyboards/Trumpet)
Mez Clough (Drums)
Sumudu (Vocals)
Dana Masters (Vocals)
