Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks’ Concert—

A Heavenly Gift For True Fans At A Steep Price

By John Voket

WATERBURY — Anyone who queued up to slap down the $350 single ticket cost to get up close to the quirky yet sublime Van Morrison at Waterbury’s Palace Theater last Saturday thinking they would be singing along to his many radio-friendly tunes was probably venomous by the end of the show.

After all, he only performed two of his greatest hits, starting with what could only be described as a schmaltzy, throw-away take on “Brown Eyed Girl,” which he quickly and unceremoniously dispensed in the first ten minutes of his 92-minute set.

But true fans, who know that Morrison likes to mine the depths of his amazingly prolific 30-plus album catalog, had to be transfixed by a man and a sound Morrison managed to evoke from a spectacularly tight ensemble featuring bass, guitar, drums, keyboards, flute, sax, trumpet, mandolin, violin and two cellos.

While “Van the Man” was on mission to showcase his critically acclaimed Astral Weeks, celebrating the 40th anniversary of its release, every note from the strains of the show’s opening number, “Northern Muse (Solid Ground),” through the re-ordered sequence of material from the aforementioned groundbreaking 1968 effort and into the encore was delivered with such cleverly crafted nuance that the entire set could have been considered a rabid fan’s musical gift from the heavens.

The sweet clarity of a young Van Morrison’s tenor back in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, like that bottle of fine wine, has mellowed, taking on the still tasty, yet world-weary growl of a veteran bluesman. And his presence, with dark suit, huge mirrored aviator sunglasses and dark fedora offsetting his brilliant white acoustic guitar, only enhanced his eccentric posturing.

It was fascinating to watch as Morrison occasionally backed well off the microphone and sing to the band, or maybe to himself, and the musicians surrounding him would ratchet down to almost a whisper so the audience could hear every throaty mumble of his jazzy scat. These interludes were amplified well in the vintage theater, where every tick of the drumstick on the high-hat, and every breathy draw of the bow across the cello’s strings were clearly audible all the way to the balcony’s last row.

Besides the re-ordered and invigorated treatment of the Astral Weeks, Morrison proved to the crowd early on that this would be a night to remember, pulling out “Fair Play,” from his 1974 project Veedon Fleece, as he transitioned from grand piano to guitar. 

The Astral Weeks portion of the show came with the band launching into the hypnotic title track. Following up with “Beside You,” which included beautiful Spanish guitar underpinning from Jay Berliner, Morrison continued leading the crowd through this litany of stories, stopping only once ahead of “Slim Slow Slider (I Start Breaking Down),” to tell the audience, “Any reference to any living person is fiction...”

Morrison shed his guitar momentarily on “Sweet Thing,” grabbing a harmonica and alternating between singing directly into the mic, and through the distorting reeds of the harp. A jangling harpsichord drove the band down “Cyprus Avenue,” and the high notes of “Ballerina,” failed to challenge Morrison’s 64-year-old vocal chords.

Wrapping up this portion of the show, Morrison finally let the entire band bring on a joyful burst of sound at the end of “Madame George.”

Switching to a vintage Les Paul guitar, the artist briefly returned to his catalog for “And the Healing Has Begun,” before shuffling off stage into the wings trailing a jazzy solo as the house erupted in a standing ovation.

He closed the show with “greatest hit” number two, a rousing “Gloria,” which served as a clever cover to bail out of the venue and get his limo on the road several minutes before the band wrapped up and the audience realized he had left the building.

As folks began filing out into the misty night a few minutes later, it was clear that few were disappointed by the musical magic they had just witnessed courtesy of one of the true masters of his craft.

Morrison didn’t use this venue as a marketing showcase to trudge out the repackaging of an “anniversary” album in concert, but as a lyrical and tonal envelope in which to deliver an astral gift to satisfy the thirst of everyone willing to just sit back and drink it all in.