31-August-2015
Cyprus Avenue
 Belfast, Northern Ireland

Photo via Pablo G.

Here are Brendan's thoughts on both shows
(1st Show)
As the clock ticked ever closer to the start time of 3.00pm one surprising observation given the overwhelming demand for tickets was that there were several rows of empty seats at the rear of the seating area and they remained unfilled throughout the concert. Just as Van Morrison and his band hit the stage the skies opened and rain cascaded down to dampen the spirits somewhat.When Van opened with the fairly routine numbers Celtic Swing and Close Enough For Jazz followed by Moondance I felt somewhat deflated as I was expecting something a lot different on this special day.Two duets followed with PJ Proby on Whatever Happened To PJ Proby and Chris Farlowe on Born To Sing and while they were enjoyable enough they were a long way below my expectations from the day. However, Van then announced a dedication to Brian Keenan before unleashing an imperious version of Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child with Van emphasing the word 'freedom' over and over to great effect and Paul Moran playing exceptional organ throughout. This was incredible and I found myself exclaiming that this was the sort of music I had come to hear! When a wonderful Mystic From The East followed, things were much brighter on the avenue and even the rain had cleared as the sun shone down on us all.The opening notes of Brown Eyed Girl provided a quick reality check however and when regular and somewhat overplayed setlist numbers such as Days Like This,Baby Please Don't Go and Enlightenment followed in quick succession the concert had reverted back to being a somewhat mediocre one.By the time Van had finished the Guitar Slim song Things I Used To Do, I had more or less resigned myself to the concert being a missed opportunity and quite a let down given the occasion. But then it happened! Van strapped on his guitar and without warning transported us through a magical music tour featuring three of the greatest songs he has written in his long and distinguished career.And The Healing Has Begun was stunning and seemed to go on for ever before being followed by a wonderful Ballerina which included a Cyprus Avenue reference by Van. After departing the stage we didn't have to wait long for Van's return,not for Gloria,but to the wonderful piano strains of In The Garden. Van was unstoppable by now and he brought things right down low before urging us all to sing it as he moved into the No Guru No Method No Teacher chant to the extraordinary sight of the entire audience jumping to their feet in unison to sing the words back to Van. This was very special and as Van departed the stage the band played on for a few more minutes to rapturous applause. What a finale we had witnessed and one sensed it had changed the whole mood entirely. The set time was 1h 27m.

Setlist
Celtic Swing
Close Enough For Jazz
Moondance
Whatever Happened to PJ Proby w/PJ Proby
Born to Sing w/Chris Farlowe
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
Mystic of the East
Brown Eyed Girl
Days Like a This
Baby Please Don't Go/Parchman Farm
Cry Cry Baby
Sometimes We Cry
Whenever God Shines His Light
Enlightenment
Things I Used To Do
Healing Has Begun
Ballerina
In The Garden

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

Photo via Pablo G.

(2nd Show)
As we walked down the avenue again for the second show there was much speculation as to what would be played this time. It seemed inconceivable and indeed illogical that Cyprus Avenue and indeed Madame George(with its Cyprus Avenue references) would not be played but with Van Morrison there had to be an element of doubt. As it transpired, he again played neither much to the disappointment of many including myself thereby emphasising that the only predictable thing about Van is his unpredictability!

After the show opened as ever with Celtic Swing we then got a really good version of Kingdom Hall to liven up proceedings considerably. When Van introduced Carrying A Torch as their latest hit and joked about the BBC Radio 2 playlist it was clear he was in more relaxed mode. Aided in no small part by Dana Masters on vocals, the song delivered yet again to great acclaim. After reprising his earlier duet with PJ Proby, Van brought the Belfast influences to bear with a stirring Cleaning Windows. Days like This and Precious Time were nothing out of the ordinary but the same cannot be said of Mystic From The East and Sometimes I Feel like A Motherless Child which were both played again and once more were quite wonderful. Sometimes We Cry was sung with great energy by both Van and Dana before being followed by Van's favourite medley of Baby Please Don't Go/Parchman Farm(which Van again made a point of crediting to Mose Alison) and Don't Start Crying Now. Van picked out someone in the front row before the replicated gun shots during Parchman Farm telling him he was a 'sitting duck'. Whenever God Shines His Light gave one last chance to the dancers amongst us to let loose before we embarked on the homeward journey with Van firmly in the zone. It started with an extended and quite magnificent It's All In The Game with Van giving it the full treatment taking us to the burning ground then on to the factory before picking up the sack and mopping his brow from the mid day sun. At one stage Van brought everything down so low you could have heard a pin drop as the audience fell virtually totally silent which is a feat in itself given the audience behaviour at outdoor concerts in particular these days. Finally, we had Van emitting various sounds and pleading over and over 'Daddy please take me to the burning ground' before slowly leaving the stage after just one hour. Mercifully Van's somewhat premature exit was simply for effect and he returned for four more numbers starting with a duet with Chris Farlowe on Stand By Me which saw Chris change the lyrics slightly to 'as long as Van Morrison Stands By Me'. And The Healing Has Begun was unsurprisingly rapturously received once again before an extended Help Me followed which saw Van and the band go into overdrive on what was a great version. When Van departed once more it appeared it might all be over but he returned one more time to deliver On Hyndford Street to an ecstatic response particularly from many of those who had travelled from abroad who were hearing it live for the first time and were virtually gasping for breath afterwards. Van made a number of humorous references during this rendition including to the the inclusion of a line which he said he couldn't believe he had put in. After using the phrase 'lit up inside' Van said he was plugging the book and that there were some on sale. We all laughed merrily of course! Finally, Van kept repeating the phrases "the only time is now" and "in the eternal presence" over and over before thanking the band and heading off in to the night. Another person who would have been well worthy of mention at that point was the one and only Maurice Kinkead whose vision and great endeavour played such a huge part in making the event happen. The set time was 1h 30m.

Setlist
Celtic Swing
Kingdom Hall
Carrying a Torch
Whatever Happened to PJ Proby w/PJ Proby
Cleaning Windows
Days Like This
Precious Time
Mystic of the East
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
Sometimes We Cry
Baby Please Don't Go/Parchman Farm/Cry Cry Baby
Whenever God Shines His Light
It's All in the Game
Stand By Me w/Chris Farlowe
Healing Has Begun
Help Me
On Hyndford Street

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

My overall perspective on the event was that it was the dedicated and indeed fortunate fans who managed to attend both shows who really got to enjoy the full Cyprus Avenue experience as they were afforded the opportunity to marry the really significant and outstanding moments of real excellence from each show into an abiding memory truly befitting the occasion.
-Brendan Hynes

Chrissie Hynde

Paste Magazine

Van Morrison: Between the Heart and the Throat

From a conversation between the psychologist R.D. Laing and Van Morrison in 1973:
LAING: All the times that I’ve listened to your voice, you seem to sing somewhere between your throat and your heart. Sometimes it’s right in your heart, sometimes it’s more up in your throat. When you do that now, is that the zone that you want to both come from and resonate in other people, the heart…
MORRISON: Eventually it’ll get into the heart. That’s what the eventual goal is—Exactly.

Van Morrison’s voice interests me because it seems inexplicable, misaligned somehow from his body and even his experience. The gift of the golden throat may have been given to the recipient most constitutionally unsuited for it. Biographies of Morrison are rough going if you’re a fan: very few people have anything nice to say about him. Recurrent adjectives used to describe him include distant, uncommunicative, arrogant, sullen, angry, grumpy, drunken, unpredictable, cutting, brusque, dismissive, moody, bitter.

In his voice there’s pain and comfort, a squealing anger. Resentment, and a squall, a snuffle. The meandering arrow of a fitful quest for transcendence. Or perhaps something more like a ley line—an invisible force of magnetism that compels you whether or not you’re aware of the secret nature of its influence. A Protestant Northern Irish mysticism, rough-and-tumble and pragmatic. B.B. King said about Morrison: “His voice is pure, yet bitter.”

The first time I saw Van Morrison was at the 2007 Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans. Still visible on the fronts of many of the houses around the Fairgrounds where the festival was held was the brutal graffiti (numbers, X’s, markings like tic-tac-toe) left by rescuers checking the houses for the living and the dead after Katrina. In April it was already so hot it verged on the unbearable. It was the weekend I learned that what I thought were small horses leading tourists on carriage tours through the French Quarter were in fact mules—horses couldn’t survive the New Orleans humidity, at least according to my friend.

Morrison was horrible—turgid, sedate, and indifferent. We listened to him from what seemed like a quarter of a mile away, unable to penetrate further into the sea of lawn chairs, beach umbrellas and sunburned frat boys eating crawfish Monica and yelling for “Brown-Eyed Girl.” There were a lot of jazz and blues covers, a lot of mid-tempo numbers. Dr. John may or may not have made a guest appearance on piano. Nothing caught fire. He seemed sleepy; his voice never really got out of his chest. I was incredibly disappointed.

The second time I saw Van Morrison was less than a year later, at the South by Southwest festival in early March 2008 in Austin, Texas. A few nights before his headlining gig at the Austin Music Hall, Morrison played a set at a small club called La Zona Rosa. Both shows were ostensibly to promote his new album Keep It Simple, which was about to be released. I had a press pass and, after a long meandering wait in line, was able to get into the club. I knew no one else there.

There was a sign at the bar saying that it would be closing five minutes before the set started, “by request of the performer,” and would remain closed for the duration of the performance. Coming from a musician who was notorious for enjoying a drink or two over the years, this move struck me as deeply perverse, and therefore admirable. I drank bourbon while I still could and checked out the assembled crowd of mostly English and American journalists. One English guy next to me was audibly dictating the first two paragraphs of his review of the show into a hand-held recorder a good half-hour before it actually began.

The eight- or nine-piece band, serious professionals, came onstage a few minutes before he did. He kind of lurched in front of the microphone from stage right suddenly and violently, even though I remember some sort of typical showbiz introduction by a member of the band: “Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome the one, the only, Van the Man… VAN MORRISON!” From 15 feet away, and from a vantage point several feet below him, he still looked short. He wore sunglasses and a fedora and sang into a gold-plated microphone and a gold mic stand accessorized with the letters VM.

Few concessions were made to the crowd, or to his back catalog of beloved, popular songs. Almost every number was drawn from the new album, with the exception of a cover of Webb Pierce’s classic alcoholic country lament “There Stands the Glass” that was especially ironic to listen to with the bar standing in darkness behind us. One review I read later said that Morrison told someone in the crowd to fuck off, but I don’t remember it happening.

After maybe half an hour, something started to shift. Morrison began to attack the syllables of the songs, biting them off, snarling and growling, repeating them in unpredictable flurries and bursts. He reminded me of a bulldog, a prizefighter with a broken face, an old heater warming up. His pale cheeks flaked away from the sides of his sunglasses like fresh-baked biscuit.

The last song he played was the best song on the new album, but I didn’t know that at the time. It started with a gentle rhythm on guitar and ukulele, and quietly he began singing about drinking wine and making time in the alley. It felt fluid and precise. Even the most blasé and exhausted-looking journalists glanced up from their electronic devices and began paying attention. He chanted “Behind the ritual/you find the spiritual” in a low growl again and again, until the words seemed to unmoor themselves from their network of associations and meanings and float free into a zone of spontaneously generated syllables and sounds. His teeth drew back as he sang, and he seemed for a few moments to be transported into a trance, an elongated pause of drawn-out time that manifested in the form of evanescent vocalized phonemes that disappeared the instant they were produced.

At first I wasn’t sure if he was singing what I thought he was singing, but after a moment it was clear that he was: “Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,” the syllable most associated with meaninglessness, nonsense, blather, sung with such inexplicable fervor and charged with such momentarily perverse passion that it was as if all previous language had been boiled down to that single (plosive, sibilant) unit, where it could either end or begin again.

He reached a point of fine frenzy, put the microphone back in its gold-plated stand, said “Let’s hear it for the BAND!” and abruptly walked off stage. The band kept playing for three or four minutes. Morrison did not reappear to play an encore or take a bow. It was unclear how much time had elapsed during the last song, what exactly had happened onstage.

The third time I saw Van Morrison was in the summer of 2013 in what was essentially a cornfield deep in the heart of Oxfordshire, England. Morrison was headlining the final night of the Cornbury Festival, a typical, if smallish, British summer music festival that nevertheless proved extremely difficult for my date and me to make our way to, even though it was ostensibly only 30 or 40 miles away from Oxford, where we were staying. Getting there without an automobile proved baffling and difficult, especially on a Sunday, when in the British hinterlands, the availability of public transportation grows thin on the ground or nonexistent altogether. Our journey to the festival site involved a late-running train, a missed shuttle bus and a long, awkward cab ride with a driver who seemed befuddled and slightly miffed by our request to go to Cornbury, even though it was the only event of note taking place within any significant distance of the taxi stand that afternoon.

We walked for half a mile from where the cabbie dropped us off and asked directions from about four volunteers before we finally were directed to the proper location. We seemed to be the only Americans there, as well as the only people who didn’t know exactly where we were going and what we were doing. It was about 10 minutes past 6 p.m.; we assumed we had arrived early enough, with time to spare and wander around in. Van Morrison, festival headliner, would surely go on around 8 or 9 p.m., with the sun slowly setting picturesquely behind him in the background. The very nice women who took our tickets and affixed complicated, multicolored cloth bracelets to our wrists informed us that Mr. Morrison was currently onstage and had started his performance at 6 p.m. sharp, per his personal request. I expressed surprise that the headliner was playing so early in the evening, and she murmured something less than complimentary about Mr. Morrison’s behavior in and about the Cornbury complex that afternoon. “I think he does whatever he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it, frankly…regardless of how it affects others!” She pointed us in the right direction, and we followed a vague, Morrisonesque sound down a gently sloping hill before finally arriving at a large stage in front of which were sprawled several thousand nice-looking British people, many of whom were in the process of conducting extensive picnics and apparently had been for quite some time. The man himself was a small blot a quarter of a mile away, a backdrop of rolling cornfields behind him in the distance.

We darted to the far right, skirting most of the main mass of the crowd, angling our way as close to the stage as possible without causing disturbance to any picnics, until we were probably a few hundred feet away. Somewhere in the course of our journey from the back (not front) gate to the stage, I told my date, “If he starts scatting, or doing any sort of vocal improvisations, really, we’re in luck. He’s into it. It’ll be a decent show.”

We found a spot to stand behind a group of neo-hippieish women in their 40s who had by all appearances been drinking white wine for several days straight. A Big Joe Williams cover dating from Morrison’s Them days, “Baby Please Don’t Go,” rendered straightforwardly but passionately. No scatting yet, but nothing to complain about, either. His voice was there, shockingly well-preserved and rich, which surprised me somehow, and he seemed less detached, more relaxed and engaged than the last time I’d seen him, five years earlier. There is a soupiness, an inoffensive, middle-of-the-road quality, a leaden, dozing sound to much of Van Morrison’s work in the ‘80s and ‘90s that bothers me, makes being a fan of his occasionally embarrassing, and for a few moments early on in the set I’m worried the show could slide in that direction. The setlist is much more greatest-hits-oriented than the earlier shows I’d seen, and somewhere about five or six songs in, in the middle of a real crowd-pleaser—“Jackie Wilson Said” or “Real Real Gone”?—he wanders off script for the first time, with a joyous burst and volley of bop-bop-bop-dit-dit-dits. I nudge my companion, raise my eyebrows to her affirmatively. The Belfast cowboy might take flight after all.

Somewhere in a three-song sequence near the end of the set that includes a barn-burning cover of the Sonny Boy Williamson blues classic “Help Me” followed by one of the only new songs in the set, “Pagan Heart,” and a wild, blues-drenched, Ray-Charles-inflected version of the Don Gibson country number “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” the rough magic shakes forth, and the angry angel in Morrison’s phlegm and windpipe presses a bruise onto the afternoon. Evidence of the intrusion is traced on my ganglia and nerves. The lion is in full roar, whole invented choruses, refrains, plots and subplots of growls, slurs, pops, blue notes, proclamations and exclamations in strange Irish and American tongues. At one point, he stands stock-still in the center of the stage with his head tilted all the way back, microphone held above him like a raised scepter, barely moving for a full two or three minutes, again suspended in some sort of temporary trance.

In a 2009 interview on the CBS show Sunday Morning, Morrison says that if he can find a way to get into such a “place” on stage, where he can receive (from where, he does not indicate), he considers the performance successful, but he’s often prevented from doing so, for whatever reason. Perhaps that’s what I had seen and heard—seen and not heard, actually—for so much of the first two hours I’d spent in the same space with him: that thwarted effort. Few find themselves in that space ever, or do so completely by accident. The sunglasses must help shield him, make such a public entrance into such a private space more possible, likely, bearable. Greil Marcus says that Morrison’s best work takes place in “a continuous present.” This place he seeks, on stage and in the studio, exists in that continuous present somehow, and when he enters into it, it does something extraordinary to the quality of the sound and texture of his voice—changes its relationship to language—makes it an enterprise both transcendent and absolutely simple.

Later on, he plays both harmonica and saxophone, conducts his small horn section and walks off stage while still singing the chorus to “Gloria,” a song he wrote in 1964 when he was 19 years old. No encore. Mystery intact. Corn swaying everywhere behind him.

Throughout his life, Van Morrison has been periodically fascinated by the mystical and the supernatural, the occult and the astral. In the late 1980s, a German Rosicrucian master met with several members of Morrison’s touring band and told one of them, Clive Culbertson, that, in regard to his voice, Morrison was essentially in the karmic grip of what was called “an Angelic Knot.”

“I was told that from a past life through certain occult works he had been involved in, there had been a knot placed in his throat and that had a lot to do with his mood swings. Energy would come in there. That was where he was caught. The German Rosicrucian master told me…all this. He offered, at no cost to himself or no signing to anything, to break this knot of these other beings that were around [Morrison]...The darker parts of him are operating through the throat chakras. That’s where his message was coming from. The energy that’s coming from there could be used for lighter, holier things. He could free himself, but it’s a past life committing him, from a ritual commitment he had made [in a previous existence] that’s karmically still with him.”

Who knows?

Jeff Fallis teaches in the English department at Clemson University and lives in Athens, Georgia. His writing has appeared in The Oxford American, Ploughshares and The Iowa Review.

Radio & TV Events For Van's Upcoming Birthday Concerts

  

Happy Birthday Van

BBC Radio Ulster is marking the 70th birthday of Belfast-born music legend Van Morrison with six days of special programmes, features and events - culminating in an exclusive full, live broadcast of the superstar’s sold-out 70th birthday concert from Cyprus Avenue, Belfast.
Happy Birthday Van
Wednesday 26 August – Monday 31 August
BBC Radio Ulster
bbc.co.uk/radioulster

BBC Radio Ulster is marking the 70th birthday of Belfast-born music legend Van Morrison with six days of special programmes, features and events – culminating in an exclusive full live broadcast of the superstar’s sold-out 70th birthday concert from Cyprus Avenue, Belfast.

Ralph’s Top 70 Van Tracks Countdown
From Wednesday 26 August until Friday 28 August, Ralph McLean presents three two-hour programmes on BBC Radio Ulster each night from 8-10pm, where he will be counting down songs from Van’s illustrious career, which spans more than 50 years. Ralph’s Top 70 Van Tracks Countdown celebrates the Belfast-born musician’s best known work as chosen by BBC Radio Ulster listeners.

Happy Birthday Van
During the week well known personalities from these shores pass on their birthday greetings to the multi-award winning artist in a series of short programmes called Happy Birthday Van. Famous Van Morrison fans such as Barry Douglas, Paddy Maloney, Brian Keenan, Phil Coulter and Sir Bob Geldof discuss how Van inspired them and choose the song that means the most to them. Happy Birthday Van can be heard before 11.55am and approximately 9.50pm from Wednesday 26 August until Friday 28 August and at 8.55am, 11.55pm and 4.55pm on Monday, August 31.

Arts Show
From 6.30pm on BBC Radio Ulster/Foyle, the Arts Show will include a daily celebration of Van Morrison and his work.

Gardeners’ Corner & John Toal
On Saturday 29 August, the Van Morrison themed programmes take a horticultural turn as Cherrie McIlwaine presents a Gardeners’ Corner special featuring gardens and green spaces in east Belfast from 9am. Later that morning, at 11am, John Toal will bring his show live from east Belfast in advance of Van’s two sell-out concerts on Monday 31 August.

Into The Music
And winding up the Van Morrison programming on Saturday 29 August is the special BBC Radio Ulster concert Into The Music at 6.05pm where Ralph McLean introduces local musicians, including The Four Of Us,The Clameens, Anthony Toner, Wookalilly and Ronnie Greer, as they pay a birthday tribute to Van Morrison at the Park Avenue Hotel in east Belfast.

The Story Of Them
On Sunday 30 August at 2pm there is another chance to hear Dan Gordon present The Story Of Them. Who are Them? What are Them? - asked the newspaper ads in 1964. This documentary tells the story of the five-piece rhythm & blues band from Belfast who scored a string of hits including Baby Please Don’t Go and Here Comes The Night.The programme features interviews with band members and, of course, music for the band. This is the story of the incredible rise and fall of one of Northern Ireland’s most famous musical exports.

Van Morrison Live On Cyprus Avenue
And finally on Monday 31 August, the day of Van’s birthday – BBC Radio Ulster will exclusively broadcast Van Morrison’s full 70th birthday concert live from Cyprus Avenue – the street which famously inspired the Astral Weeks track of the same name. Broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Foyle from 2.45pm, this is a unique opportunity for Van Morrison lovers to hear the artist in all his live glory as he performs his sold-out matinee concert as part of the Eastside Arts Festival. Prior to the concert starting, Ralph McLean will be setting the scene for listeners as he takes in his surroundings at the Cyprus Avenue concert and chatting to fans lucky enough to get tickets for the event.

BBC Northern Ireland viewers will also have the chance to witness Van Morrison in action and relive the concert when it receives its exclusive television broadcast on BBC One NI on Friday, September 4 at 10.35pm. (Transmission times correct at time of publication.)

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