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Van Morrison earns a public apology – 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin 28/2/23

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Van Morrison 3-Olympia Theatre, Dublin Tues 28 Feb, 2023

The last quarter century or so of half-baked albums…

All those phoned-in, check-the-watch gigs…

The scant regard he shows for his magnificent back catalogue…

That crap duets album no one wanted and fewer of us listened to…

The announcement that his new album, Moving On, would be an
aaaaaaargggghhhh! covers collection raking over much the same ground as
his earlier the Skiffle Sessions…

The dodgy political views…

Sir George Ivan Morrison is guilty of all the above counts (and probably
several more)

And then there are days like this; evenings like last night when he puts on a
show so glorious, you’d forgive him anything.

Having finally sworn off his records in the early 2010s and been
stiffed once too often with ‘will this do?’ live shows last summer, I
vowed that I’d never again pay to hear or see Van doing his schtick.

Happily, someone I know had a spare ticket going for the second of his
two nights at Dublin’s 3 Olympia Theatre (my favourite venue in Dublin)
and I thought let’s give the old fucker one last shot.

I’m so glad that I did for the Van that materializes on stage at precisely 8pm
sharp is a totally different proposition to the sorry spectacle I witnessed at Limerick
Castle last summer.

Morrison’s most evocative work is arguably an attempt to capture the innocence
and purity of a childhood and early adolescence spent in the “days before rock
and roll”. Think Caravan from Moondance or Hyndford Street from Hymns to the
Silence.

It’s a rich seam he’s mined on not only individual songs like those mentioned above
but also across entire albums such as Irish Heartbeat (triumphantly so) and Pay the Devil (er, thanks but no thanks).

And yet from the moment Van comes on stage and starts singing Freight Train, it’s clear that he’s a man completely rejuvenated.

A big reason for this is undoubtedly the sheer range of songs and styles covered.
Tonight’s 20-plus song setlist spans everything from Leadbelly (Cottonfields) and
Hank William (I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, Cold Cold Heart) to Woody Guthrie (The Gypsy Davy), Hank Snow, Jim Reeves and about half a dozen songs about trains in between.

It’s the latter songs’ chugging rhythms that are – puns intended – the engine whose
chugging rhythms propel much of the show. They’re also the perfect excuse for Van to
pull out his gob iron (no sniggering at the back, AWers) and huff and puff the sort of solos
not heard in Ireland since the far-off days Them first rocked Belfast’s Maritime Hotel.

Another reason for the spring in Van’s step is a superlative seven-piece backing band, whose standout players include former Lonnie Donnegan sideman, Alan “Sticky” Wickets,
and equally ancient guitarist/trumpeter, Crawford Bell. The latter’s mistakenly picking up his trumpet instead of his guitar for a solo during Gov Don’t Like No Skiffle Playing actually causes Van to laugh with delight. Surely a first in his very long and distinguished career.

Bombarded with singalongaVan song after singalongaVan song, the audience is having the time of their lives, too. And never more so than on the many occasions picks up and plays his sax, or the moment that ageless voice slides into endless bout of scat singing during (iirc) Come On In.

Just shy of 90 minutes, Van ambles off stage still singing Worried Man Blues. Left to showcase their own chops, the band picks up the groove and runs with a series of solos
that earn them and their boss a well-deserved standing ovation.

If Van brings this band to a small theatre near you, you would be clinically certifiable not to beg, borrow or steal a ticket. On the evidence of this show, I’ll not only be breaking a 10-year habit and buying a new Van album, but also demolishing an even older record dating back to Healing Game and giving it quite a few plays.

Set list (From the Monday evening, but largely the same as the Tues show I attended)
• Freight Train
• Sail Away Ladies
• In the Evening (When the Sun Goes Down)
• I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
• Mama Don’t Allow
• Take This Hammer
• Cindy, Cindy
• Careless Love
• Oh Lonesome Me
• Streamline Train
• Come On In
• No Other Baby
• I’m Movin’ On
• Travellin’ Blues
• Yonder Comes a Sucker
• The Gypsy Davy
• Cold, Cold Heart
• This Little Light of Mine
• Cotton Fields
• Green Green Rocky Road
• Worried Man Blues

The Band:

Dave Keary (Guitar)
Paul Moore (Bass)
Richard Dunn (Keyboards)
Alan ‘Sticky’ Wicket (Percussion)
Colin Griffin (Drums)
Crawford Bell (Guitar, Trumpet & Vocals)
Jolene O’Hara (Vocals)

Apologies for the lack of pix but sitting four rows back and right in front of Van’s sightline, I wasn’t going to risk ruining the vibe

8

Comments

  2. Great review, @Jaygee . I’ve had those sort of experiences with Van also, but back in the eighties. The one song I’ve heard from the new album sounds great as well.
    ‘Yonder Comes A sucker’! Damn, now you have me reminiscing about the first album I was ever given. I’d say I was 6 or 7 and my uncle gave me a dancette and a copy of ‘The Country Side Of Jim Reeves’ with that song on it. Both once belonged to my father, apparently. Knowing no better I played it at 45rpm for many weeks until I found out there was a speed changer, so Jim sounded like a chipmunk to me at first and that’s how I remember some of those songs in my head.

    • That reminds me of Craig Brown’s parody of Margaret Thatcher’s Diaries in Private Eye:

      “People say that my mother was a serious woman but I remember her smile so well. It was on August 4th, 1948, though I forget what was the reason.”

    • Not a ‘laughing’ on stage moment but more a quick acknowledgement…….let me briefly explain: several years ago my friend Thomas and I went to see him at the Hall for Cornwall in Truro. I think the performance was okay and, after it finished, Thomas and I took our time to exit the venue. As we ventured out Van, accompanied by a youthful lady, was making his way into a limo……we paused and as we did so he flashed us a brief grin swiftly followed by a thumbs up to acknowledge our presence.
      Beat that!!!

      • @daff

        That’s right up there with a reader’s anecdote about Van I once read in the CIF section underneath a Guardian interview with him.

        It concerns the normally less than sunny Ulsterman dawdling across the road as he thought about the big thoughts swirling around in his head.

        Suddenly, our hero’s reverie was broken by an irate bus driver who leaned out of the window of his conveyance and shouted “fuck off out of the road, you fat cunt!”

  5. F*** me, I’d give my right arm to see another Van show of the quality you describe. Not only would it be utterly great to see the jolly old curmudgeon in full swing again, but also no-one would ever have to hear my guitar playing any more.

    • From what I’ve heard of the Skiffle album it sounds good fun and I’ll certainly buy a copy. Jaygee’s review and others I have seen suggest he’s on great form live as well, which is good to hear. I’ve never left the tent containing Van’s music, the best of which remains undimmed; and the most recent live performances I have seen have been fine too. it’s just the Man himself who is the problem – he has a remarkable ability to press the self-destruct button, just when things seem to be going well. He has just done so again with a bizarre tweet aimed at Billy Bragg, after Bragg’s really very positive interview with him in the latest Mojo. Incorrigible doesn’t begin to describe it…

  7. Van on a good night can be amazing whatever album he has currently on release.

    Great review, but I am very annoyed. I am in UK week after next and was considering going to a show in Milton Keynes (very small theatre) and have seen the odd ticket showing up on Facebook. However based on the skiffle only setlist I decided not to go and have made plans that swerve Milton Keynes (never part of any of my regular itineraries). so am now regretting this decision 🙁

    https://stables.org/event/van-morrison-moving-on-skiffle

      • Out demons out.. Won’t have anything bad said about Edgar Broughton – Evening over rooftops is one of the best songs ever written.
        Better than anything those knobheads from Liverpool ever wrote. (Mods I am joking)

    • There’s a clue in your first sentence, I believe. His choice of recent album title; “Latest Record Project – volume 1” kind of hints to the fact that he’s churning ’em out on auto-pilot some of the time these days. Presumably, the next time he thinks his muse has woken from its cosmic coma slumbers and he’s fired up with something to say with which we can all likely concur, he’ll put one out called “Celtic Connections In The Summertime Rays Of Connswater” or somesuch. Should be easy to spot when a raid on the Van The Man piggy bank might be in order once again.

  8. Ticket for the RAH gig secured this morning, on the strength of your great review @Jaygee. I’ve had many a grand night in the old git’s company, but not for a good few years. I was disappointed with band last time but I’m really looking forward to this one.

    • That is a very harsh review, to be fair. Most are much more favourable, my own included, which I will append tomorrow. True, not a review fails to comment on his daft crackpot ideas and the curmudgeonly presentation of them, but it is, against the odds, a delightful romp of a record. OK, precious little skiffle skiffle, other that being versions of songs that Donegan et all also picked up on to play on their home made kit. It is a broad base of country blues and gospel. The kit here is expensive and well played, bar perhaps the largely supernumerary washboard of Donegan co-hort “Sticky” Wicket

  11. While I’ve been a huge fan since the early 70s, Van stopped being an every release artist for me after Down the Road came out back in 2000.

    Despite not having bought (and barely listened to) any of the soulless jazzy noodlings he subsequently started churning out every few months after No Plan B back in 2012, largely agree with R above.

    While VTM is, let’s be honest, never likely to produce another great album, MOS is, on the basis of the two listens I’ve given it, a pretty strong release. Always a thing of wonder, Van’s voice is still remarkably strong for a 77 year old who’s been releasing records and treading the boards for over 60 years. Best of all, in addition to some cracking singAlongaVan vocals, MOS sees him contribute some terrific sax and mouth harp on many of the 23 tracks.

    With the Dublin show I caught a couple of weeks back being probably the second best of the nine times I’ve seen him live over the years, the only trick I think he missed here is not recording the songs live.

    If he’s got any sense, he’ll do a Seeger Sessions release a la Springsteen’s own Dublin show a few years back.

    If you’ve kind of given up on Van (as I had) and get offered a ticket for this first round of gigs (as I luckily did), my advice would be to seize it with both hands.
    Given the age of the players and Van’s mercurial temperament, it’s hard to see them being a long-term concern.

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