Astral Weeks is a strange animal. The 1968 Van Morrison album never even made it to the Billboard charts and only just became a gold record in this decade, but it is among the most praised albums (critically, anyway) in Morrison’s catalog.
Van Morrison played Astral Weeks in its entirety Tuesday night at the sold-out Chicago Theatre and the performance was inspiring in some ways but left a bit of a dry taste in my mouth.
I’ve never had the pleasure of attending a Van Morrison concert, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect – but during most of the evening (with a few notable exceptions), it seemed like Morrison was just going through the motions and certainly not putting any extra effort into pleasing the audience.
On “Brown Eyed Girl” (which, apparently, is a song that he does not perform for an audience much anymore) Morrison wasn’t even looking at the crowd and the vocals were muddy and lost in the mix. This was especially disappointing because the audience was desperately trying to sing along and appreciate this classic tune. “Have I Told You Lately” was better, but the aging musician (dressed in his standard suit and fedora) still seemed like he would rather be anywhere but onstage performing the song.
There were some amazing songs performed Tuesday night, however. And after speaking to some of Morrison’s older fans in the audience, I came away with the understanding that the older ‘hit’ songs in his catalog have lost their luster and Morrison would rather revisit the music in his past that was never truly appreciated than play “Brown Eyed Girl” again for the millionth time.
Switching into Astral Weeks you could tell that the band was starting to enjoy themselves – this album has a lot of peaks and valleys sonically and the Chicago Theatre was the perfect place to catch all of the nuances of songs such as “Slim Slow Slider” and “Ballerina”. Jay Berliner (guitar) was actually one of the original studio musicians that helped Morrison create Astral Weeks, and there was a definite air of energy on stage when Berline and Morrison were trading lines.
I was not completely sold by Morrison’s onstage persona or the lackluster performances of his classic songs, but what made this concert enjoyable were the incredibly talented musicians in the backing band and the performance of Astral Weeks in its entirety. Go see Van Morrison.. just don’t do it to hear him play his hits. If you want to hear “Brown Eyed Girl”, turn on 97.9 The Loop.
