Last week I finally got to see Van Morrison perform Astral Weeks live, after almost a year of waiting.
Van played the Hollywood Bowl last year, performing his legendary album in its entirety, and I thought hard about heading out there to see it, but the high costs of traveling out to California deferred this dream.
He put out a live album from the performance, and eventually a DVD, which I figured would have to suffice. The concert was such a success that Morrison added more dates, in New York and London, and then he added more, but Chicago never showed up on any of the tour announcements.
The Chicago date was finally added while I was in Ireland, of all places, but fate conspired against me yet again and no tickets were gotten. Time to press play on the DVD player again.
Then they opened up a few final tickets and I headed to Ticketmaster. Pit seats, going for an insane amount of money. And I bought one. One, because that's all you could get. Duder tried getting one himself, but they were all snatched up.
And so I found myself about twenty feet from Van's gold microphone last Tuesday at the Chicago Theatre.
No opening act, no delayed start. Van comes out precisely on time, and plays a tight set of about 100 minutes, with no encore. He never interacts with the audience, letting the music speak for itself.
First half of the show is a warm-up, consisting of other songs from his career. It would be easy to make this the "hits" portion of his show, considering how unknown Astral Weeks really is to the average fan. He'll throw in the "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Gloria" to keep these people satisfied, but most of the songs in the first half were the deep cuts, semi-obscure numbers that didn't get (most) people singing along, but instead served as companion pieces to the Astral Weeks numbers.
"Fair Play", "Little Village", and "In the Garden" set the tone for what was to come, and despite a few annoying people who chose to talk half the time (except, of course, when he played a quick and perfunctory "Have I Told You Lately"), it was a remarkable first half.
Van could have chosen to use this tour as a "greatest hits" comeback, like many artists of a certain age do, throwing out "Moondance" and "Wild Night" night after night to the eager fans, but instead he's been performing one of his most obscure albums to sold-out crowds for the better part of a year.
He has the reputation as a sour grump who's always complaining about the public's perception of him, and the record companies' inability to "get" him. So he's doing everything the way he wants to do it, releasing the live Astral Weeks on his own label, allowing no production sheen added to the mix, refusing to load his sets with the easy hits. This is one reason why I love him.
Astral Weeks live was fantastic, although a lot of the surprise has been lost after a year of listening to the live album over and over again, but no matter. "Slim Slow Slider" is still the highlight, as he threw in new lyrics about "going to see the German doctor" and riding that passenger train. It was a phenomenal show, and it was worth every penny I paid. This was one of those rare chances to see something legendary, performed as the artist wanted it performed.
As we filed out after the show I started talking to a middle-aged guy who was sitting next to me, both of us marveling at what we had just seen. "Pretty great, huh?" I asked.
"Yeah, it was. Now, what was 'Astral Weeks'?" the man said. "Was that his band?"
