060: A Night in San Francisco, by Van Morrison

Van Morrison (United Kingdom)
A Night in San Francisco (1994)
22 tracks, 147 minutes (2CD)
Spotify • iTunes

Van Morrison has famously always been the grumpy old man of rock, even before he was that old, and it would be an understatement to say that he’s a hot and cold performer. Catch him on the wrong evening and he will absolutely despise you for making him sing for a couple of hours. Knowing that, I wonder how hard it is to make a live album with him. For A Night in San Francisco, though, that obviously wasn’t a problem – he is on fine, fine form here.

It’s an interesting show (actually, that would be interesting shows as the album was recorded over two separate concerts – that album title is a lie). It’s almost like a gala in some ways. Van and band play as many medleys as they do individual pieces, quite often just playing a verse or two before moving onto the next song-fragment. There’s originals and covers and there’s a million musical references all the way through, it makes many of the tracks sound like live mash-ups. Even his most famous pieces aren’t safe: for my money, the best mash-up on the album is a medley of ‘Moondance’ and ‘My Funny Valentine,’ but with the bassline from ‘Is That Jazz’ by Gil Scott-Heron and an organ solo featuring Gershwin’s ‘Summertime.’

Adding to the gala-rific feel of the album are a bunch of guests who are brought on every so often to sing their bit. I know this is Van the Man’s show, but some of his guests seem a little under-utilised, and they’re not exactly B-listers either. Imagine getting John Lee Hooker to join you in your show, and only have him sing and play for a total of one minute and four seconds – I actually admire the ballsiness of it. It’s not just the guests that are top-draw; the regular band isn’t half bad either, with Georgie Fame on organ, Teena Lyle on vibraphone and Candy Dulfer on alto sax to name just three of the eleven.

The ensemble are much more than Van’s backing band. The musicians are all featured at some point, with at least one solo per piece. As such the whole vibe is much jazzier than I usually think of Van Morrison’s music – it’s usually there in the background, but here it feels like he’s making those vibes the cornerstone of his show. One slight hang-up: he’s got this really annoying thing going on where, whenever he mentions one of his musicians (which he does a lot, after most solos and several times when he gives a whole-band run through), he always says their name twice. ‘Teena Lyle, Teena Lyle,’ ‘Haji Ahkba, Haji Ahkba,’ that sort of thing. Innocuous at first but quite irritating after nearly two-and-a-half hours. But would it really be Van Morrison if he wasn’t mildly infuriating at some point in the set?

When you’ve got a ticket to see Van Morrison live, you never quite know what you’re going to get. But when he’s on song, like these two nights in San Francisco…well, what a couple of shows these must have been to witness.