30-October-2013
Royal Albert Hall
London, England

The Telegraph (Source)
Legendary grump, Van Morrison, was in unusually jovial spirits as he lit up the Albert Hall with a stunning performance

One can never be sure quite what to expect from a Van Morrison performance. Will it be the blues Van? The Celtic soul Van? The mystic Van? More crucially, will it be the committed Van - or, has as often been the case in recent years - the perfunctory one?

One thing that can usually be safely predicted is a self-absorption, a reluctance to acknowledge the audience on any level as befits a performer who in one of his most recent songs expressed the sentiment that "Sartre said hell was other people/I believe that most of them are". But remarkably - delightfully - that is precisely what we did not get.

Midway through this performance Morrison was joined on stage by the redoubtable Chris Farlowe, for a series of blues standards - fittingly enough, given that this was part of the week’s Blues Fest. Trading phrases during Rock Me Baby, Farlowe did something that probably no-one else has ever accomplished on stage with Van Morrison - breaking him up in laughter. The Albert Hall lit up in surprise.

Morrison is an artist who has always pleased himself. With a repertoire going back more than 50 years to draw upon, this performance included relatively few of his own songs, and most of those lesser known ones. Instead we had the blues, standards torn from the Las Vegas songbook, tributes to his favourite singers, and a couple of Morrison classics, all superbly crafted by an 8-piece band.

The evening began at a measured pace; a warm alto-sax instrumental, a couple of songs from his more recent albums - Open The Door To Your Heart and Sometimes We Cry - and a lovely, gently swaying version of Ray Charles’s I Can’t Stop Loving You, where Morrison seemed to be both warming up his vocal chords and lubricating them with copious amounts of water swigged from a pint glass.

The arrival on stage of Farlowe, a man who evinces all the barrel-chested bonhomie of a pub landlord, trading phrases on Rock Me Baby, Hoochie Coochie Man, and Boom, Boom, turned up the temperature.

By now it was apparent that something remarkable was happening. Van Morrison was visibly enjoying himself.

Then came an excursion into standards - a warm, finger-snapping reading of the Bricuse and Newley song, 'Who Can I Turn To’, was followed by 'That Old Black Magic’ in bossa nova time. Into The Mystic was recast in a mellow, jazzy mood, while a glorious version of Moondance emphasised its cool, bop qualities, quoting phrases from the Miles David copybook.

What all of this affirmed is what a supremely commanding singer Van Morrison is, a man who does not so much perform a song as take possession of it, bending and pushing its shape in a series of growls, cries, slurs and moans.

The end piece of this performance was All In The Game , with Morrison’s scat vocals fluttering around the melody like a butterfly, seguing into You Know What They’re Writing About - "the poetry section" as he gruffly announced - its stream of consciousness phrases "meet me down by the water... I’ve got no safety net... going to the burning ground’, building to a thrilling climax.

Artistry at work. And - astonishingly - with a smile.
-Mick Brown

Setist
Celtic Swing
Open The Door (To Your Heart)
Sometimes We Cry
I Can't Stop Loving you
Fire In The Belly
Baby, Please Don't Go
Early In The Morning
Rock Me Baby
Hoochie Coochie Man (w/Chris Farlowe)
Dimples/Boom Boom
Who Can I Turn To
Old Black Magic
Philosopher's Stone
Saint James Infirmary
Celtic Excavation/Into The Mystic
Moondance
Jackie Wilson Said
All In The Game/Burning Ground/No Plan B
Stand By Me (w/Chris Farlowe)
Gloria

22-October-2013
& 23-October-2013
 Europa Hotel  
Belfast, Northern Ireland

Photo via Pablo G.

Our man in Ireland sent in this review of the gigs
Van returned to the Europa for two more dinner concerts this week. The first night was very disappointing with Van coasting through a festival type set with few highlights. Consider that the set included Brown Eyed Girl, Moondance, Days Like This, Choppin Wood Jackie Wilson Said and Gloria and you will get the picture. The highlight for me was a fine rendition of the rarely played I Forgot That Love Existed which was a new arrangement of the song. Van told us he nearly didn’t make it to the concert but didn’t expand other than to say it was one of those days (not to be confused with Days Like This).

The second night by contrast was much more uplifting. Starting with Celtic Swing Van then moved into a rarely played Come Running To Me from the Moondance album. When Van then produced a terrific version of You Gotta Make It Through The World If You Can from A Period of Transition it was obvious this was going to be much more like it. And it was! In the Midnight was well received with percussionist Bobby Ruggiero getting to do his high pitched vocal contribution twice at the end because Van reckoned he did it so well the first time. Other highlights included Celtic Excavation which merged into a beautiful version of Into the Mystic, thunderous versions of Baby Please Don’t Go and Early in the Morning/Rock me Baby and a very impressive re-worked version of Fire in the Belly. The concert finished with the usual high tempo Help Me and Gloria.

The concert was not without it’s disappointing moments however as a 100 mile per hour rhythm and blues version of Philosopher’s Stone(also played the same way the previous night) did a huge disservice to such a wonderful song. The general consensus among fans afterwards was that it would have been much better not to play the song at all than to play it like that.Sacrilege! A further low point was the abandonment(for the second time in recent shows) by Van of the magnificent In the Garden after a few seconds resulting in the audience’s shouts of exultation being quickly replaced by groans of disappointment. It was quite ridiculous really and very annoying for those of us who paid such premium. prices to attend.

Overall though it was a very enjoyable show and the couple of rarities included in the set certainly added to the occasion.
-Brendan Hynes

Setlist: 22-Oct-2013
Celtic Swing
Only a Dream
Days Like This
New Kind of Man
The Mystery
Stranded
Magic Time
Chopin' Wood
I Forgot That Love Existed
In The Midnight
Philosopher's Stone
Early in The Morning
Baby Please Don't Go
Brown Eyed Girl
Moondance
Jackie Wilson Said
Gloria

Setlist: 23-Oct-2013
Celtic Swing
Come Running To Me
You Got To Make It Through The World
In The Nidnight
A New Kind Of Man
Days Like This
Philosopher's Stone
Celtic Excavation/Into The Mystic
Got To Go Back
Fire In The Belly
Baby Please Don't Go
Early In The Morning
Whenever God shines His Light
Bobby Bland Tribute Song
Help Me
Gloria

Van Morrison Returns To North America  

San Francisco and New York Dates in November Announced

 22-Nov-2013 Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium, San Francisco
 23-Nov-2013 Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium, San Francisco
25-Nov-2013 The Theater at Madison Square Garden, New York
26-Nov-2013 Beacon Theatre, New York

On sale from Ticketmaster

Van Morrison & Mick Hucknall’s All Star Tribute To Bobby Bland

Posted on Mick Hucknall's website:

Mick and Van Morrison are to join forces for an All Star Tribute to blues and soul legend Bobby Bland.
The show is part of BluesFest 2013 and is the early evening show on Friday 1st November at the Royal Albert Hall.

Tickets are available now here and here, or by telephone from the Royal Albert Hall box office on 0845 401 5034 or Ticketmaster on 0844 844 0444 (please note there is another show on at 10pm that night so make sure you buy a ticket for the right show)

You can read more about Blues Fest 2013 here.

02-August-2013
Notodden Blues Festival  
Notodden, Norway

Setlist
Celtic Swing
Got to Go Back
Only a Dream
Keep Mediocrity At Bay
Pagan Heart
Baby Please Don’t Go/Boogie Chillen/Rock Island Line
What am I living for
Playhouse
Born To Sing
Going Down to Monte Carlo
Moondance
Brown Eyed Girl
Jackie Wilson Said
That’s Life
Whenever God Shines His light
Can’t Stop Loving You
Help Me w/ James Hunter
Gloria w/ James Hunter

22-July-2013
Slieve Donard Resort & Spa 
Newcastle, Northern Ireland

via Kjell D.

Setlist (Thanks Mike S.)
Coney Island
Celtic Excavation
Into the Mystic
In the Garden
What Am I Living For
Playhouse
Sometimes We Cry
Going Down to Monte Carlo
Retreat and View
Haunts of Ancient Peace
Common One
Enlightenment
Thanks For The Information
Baby Please Don't Go/Rock Island Line/Boogie Chillin
Help Me
Gloria

21-July-2013
Slieve Donard Resort & Spa 
Newcastle, Northern Ireland

via Art S.

Setlist (Thanks Mike S.)
Coney Island
Higher Than The World
Stranded
Pay The Devil
What Am I Living For
Open The Door (To Your Heart)
Have I Told You Lately
Stormy Monday/Lonely Avenue
Sometimes We Cry
Playhouse
Going Down to Monte Carlo
Retreat and View
Fame
Too Many Myths
Take Your Hand Outta My Pocket
Whenever God Shines His Light
Help Me
Gloria

18-July-2013
Hebridean Celtic Festival 
Stornoway, Scotland

The Scotsman (source)

Review: Hebridean Celtic Festival, Isle of Lewis

LIKE MANY UK festivals, the Heb Celt was due a sunny one, and the 18th outing for the Western Isles’ flagship event got that with bells on.

For the afternoon acts, in fact, the experience looked somewhat disconcerting: the festival’s picturesquely tented, tree-lined, two-stage main arena is constructed more with lashing rain than baking heat in mind, capable of sheltering much of the weekend’s annual 15000-ish attendance - but with most folk recumbently soaking up sounds and rays outside, playing the vast main marquee in particular must have felt like addressing an almost literal black hole. It seemed fractionally to be getting to Manchester five-piece The Travelling Band, as they amped up volume and tempo towards the end of their teatime set, but a distinctly frustrated edge to their bellowed exhortation, “Time to wake up!”, was understandable, given their soulful, soaraway anthems and big catchy choruses’ adroitness - underpinned by classily diverse guitar work - at hitting the festival sweet spot.

The same was achieved for most of the faithful assembled at the feet of headliner Van Morrison, whose slickly efficient 90-minute set, anchored by an excellent 9-piece band, roamed across the rootsy, bluesy, soul/jazz-inflected territory on which his curmudgeonly legend is founded, wrapping up with a string of classic cuts - Moondance, Brown-Eyed Girl, Gloria - before The Man exited stage left at exactly 10pm. No encore, natch, but apparently this was him positively overflowing with bonhomie, according to the misanthropic standards in which he’s somehow indulged.

Capercaillie’s appearance the next night was both marvellously, movingly apt - at a hugely successful Gaelic-rooted festival, whose contemporary cultural context the band has been so pivotal in shaping - and absolutely thrilling, while Saturday bill-toppers The Red Hot Chilli Pipers comprehensively demonstrated the awesome force of precision-machined, unapologetically populist Celtic showbiz. The similarly various likes of Lau; dream-team US/UK pairing Darrell Scott and Danny Thompson; wittily unpredictable Dundee rising stars Anderson, McGinty, Webster, Ward & Fisher; sizzling latter-day stringband The Hot Seats, and brilliantly wayward local bard Iain Morrison featured elsewhere in a characteristically select yet wide-ranging Heb Celt programme, highlighting the curatorial skill that’s always been its fundamental strength, whatever the weather.
-SUE WILSON

17-July-2013
Larmer Tree Festival 
Salisbury, England

Setlist
Avalon Of The Heart
Got To Go Back
The Mystery
Days Like This
Baby Please Don't Go
Here Comes The Night
Moondance
What Am I Living For
Playhouse
Tupelo Honey
Open The Door (To Your Heart)
Sometimes We Cry
Brown Eyed Girl
In The Garden
Haunts Of Ancient Peace
Whenever God Shines His Light
Help Me
Gloria

07-July-2013
Cornbury Festival 
Oxfordshire, England

Setlist
Only A Dream
Precious Time
Baby Please Don't Go
Days Like This
Moondance
Jackie Wilson Said
Real Real Gone
Here Comes the Night
Have I Told You Lately
Help Me
My Pagan Heart
I Can't Stop Loving You
Crazy Love
Whenever God Shines His Light
Brown Eyed Girl
Gloria

Poll: Fans Rank Their Favorite Songs on
Born To Sing: No Plan B

A total of 998 people voted and here are the results (song, # of votes & percentage)

Goin' Down to Monte Carlo 278 (27%)
End of the Rainbow 126 (12%)
Open the Door (To Your Heart) 112 (11%)
Mystic of the East 83 (8%)
If In Money We Trust 88 (8%)
Retreat and View 74 (7%)
Pagan Heart 73 (7%)
Born to Sing 65 (6%)
Close Enough For Jazz 59 (5%)
Educating Archie 40 (4%)

08-June-2013
Dunluce Castle 
Antrim, Nothern Ireland

News Letter

Night of Morrison magic at Dunluce

One of Northern Ireland’s living legends was back on home soil at the weekend for two open-air concerts on the north coast.

On Friday and Saturday nights, Van Morrison took to the improvised arena over-looking the ancient ruins of Dunluce Castle.

The Belfast songwriter delighted the sun-drenched crowds – belting out a string of his classic hits from a career spanning six decades.

Music fans began arriving at the site from mid-afternoon each day with a full programme of support artists on stage from 5pm.

On Saturday, US jazz singer Dana Masters and her band set the tone for an evening of high-class entertainment, including Morrison’s daughter Shana who performed her own short set as well as supporting her father on stage throughout.

English blues and soul veteran Chris Farlowe also joined Morrison for a couple of duets before rounding off the evening with his own, powerful rendition of several blues classics.

Thousands came to Dunluce over both nights and the concerts – the first to be held at the historic location – have already been hailed a huge success by those attending.

There was magic in the north Antrim air when two of Northern Ireland’s mystical icons unforgettably joined forces.

Van Morrison playing Duncluce Castle was always likely to produce something special and both delivered in some style.

The two concerts were in keeping with the Belfast legend’s relatively recent more crowd-pleasing displays.

His set was back-to-back Morrison classics from the opening Only a Dream, before he signed off on a high with a rousing rendition of Gloria on Saturday night.

It’s anyone’s guess what re-worked gems from such an extensive back catalogue will get an airing. Ignored for decades by the man himself as only a “pop song”, in recent years Brown Eyed Girl has become a staple of his live repertoire much to the crowds’ delight. Morrison can do no wrong in this form.
-Mark Rainey

Setlist
Celtic Swing
Only A Dream
Precious Time
Whenever God Shines His Light
Baby Please Don't Go
Retreat and View
Sometimes We Cry
Old Black Magic
Blues Medley
Hoochie Coochie Man
Stand By Me
Star of the County Down
Jackie Wilson Said
Brown Eyed Girl
Gloria

07-June-2013
Dunluce Castle 
Antrim, Nothern Ireland

Via Alan L.

Setlist
Celtic Swing
Open The Door (To Your Heart)
Baby, Please Don't Go
Days Like This
Born To Sing
Goin' Down To Monte Carlo
The Way Young Lovers Do
Moondance
Sometimes We Cry
Blues Medley (Rock Me All Night Long [Rock Me Baby?]/Early In The Morning(One Drink))
Hoochie Coochie Man
Stand By Me
I Can't Stop Loving You
Brown Eyed Girl
Jackie Wilson Said
Gloria

1989 Q Magazine Interview

Van Morrison interviewed by Spike Milligan

Written down by Paul Du Noyer

Published in Q Magazine # 35, August 1989

The time has come, the jester said, to talk of many things. Of life and art and 12-man-a-side porridge, of ice cream cones and jazz. Chuckling quietly the grave venerated minstrel nodded assent and together they stepped into the sunlit garden. Later, there would be tea and cucumber sandwiches . . . Paul Du Noyer describes the day that Spike Milligan met Van Morrison . . .

Across and around the sunlit lawn of an English country garden, there romps a spry old gent of 71 years, dressed for the occasion in a floppy black hat. He also sports, we note with some curiosity, a large, pink, penis-shaped false nose, affixed to his face with elastic. To complete this singular scene there is another figure, a man of stockier build, who frowns in concentration while talking into a portable telephone. Within a moment, though, he's spied the spry old gent, loping towards him with a speed that many might think alarming, and abandons his conversation, quaking with mirth.

And that was how Spike Milligan got to have his picture taken with Van Morrison:

"He was just always there," is how the singer recalls the comic's influence over him down the years. "Sunday mornings, if I remember, was The Goons, then Round The Horne, Jimmy Clitheroe, they seemed to be all on a Sunday. The Goons were huge in Ireland; kids I grew up with talked like that all the time." To which Milligan responds in that foggy, moronic voice that Goons specialists will recognise as belonging to Eccles: "My brain hurts!"

The meeting had been Van's idea. A most reluctant customer when it comes to promoting himself and his music through the media, Morrison had made it known he'd find an interview to be a more congenial experience if it was conducted by a fellow artist. He suggested Spike Milligan. Ever since he tuned in to The Goons on the wireless, back in Belfast childhood, Van has revered the other man's work - an aspect of Morrison's passions that few might expect, given the brooding, spiritual intensity that seems to inform so much of his singing. Indeed, the two men have met before (backstage at one of Spike's shows, at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin), while Milligan himself has been impressed by Van's music, especially his collaborations with The Chieftains.

Spike has already featured, unknowingly, in Morrison's work, being the character named in "Boffyflow And Spike", a whimsical short story that Van wrote for the sleeve of his Sense Of Wonder album ("Boffy is covered with leaves completely the buckijit and Spike is in hysterics"); there's an instrumental track, of the same title, on the record itself. The night after this meeting, at a gig in Newport, Wales, Van will again invoke the Milligan name, during a bizarre boogie work-out called Max Wall, in honour of another venerable character in British comedy.

That aside, their two careers have followed long but separate paths, the only apparent con nections being Milligan's early flirtations with jazz bands, and his taste for all things Irish (he's Indian born, but of Irish Catholic upbringing) typified by his 1963 novel Puckoon, set in a slightly surreal Sligo village ("Many people die of thirst but the Irish are born with one.")

Nowadays more active as a writer than a performer, Spike has just completed a new book, a kind of Milligan family history. It follows his much-loved run of war memoirs, now in six volumes, which began with Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall.

Morrison, meanwhile, is to be the subject of a BBC Arena film, for broadcast late in '89, that celebrates his 25 years in the music business (though it's to be doubted if Morrison himself sees his involvement in the "business" as anything else but a painful by-product of what he does). He marks this year with the release of his newest album Avalon Sunset, another instalment in the musical odyssey that started in local Belfast bands, came to wider prominence with the mid-'60s R&B group Them, and subsequently settled into a stream of albums from Astral Weeks (in 1968) and Moondance through to more recent offerings such as No Guru, No Method, No Teacher and 1988's teaming with The Chieftains, Irish Heartbeat.

And so the arrangements were arranged, and Morrison has made the two-and-a-half-hour car trip down to Milligan's home in this secluded corner of Sussex. The veteran japester arises from his sofa to greet his guest, and they settle in for an hour and a half of conversation which Milligan, inevitably, tends to dominate. Indeed, for much of the time, Morrison is unable to speak even if he feels so inclined, as Milligan's reminiscences have the Belfast man doubled up with laughter.

Spike: Van, I must ask you something. Dutch descent. You must be.

Van: No.

S: No? You're an Irishman?

V: Ivan is my name.

S: I see. A Russian! I'm baffled now.

V: No, in Ireland they call me Van. It's East Belfast slang for Ivan, that's all it is.

S: The last time I saw you, you came in the dressing room, you had an ice cream!

V: I can't remember.

S: Yes, I'd had a few, too. It was vanilla. I asked if you could get me one, too. I didn't think there was an ice cream bar for miles. You must have come in with it from another county! Do you find that Irish audiences are more professional? I came on stage with this iron hat on, and straight away from the gallery:"Jaysus, take yer hat off, we can't hear you!" They said, "Give us Danny Boy." I said, I can't, he's in the loo.

My father was born in Sligo, Van, very Irish working class family, very poor. He used to live in a romantic world. He loved a drink, he was full of stories. He came to me one day and said, I've never killed a tiger. I said, Why are you telling me? Well I've got to tell somebody! I thought all fathers were like this lunatic. He used to tell the kids all these stories, about shooting elephants, strangling giraffes by hand. I said, What's all this, Dad? It's all lies isn't it? He said, Oh yes, all lies. But what what would you rather have: a boring truth, or an exciting lie?

Have you seen Paddy Moloney recently?

V: No, d'you know him?

S: Oh yes, he's a rugger fan like me. Are you into rugby, Van? No? Porridge?

V: Oh yes, porridge.

S: Porridge. It's a better game. Twelve-man-a-side porridge! Did you hear about the Tipperary hurling team? They had to leave at half-time to catch their train home. So the other side went on scoring and won the game! Marvellous! Only in Ireland.

V: I played rugby in school, but after I left I forgot all about it.

S: D'you go into pubs at all, in Ireland?

V: Not really, no.

S: I used to go in there just to hear the talking. That's why they produce such good writers, the conversation is so good. I hope television doesn't change that. You come from East Belfast, Van? Was it tough?

V: Not really. How long have you lived down here?

S: Only a year. As you get older you earn less money, and I couldn't afford to keep the house on in London. So I put it up for sale, and they said, We've got this Japanese bloke to buy it, you don't mind him buying the place? I said, It's OK, I'll wire it up to explode on the anniversary of Pearl Harbour.

I listened to your record with The Chieftains. Lovely. I tried to analyse you as a singer. You really are a jazz singer, aren't you?

V: That's right.

S: You must be one of the most adventurous singers, you move through such a spectrum. I'm not grovelling to you, it's just the truth. Thank you, that's a pound! I don't know much about your family life and all that.

V: When we do these things I don't usually talk about anything but the music.

S: Were you ever into jazz? You're such a blues singer.

V: I listened to jazz since I was two years old or something. Who impressed me? Leadbelly, Mahalia Jackson, That's my background. They've been saying for years I'm rock this, rock that, but that's all...

S: I listened to the first track on the new record, I thought for a moment, if I hadn't have known you, this guy might be coloured, the way he sings.

V: I just got into it by accident, started off in skiffle groups when that was happening, went through showbands, whatever was happening. I was just a professional musician, I joined the union, and they'd knock on your door, Can you play in County Mayo on Saturday night for 40 quid? My peer group that I came from, they were into playing, they weren't into making records. Pop music wasn't even reality to me, I had this R&B club, doing in Belfast what Ken Collier was doing here. And then this bloke came over from Decca Records and the whole thing got wound up from there, and we went in the studio, and got involved in the music business. It became like pop. People were telling you, You must do this, or that. All manipulation.

You played trumpet, didn't you?

S: I played trumpet and jazz guitar and piano. In about 1933 through to about 1947. We did shows in the army, ENSA saw us and offered us 20 pounds a week when we got demobbed. So we became the rage of Italy, went round for two years. Then we came back here and fuck all happened, so I just dropped it, worked in a bar and became a scriptwriter.

V: How long was that before The Goons?

S: Oh, a long time. The Goons didn't start until about 1949. I was telling jokes in the bar, and started writing scripts for the BBC, met Peter Sellers, and the chemistry was there.

V: Did you play on any of the singles, like "I'm Walking Backwards For Christmas"?

S: I played guitar on the "Ying Tong Song", in the middle eight. My total record as a musician! With the pop scene as it was, I thought, I bet I can write a hit record, I'll write the worst song in the world, with three chords and no words. And I did it. I sent it to my mother, and wrote, By the way, that's me playing guitar in the middle. So she invited all her cronies in, "Listen to this now." And she'd marked it with a chalk, where the guitar started and where it finished. "Oh he's a powerful good player!" Did you follow any jazz guitarists?

V: I heard Django. My father had a lot of jazz records. Rosetta Tharpe played guitar. The Carter Family, the country stuff, that's what I liked.

S: D'you still enjoy the music, Van, when you're doing it? You sound like you do.

V: Occasionally. I don't do many gigs now, that's why I enjoy it.

S: It's like people, isn't it? Meet them once a month, it's very nice. Meet them every day you start to hate them. Of all the groups I've listened to, you are the most experimental. You keep moving. where will it stop? Will you go into raga? Or Spanish flamenco? They've never married that into pop.

V: Well The Gypsy Kings do.

S: Are you still throbbing about music? Do you lie in bed at night and think, I like that sound in my head?

V: Not really. I think you just have to find different angles if you've been doing music for so long. Georgie Fame's working with me now, and Cliff's on one track on the new album. When did you see The Chieftains last?

S: They came here to Tunbridge Wells about nine months ago. Moloney's a delightful man, such musician. A wonderful feeling of happiness they can convey. Of course they all go to blind tailors don't they? Listening to your singing, Van, you have a sense of excitement. Not many singers have this. That's what you convey.

V: It's drama, isn't it? The blues are drama, that's what I picked up from it. You make things more than they really are, to get it across, I find. It's fantasy, illusion.

S: This is deep stuff, you see. Pop stars don't talk like this. "Yeah, we done a gig. My brain hurts." You have a very strange charisma. I don't feel quite comfortable in your presence. (Morrison laughs) A sense of menace. There's a sense abandonment in your singing, I thought, he doesn't think, he just does it.

V: I don't feel comfortable doing interviews. My profession is music, and writing songs. That's what I do. I like to do it, but I hate to talk about it. You're more interesting to me than I am talking about my music.

S: Too bloody modest by far! Your name is worldwide. Go to Alaska and somebody will say, "Have you heard Van Morrison?" Colossal fame. I'm famous to a certain degree, but I haven't got a showbiz ego. I'm more interested like you are in the actual meaning of things.

V: Why do you think there were so many comedians about in that Goons time, the '50s?

S: Well just after the war, suddenly they were being loosed out of the forces, Jimmy Edwards, Max Bygraves, Frankie Howerd, Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, and they were all dying to break out.

V: Did you know Hancock?

S: Very difficult man to get on with. He used to drink excessively. You felt sorry for him. He ended up on his own. I thought, he's got rid of everybody else, he's going to get rid of himself. And he did. He phoned me up from Australia the night before he died. He said, It's wonderful here. I could hear he was smashed out of his mind. He said, I've got a great series coming up, you must see it. The next morning he was dead.

V: Do you know Max Wall? He's doing Beckett isn't he?

S: That's right, bloody hard plays to appear in... I've listened to music right up to Schoenberg, but I'm baffled by him and this tonal music. I suppose it's technically very clever but it doesn't give me any emotion. I like Mahler. Do you listen to any classical music?

V: Debussy.

S: Marvellous. Sensuous, descriptive music.

(There is a break while Spike's wife serves coffee and sandwiches.)

V: It's not unloaded coffee.

S: Unloaded coffee! Ha ha! (Munching) Thank Christ you came, I'd have starved otherwise... The only other Van I know is Van Driver.

V: Yeah, he's very popular!

S: Does the touring get you down?

V: I don't tour much any more. I used to when I was about 15. Slept on a bus for a couple of years. Are you ever serious?

S: Yes. I'm being semi-serious with you, because I think you're basically a very serious person, Van, I really do. I'm serious about the environment, about kids, about what goes on, a better world. If you're ever stuck for lyrics, I won a song lyric contest once. I'm an environmentalist, I'm a romantic. I'm not trying to make money out of you, I've got enough money. I like experimenting. If you've got a strange song, that nobody can put words to, throw it at me. I don't want any money for it, I'll just do it for kicks.

D'you know, I write a joke every day. I make them up, I don't know how, like you get songs. Little man owns a jeweller's shop in London. And he gets a pretty girl to work behind the counter. She's very attractive, very sexy, he's about 75. He suddenly starts missing money from the till. And he finally catches her with her hand in the till. And he says, Miss Mollison, I'll have to call the police! She says, No, don't do that! I'm from a very good family. I'm sorry Miss Mollison, I caught you, I'll have to call the police. She says, No, you can take me upstairs and you can screw me. He says, Well, as you put it that way. So he takes her upstairs and he's banging away for two hours but he couldn't make anything happen. So he says, It's no good. I'll have to call the police.

Are you a Proddy, Van? Don't come near me, I don't want to catch it.

V: Basically I'm not really anything.

S: Aren't you? So when I introduce you to people I say, "Here is Not Anything. This is Van Not Anything Morrison. A singer and Not Anything." You must be something.

V: Well theoretically I'm Church Of Ireland.

S: Proddy? Oh Jaysus I won't mention this to my mother. "Dear Mother, I spoke to a Protestant today." "Oh God forgive you, son. Go and confess it." "Father I have sinned." Amazing the power of the Catholic Church. My father went bald very early, and he was so incensed by it that he went to church and prayed for it to come back. I'm certain he went to a priest and confessed, "Dear Father forgive me, I have gone bald." "Go away, my son, buy three wigs and say one Hail Mary."

V: How many characters were in The Goons?

S: About six.

V: Neddy Seagoon?

S: An idiot! We used to give him a little megaphone to speak into. "Hello the world! It's Neddy Seagoon calling the world!" Great stuff. The best joke I did with Eccles, though, was he was in class, they were trying to teach the Theory of Relativity to this idiot. "Now look, Eccles, jump up in the air. You see what happened then? You had to come back down to earth again." "Yeah, I had to come back down to earth." "Yes, why?" "Well, I live there!"

(There's another break, while Van goes out to make a phone call, at which point Spike joins him in the garden for some photographs. Returning to the house, Van describes his dislike for promotional duties such as having his picture taken. The cliche about him, he remarks, is that he's "difficult")

V: You're "difficult" if you know exactly what you want, and what your perimeters are, and your own limitations. If you don't have your act together, then you're not "difficult". Then you're just ordinary Joe Blow, you'll take anything, there's no discernment about what you do.

S: But you are different Van, you're a very strange man.

V: Well I've heard it said that Spike Milligan is an eccentric. I don't know what that means.

S: Well I sleep with my underpants on back to front, because you never know what could happen. I'm not eccentric. I love talking to people, as a writer. You're leaving an indelible mark on me, because of your personality. I've stuck you in my head and one day you'll come out in a book.

I love it so much here I don't need to go out doing gigs now, I've got enough money. I love writing books. I do odd gigs on television, interviews and chat, and all these shows like Guess My Arsehole, and Whose Legs Are These? - all that shit. They're grim, aren't they? Of course when I go on I clown it up and tuck up the show and they never ask me again. I love breaking cliches. People hang on to cliches. The cliche is the handrail of the crippled mind.

Van, do you relax? Do you go out to restaurants? Got a wife? A girlfriend? Or a bloke? Got a good pad in London?

V: Y'see I'm not used to this just talking about anything. I talk about specific things. I'm not into talking about myself with journalists. I talk about my music. The fact is that I do this for a living, and then I have my own life which is separate from that. So Van Morrison makes records, and I'm separate from that. That's what I do for a job. That's the only way I can do it. I can't mix my personal stuff with the job, so I just talk about my job. I'm not interested in selling myself, I just sell my records, my music. So I have to censor everything I say, 'cos if I don't, they just use it against me . . .

S: Anyhow. When you were very young, Van, I was keeping the pop scene going, I was playing the music of my day. Jazz was looked on as barbaric. My father would say, Why do you play that nigger music? But I kept playing it. And now they have jazz critics in The Times, in The Guardian. I was blowing that music real good, man. One of the greatest feelings in the world is to play music, it's total freedom. When I was playing that trumpet I couldn't think about the rates, the rent. It was liberation, self-therapy. And you can induce that therapy in other people.

That's why people sometimes cling on to one kind of music, they love it because it has affected them psychologically, it has transmitted 100 per cent to them...

(There follows a long and rather thoughtful pause)

This silence comes to you courtesy of "What The Fuck Is He Going To Say Next?"

V: No, that was a good piece, that you just said. That would fit in.

26-May-2013
Castleward 
Downpatrick, Nothern Ireland

Via Maurice K.

Setlist
Celtic Swing
Only a Dream
Days Like This
Pagan Heart
Baby Please Don't Go
Precious Time
Brown Eyed Girl
Moondance
Born To Sing
I Can't Stop Loving You
Sometimes We Cry
Enlightenment
Have I Told You Lately 
Help Me
Whenever God Shines His Light
Star of the County Down
Jackie Wilson Said
Here Comes the Night
Gloria

22-May-2013
Perth Concert Hall
Perth, Scotland

Scotsman (Source)
On this experience the Van Morrison live show is akin to a religious experience – it’s lots of older people sitting in near silence having an occasionally transcendental experience.

Not that a sense of respectful awe was misplaced when it came to the deservedly revered Irish singer, but it felt strange to be in the presence of such politeness when the set contained a couple of the finest blues-rock hits.

Unashamed crowd-pleasing was the order of this show, and Morrison’s seven-piece band did an excellent job of recreating the various phases and styles of his career, from the breezy folk rock of Tupelo Honey merged with Why Must I Always Explain? to the light but skilfully performed jazz of Moondance and The Way Young Lovers Do. Throughout, his voice is a potent, rasping growl. Its enduring dynamism is used to best effect on the sublime Pagan Heart – which memorably broke down into a humming solo from Morrison before he frantically signalled for the band to kick in once more – and the humbling delicacy and precision of Into the Mystic. Curses to the person who clapped during its closing, whispered “switch off your mind” mantra and ruined a crystalline moment.

In fact, the only song which didn’t benefit from the weather-beaten, almost scat-like maturity of his voice was the pop perennial Brown Eyed Girl, although it perfectly matched the old Them numbers Baby Please Don’t Go and Gloria. The last song closed the set in epic style, our ever-taciturn host having long since left the stage following a well deserved instruction that we offer a “big hand for the band”, virtually his only words of the evening.
-DAVID POLLOCK

The Courier (Source)
Van Morrison showed just why he is still revered by captivating the audience at Perth Concert Hall.

The legendary singer may not have much interaction with his fans but he made up for it with a scintillating set as part of the Perth Festival of the Arts on Wednesday evening.

From his first song, a jazz introduction to a rousing finale of Gloria, the Belfast-born performer controlled the stage with his presence and marked a welcome return to Perth, where he last played in 2006.

His music has covered many genres from his early days as a blues and R’n’B singer in Belfast. He has recorded blues as well as pop, rock, jazz, folk, gospel, Irish folk and skiffle.

Last night, he showed what a versatile musician he was, playing mainly saxophone but also switching to keyboards and guitar as well as his trusted harmonica.

From my Retreating View, Philosopher’s Stone and Why Must I Always Explain? were standouts before Brown Eyed Girl and Have I told You Lately That I Love You made up a set to remember.
-Paul Reoch

Setlist
Celtic Swing
Only A Dream
Who Can I Turn To
Going Down To Monte Carlo
Retreat and View
Baby Please Don't Go
Pagan Heart
The Philosopher's Stone
Tupelo Honey/Why Must I Always Explain
Moondance
The Way Young Lovers Do
Into The Mystic
Brown Eyed Girl
Have I told You Lately
Whenever God Shines His Light
Gloria

06-May-2013
Cheltenham Jazz Festival 
Cheltenham, England

The Independent (Source)
When Van Morrison invites Gregory Porter to sing “Tupelo Honey” with him as he closes the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, he sums up its open spirit. Grammy-nominated Porter is a barrel-chested, bearded giant with a strange deerstalker for headgear, who as the festival’s tireless Artist in Residence was already unmissable and omnipresent.

The soulful baritone’s barnstorming Saturday evening set had ranged from the defiant ballad “No Love Dying” to the sparely funky, prayerful reverie on Martin Luther King’s assassination “1960 What?” He showed the audience a good-hearted, big-voiced jazz performer can still reach. The running, karate-kicking jump of joy he gave after an earlier song recalled Van Morrison in his prime. Morrison, watching and, festival staff claimed, actually smiling in the wings, clearly thought the same.

Morrison’s own soulful freedom song “Tupelo Honey” was a perfect choice for the pair, begun by him declaring with uncharacteristic modesty, “This is the part where I hide behind my guitar”. They traded phrases in rare, thrilling harmony. Morrison was in playful and demanding form throughout his set, issuing peremptory commands to his band and blowing his own sax in what was largely a jazz show: “Moondance” carried echoes of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five”. A suite of songs finishing with last year’s “Born to Sing” wasn’t in his old visionary mode. A bullish Morrison was standing right here in the moment.

This festival’s centre wasn’t, though, in the Big Top where the stars performed, but the Georgian square where several venues sat amongst free music, food, drink and record stalls. The locals strolling slowly through it got a contact hit of jazz as an approachable, positive force at the heart of their town.

Lianne La Havas is amongst the pop headliners with slivers of jazz in their DNA. When she sings “Empty” with just a guitar, she shows she could sing just jazz if she wished, amongst the rock, soul and confessional singer-songwriting which dominates her lightly appealing music. Like the exuberant, anything goes creator of “circus swing” Gaby Young, and Mercury nominee Kit Downes’ electronic-tinged big band Troyk-estra, La Havas has inviting human warmth. Seven-times Grammy-winning vibes player Gary Burton and his quartet have that as much as anyone, playing intensely skilled jazz with easygoing, companionable delight. The hum of pleasure as his crowd left was constant in this corner of the Cotswolds last week.
-NICK HASTED

This is Gloucestershire (Source)
Review: Van Morrison, Cheltenham Jazz Festival
IT was a glorious May evening to stroll into Montpellier Gardens, low warm sun and blossom and jazz.

And to then be engulfed in the warm, rich sounds of Van Morrison and his band in the Big Top provided the perfect end the day.

His opening number, with Van on saxophone, set the scene for the evening which placed jazz at the core of the set. With traditional-style jazz breakdowns focusing on the skills of his musicians, it was a bright sound that brought the sunshine into the tent.

His voice remains as magnificent as ever, combining clarity, power and a rich sound with subtle tenderness.

As ever Van Morrison brought his own enigmatic quality to the stage. With his dark glasses and hat, he makes no effort to engage with the audience directly. He lets the music speak for itself.

And it is perhaps that distance he maintains that makes the emotion all the more powerful. His voice, lyrics and arrangements build subtley, draw in the listener and become engulfing.
Moondance featured surprisingly early in the set, a smooth jazzy version with instrumental breakdown and engaging dialogue between the brass.

Days Like This with deep harmonies and a harp-like guitar riffs and felt like a warm bath of music. Please Don't Go marked a change of pace, before he invited Gregory Porter to join him on stage for a magical and soulful duet for Tupelo Honey.

There were moments when the performance retained a rawness of a jazz improvisation. He described it briefly as a 'workshop' and at times he surprised his band with sudden set changes, and directed them musically with a clarity of purpose of someone who has been performing for almost half a century.

His band were though incredibly polished and provided him with a solid backing of musical talent. Brown-eyed Girl, which he described as the "little calypso song" was given the jazz treatment and Whenever God Shines His Light was given a soulful light touch.

It was a magnificent performance, subtle and powerful and a great end to the Jazz Festival.
A rocking and prolonged version of Gloria allowed the band to shine, and Van Morrison to slip off the stage in his own understated way with his vocal "It's too good to stop now" still resonating.
-Victoria Temple

Setlist
Celtic Swing
Only A Dream
St. James Infirmary
Moondance
Who Can I Turn To
Magic Time
Baby, Please Don't Go
Tupelo Honey (w/Gregory Porter)
It's All In The Game
Brown Eyed Girl
That's Life
Whenever God Shines His Light
Help Me
Gloria