Thank you, baby . . . To celebrate the publication of the first volume of The Silk Road Gourmet, my husband took me to Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks show on Friday night.
Astral Weeks has always been one of my favorite albums by Morrison, along with the string of those that he recorded with the Pee Wee Ellis band in the mid-1980s: Into the Music, Common One, Beautiful Vision, Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, Sense of Wonder, and culminating in my favorite – No Guru, No Method, No Teacher. For me, these albums stand out in Morrison’s formidable discography as having some of the most beautiful and personal songs he has ever written and those that feature some of his best sweeping lyrical vocals.
On Friday night, in addition to doing the Astral Weeks set that everyone is raving about, Van also played a great selection of songs from these albums. Van was in fine voice on Friday night and wailed, whispered and roared his way through some great music. The production crew placed his mike directly beneath one of the foci on an elliptical half dome above the stage, using the structure of the building to project Van’s already strong voice around the nearly filled 8-10,000 seat venue.
The touring band consisted of a talented and strong group of ensemble players who also worked really well together. In addition to electric bass, guitar and drums and piano that often accompany him, Van brought a percussionist, his own string section which interestingly consisted of a double bass, two cellos and a wonderful violist. His pianist, also played keyboards and horns and the flautist also picked up the sax a few times. Morrison himself, moved from piano to guitar to sax and harmonic and back with the ease of a master.
The show slipped open with Northern Muse from Beautiful Vision with Morrison at the piano. This was followed this with Fair Play from Veedon Fleece, The Mystery and the fantastic Foreign Window from No Guru. Streets of Arklow came next, followed by my all-time favorite, In the Garden again from No Guru.
. . . No Guru, No Method, No Teacher
Just you and I and nature and the father
and the son and the holy spirit in the Garden . . .
Yes, I cried. Of course I did! I cried because I was grateful to be there, grateful for my wonderful husband who makes so much of my work possible (by picking up the slack I leave in the family while stooped over a hot stove or a burning word processor). But I also cried for a very personal reason: for the wonderful revelation that Morrison sings about in In the Garden. The realization that, natural is best and that the denial and rigor inherent in so many human belief systems unnecessary. Like Morrison, for a good portion of my life I tried on many different philosophies and beliefs and never found a good fit before I created my own very personal devotional path.
The much touted set from Astral Weeks was played in the same order as that on the CD, beginning with Astral Weeks and ending with the lovely remembrance of Madame Joy in Cypress Avenue – complete with harpsichord – and Madame George.
Several times during the set, Morrison sang far away from the microphone to pick up the “room” and give him a far-away sound. He also did some of his ecstatic trademark lyrical wails like those from Rave on John Donne which have the emotional impact of a heavyweight punch.
Throughout the show, the stage was bathed in the psychic shades of turquoise, electric blue and deep purple and color-coordinated shapes of hearts, asterisks, concentric circles or spirals were projected on the ceiling of the hall according to the lyrics of the song – a touch I found charmingly reminiscent of the sixties.
The show ended with Morrison narrating his way through a selection of his childhood memories On Hyndford Street from Hymns to the Silence. Towards the end of that song, he slowly walked off stage, still playing, like the wandering, mendicant, minstrel that he is. It was a show that for me highlighted his best and most personal songs and was a show that I waited forty years to hear. Thank you, baby. (Words by Laura Kelley; illustration of Van Morrison by Spine Rod; photo borrowed from the Washington Times review of the concert).