*** PAUL BRADY *** An incredible musical extravaganza! Guesting were Van Morrison and Brendan Bowyer, Arty McGlynn, and the brass section this time with Annie Whitehead, Linley Hamilton and Derek O’Connor. Brendan Bowyer is one of Ireland’s best known and loved singers with a career stretching back to the sixties when as lead singer with the Royal Showband he was the biggest star in the land. When Van was starting out with the Monarchs Showband in Belfast way before he formed Them, Brendan was already a huge star both North and South.
When Van heard Brendan was set to sing he was genuinely delighted and the two shared many stories before the night was out. Brendan has just recorded a new album featuring among others, ‘Follow On’ written by Paul and ‘The Bright Side of the Road’, Van’s song from his album ‘Into the Music’. So the plan was for Brendan to sing ‘Follow On’ and then to duet with Van on ‘Bright Side’.
Paul started off with just a couple with the band and then on came the brass section for ‘Don’t Start Knocking’.‘Love Hurts’ and with Paul on piano ‘Dancer in the Fire’ from the ‘Hard Station’ album. Next on was Brendan. The audience loved him, such is his unique combination of shyness with charisma. Paul and the band just played while Brendan sang lead.
Then it’s Van and straight away everything moves up a couple of gears. The man’s energy is amazing. Paul moved to piano and counted in ‘The Bright Side of The Road’. Arty McGlynn joins on guitar. Van and Brendan traded lines and verses and had a real go at each other vocally which brought smiles to both their faces and roars of approval from the audience! Brendan left to huge cheers and then Paul and Van took up with ‘Irish Heartbeat’ and Van’s ‘I Will Be There’. Derek O’Connor left down his tenor to take over the piano for this song. What a talent he is. Van seemed to enjoy himself more and more and by the time he went off the place was going nuts.
What to do next? Bring it right down to a whole other thing with ‘Love Goes On’ again with the beautifully understated brass. It was the perfect thing to follow and gradually the set took off again with especially ‘The Soul Commotion’ and Brendan back again for ‘The World Is What You Make it’.
Van came back at the end to join Paul on the Ray Charles classic, ‘You Don’t Know Me’ which again was a beautiful thing. ‘Steel Claw’ with the brass was the perfect end to a night in a million.
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