16-October-2018
Princess Theatre 
Torquay, England

Brendan was in Torquay for the gig
Van Morrison at Princess Theatre,Torquay - 16th October 2018
The night began on a disappointing note for me as it quickly became evident as the band took to the stage that it was a scaled back version of the band which toured the USA with Van recently. The excellent Jay Berliner on guitar and Tony Fitzgibbon on violin who were so prominent on the USA dates were very conspicuous by their absence. Apart from the obvious diminishing of the quality of the overall band sound arising from their omission there was also little likelihood of Astral Weeks material being heavily featured tonight and this indeed transpired to be the case unfortunately as there was, in fact, to be none in this the year of its 50th anniversary.

The show itself started in fairly routine manner with Van racing through Hold It Right There, Back On Top, How Far From God, Magic Time and the fast version of Have I Told You Lately. All were performed competently as you would expect with How Far from God being the strongest in my view. Raincheck got a relatively rare complete airing and this featured nice backing vocals from both Dana Masters and Teena Lyle.

The Baby Please Don't Go medley was immediately followed by Here Comes The Night which featured Van sauntering over to Paul Moran on keyboards to seemingly complain about the sound being too loud from Dave Keary's guitar. A selection of blues numbers followed consisting of Roll With The Punches, Talk Is Cheap and Think Twice Before You Go and it was the latter which impressed most and featured really good guitar and organ solos.
The most noteworthy thing about Days Like This was that it ended with Van appearing to say to Dave Keary that he couldn't hear his guitar which was somewhat ironic given his earlier complaint. Moondance was included yet again and saw the various band members take solos of which Paul Moore's on bass was the most impressive. Broken Record has become somewhat of a misnomer as the record for the number of times Van sings the title in the song's conclusion continues to be stuck in the groove on 29 with the result that the record, in fact, and somewhat ironically remains unbroken. Enlightenment raised the quality level somewhat followed by Symphony Sid which featured Dana Masters prominently on vocals.

Sometimes We Cry was very strong on a night of few highlights and was followed by Steal My Heart Away which got another welcome airing. A frenetic and powerful Wild Night was followed by the night's real highlights for me in a brilliant rendition of Tore Down A La Rimbaud and then Did Ye Get Healed.

The Party's Over summed the show in general up pretty accurately and it ended in an all too predictable manner given what had gone before with Brown Eyed Girl and Gloria which probably pleased the attendees with the least knowledge and appreciation of Van's outstanding body of work most of all.

This show can probably charitably be described as workmanlike as Van raced through the songs without a word for the audience and his only interaction with the band was to either shout out the next song title or to complain about the sound from the instruments. As the setlist indicates the show was entirely devoid of the spine tingling moments that one associates with a top quality Van show, no 'workshops', a distinct lack of mystical or transcendental material just Van singing and playing the songs routinely as opposed to really performing and there is a world of difference between the two in my view.

One would optimistically hope that the second show at the same venue tomorrow night will provide a marked contrast and redress the balance somewhat.
-Brendan Hynes

Setlist
Hold It Right There
Back On Top
How Far From God
Magic Time
Have I Told You Lately (fast version)
Raincheck
Baby Please Don't Go/Don't Start Crying Now
Here Comes The Night
Roll With The Punches
Talk Is Cheap
Think Twice Before You Go
Days Like This
Moondance
Broken Record
Enlightenment
Symphony Sid
Sometimes We Cry
Steal My Heart Away
Wild Night
Tore Down A La Rimbaud
Did Ye Get Healed
The Party's Over
Brown Eyed Girl
Gloria

Set Time
1h 42m