20-August-2021
O2 Apollo Manchester
Manchester, England
James' thoughts on gig
Tonight’s gig in Manchester marked Vans return to the city since 2016 and we all know what has happened since then! Just like at the York Barbican a mere month ago, it felt special to welcome Van and the band back to Manchester. On this Friday evening, not far from the beams from the cars on the overpass, were all united once again.
The band took the stage promptly at 8pm and we were off. Van strolled on stage and played 3 songs from the new album. Dead Beat Saturday Night, Double Agent and Up County Down. He was in good voice but looked tense. These were quickly dispatched and Van moved straight on into Baby Please Don’t Go – The concert began at this point. Van segued into a great Mojo section and began to relax. This effortlessly led into I Can Tell. We were rocking!
Days Like This (lovely van Sax on this), Precious Time and Real Real Gone – changed the pace and were greatly received by the crowd.
The pace of the show was fast and Van was getting into the groove. Van then changed up the mood by playing Ain’t Gonna Moan. This song has really developed into a centrepiece and allows the band to stretch out (abit) and its clear that Van loves this song. I love it too for all of the musical references. It’s a history lesson – pay attention!
Did ye get Healed was next and I think in time the band will gel with this but it felt a little tentative tonight.
Symphony Sid was excellent and Chantelle really was magnificent tonight on this song. It was clear for all to see that she loves singing this song and her own singing voice really suits Vans Jazz choices well in my opinion. Magic time was lovely and Moondance went down well.
It was at this point that Van strapped on the guitar and gave us a nice surprise in Why Must I always Explain? with a lovely guitar solo.
Wild Night, How far from God and Cleaning Windows all flew by effortlessly and this led to the usual Think Twice, Help Me, BEG and Gloria finale.
The band played an absolute killer jam at the end with all giving superb solos. I just want to say that Dave’s guitar work was exceptional tonight and boy does he earn his pay – solo after solo – no wonder he needs to wipe his brow every now and then! Teena gave us some wonderful solos tonight as well, nuanced and entirely in the groove every time.
A couple of other comments from tonight – The Audience were great in my opinion. They clearly were pleased to have Van back at the Apollo and we really enthusiastic, without over stepping the mark. Secondly, the pianist was absent. Finally, My only criticism really was the brake neck speed of the concert. I really wish Van would pause for breath and allow some of the solos to stretch out more. Van once said that music is about stretching time. I think more space needs to be created somehow. I think that the concert needed a workshop to take it to the next level. I would have called out for In the Afternoon as it’s a personal favourite but there was no opportunity at any point.
A great concert overall and I thoroughly enjoyed it but please Van slow down … just a bit. Take a leaf out of my book – I’ve just got back from a gig... its nearly 1 o clock in the morning, new full moon and I’m Trying for Sleep. Until the next time...
-James Tennant
Barry P's thoughts on gig
Underattended. Underpowered. Underwhelming.
Those were the adjectives most commonly uttered amongst our group of three Van diehards when we endeavoured to sum up this concert.
Nowadays, it’s fair to say that we attend Van shows with our expectations scaled down accordingly. The dazzling heights attained by Van with his stupendous bands of the late 1980s and the majority of the 1990s are merely the beauty of the days gone by; the setlists can drive you to distraction and the man himself seems too often to be trapped in automatic pilot mode.
However, there always remains that lingering hope that he may abruptly let the healing begin, truly get into the music and deliver one of those spine-tingling experiences that have been responsible for us trekking all over the country in order to see him on multiple occasions.
Plus, by contrast with some of his prominent contemporaries such as Paul McCartney and Elton John, Van’s voice is irrefutably in awesome shape and still comes to bring you a sense of wonder.
The initial striking thing to note is that this is the first occasion in my living memory on which Van has failed to sell out the Apollo. In fact in the weeks running up to this gig, repeated checks of the Ticketmaster seating plan for the event have highlighted just how many seats were still available to book. Perhaps it’s the case that some potential attendees have been deterred from investing in a ticket owing to Van’s controversial (in)articulate speech of the heart on Covid-19 issues? Or it could also represent an indication that some of Van’s core demographic may not quite feel confident enough to venture back inside 2,500+ seated capacity concert venues just yet? Another organisation even delivered an email containing a link which offered the transient opportunity to swoop on tickets for the princely sum of £5.00 each. Unprecedented stuff, indeed.
Having successfully negotiated the Covid-19 entrance stipulations, we occupied our seats on Row F of the Front Stalls and Van promptly appeared right on cue at 8:00pm, launching into the first of a trio of (at least, some of the more respectable) songs from his recent overlong double album.
The early omens were not particularly propitious, as Van indulged in some occasional frantic right-arm waving to the band and didn’t seem to be settling into a groove.
Thankfully, things then moved up a considerable notch with a shot of rhythm and blues courtesy of Baby Please Don’t Go segueing into Got My Mojo Working, which was swiftly followed by Bo Diddley’s I Can Tell. Van was totally engaged and in majestic voice. Following these performances, my long-standing chum Richard Webb remarked to me that this could well constitute the peak of tonight’s show. Alas, he was proved to be prescient.
A slowed-down version of Days Like This diverted us into unwanted supper club territory. Precious Time was humdrum and only served to let precious time slip away in the evening’s set (I could easily live without hearing Van sing that one on stage ever again).
Real Real Gone ensued but it was all rather devoid of passion and intensity, not to mention the perplexing absence of a horn section to blast it out. Sadly, Van’s decision to reinstate a horn section for his recent first-ever virtual performance filmed at Real World Studios has proved to be a false dawn. Instead, the overworked Paul Moran is compelled to keep deserting his Hammond organ duties in order to play the trumpet alongside Van’s sax offerings. At least there was a brief excursion into Sam Cooke territory at the close.
I feel that Ain’t Gonna Moan No More has the potential to be developed into a special Van live performance. Tonight the band did get a few solos, however the version was curtailed before it could really steal the highlights.
Did Ye Get Healed? duly suffered a similar fate. It just didn’t hover long enough to get it down in your soul. My recurring impression during the show was that the backing vocals were somewhat insipid, muffled and even redolent of the blandness of The Cliff Adams singers on BBC Radio 2’s Sing Something Simple all those years ago.
Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid should be filed away with the likes of the soul-destroying Centrepiece and the abject Talk Is Cheap in the category of songs that Van should never be permitted to sing again. I remain absolutely nonplussed as to why he repeatedly opts to perform this trinket when his vast back catalogue is blessed with such an array of jewels as Saint Dominic’s Preview, Daring Night, Into The Mystic, Philosopher’s Stone and the peerless In The Garden (I could go on…).
The pace was then eased down again with Magic Time. Pleasant enough and good to hear Teena Lyle back on vibraphone once again but, all things considered, I’d rather have heard Celtic New Year from the same album!
Once they eventually recognise it, the crowd warms to the inevitable Moondance. No surprises there.
Spirits are duly lifted when Van straps on his impressive red guitar and summons up Why Must I Always Explain? Unfortunately, it was merely another rushed song which evolved into just a job rather than sweet lorraine.
A far too tame Wild Night and a prosaic Cleaning Windows were exercises in turning gold into lead. How Far From God and Think Twice Before You Go both effectively seem to be strangled at birth. Does Van’s waiting limousine turn into a pumpkin if he doesn’t get into it by 9:30pm?!
Once the familiar strains of Help Me kick in, it becomes dispiritingly evident that the much-prized transcendent Van will sadly be absent from this evening’s concert. No chance of any workshop tangents taken down the ancient highway of In The Afternoon or vehement declarations that there’s no plan B in Burning Ground. Alas, no prospect whatsoever of the cherished opportunity to meet him down by the pylons.
The show inevitably concludes with a (largely) crowd-pleasing session of ‘sing-along-a-Van’ in the shape of Brown Eyed Girl and the predictable encore of Gloria. The latter brings the majority of the audience to their feet and even prompts an entertaining and wholly unanticipated outbreak of freakish dad dancing in the aisles, together with a few ever-so-polite attempts to ‘rush’ the front of the stage.
Van invites a ‘big hand for the band’ and then departs for the wings, gold portable microphone in hand, after circa three minutes, leaving the band to indulge in a seemingly interminable jam which comes complete with individual solos from each member. Chantelle Duncan finally gets to exhibit some amplified wailings and Paul Moran unleashes a Keith Emersonesque psychedelic Hammond organ wig-out. Van must have managed to have reached Manchester Airport by the time that Gloria eventually leaves the building.
I fully accept that I am in the minority in terms of my downbeat and curmudgeonly response to this particular show. It manifestly ticks all the boxes for the less obsessive and more ‘casual’ Van fans who are in attendance and the contributions of both Paul Moran and Dave Keary are undeniably worthy of praise.
For me as a seasoned veteran of Vanology, it’s simply a pale shadow of his former glories at this venue (and countless others). What is all the more frustrating to my mind is that the man’s voice remains a truly awesome instrument. He’s capable of so much more.
And, after all his many well-publicised vociferous protests over the last 15 months or so at being precluded from carrying out his job as a live performer, why on earth does he then revert to this perfunctory 90-minute default setting of going through the motions when the purported golden opportunity to be back on stage actually presents itself? He could still make it real one more time again.
Not exactly conquered in an Apollo seat then.
In the words of the man himself: “Take me back, take me back, take me way, way, way, back to when the world made more sense…..”
-Barry Pikesley
Setlist (Thanks Barry P.)Deadbeat Saturday Night
Double Agent
Up County Down
Baby Please Don’t Go/Got My Mojo Working
I Can Tell
Days Like This
Precious Time
Real Real Gone/You Send Me
Ain’t Gonna Moan No More
Did Ye Get Healed?
Jumpin' With Symphony Sid
Magic Time
Moondance
Why Must I Always Explain?
Wild Night
How Far From God
Cleaning Windows/Be-Bop-A-Lula
Think Twice Before You Go
Help Me
Brown Eyed Girl
Gloria
Big Hand For The Band! Dave Keary (Guitar, Banjo, Bouzouki, Backing Vocals)
Paul Moore (Bass)
Paul Moran (Keyboards)
Teena Lyle (Percussion)
Chantelle Duncan (Vocals)
Colin Griffin (Drums)
