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Mike S.
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Reporting from a great show in Madrid with Van and the current band line up with Paul Moran on keyboards and all else the same.
Good set with County Down added though Van had to request the band sing the correct words and then said he would sing alone...and a few other light moments and overall large receptive crowd including some lovely ladies from Florida celebrating a birthday weekend with Van in Spain and a barful a warm Spanish fans who embraced their new Detroit amigos.
News of the new release (Still On Top) going Gold likely had Van in good spirits.
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ADN.es. (Translated via Google)
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Van Morrison has offered a concert last night at the Palais des Sports de la Comunidad de Madrid in which sailed between the waters of jazz and country and presented a repertoire in which escasearon their greatest hits.
Morrison, 62 years old, cited his audience at eight in the evening hours unusual for a concert, and its timeliness surprised much of the spectators, still looking for their seats when he appeared on stage, dressed in a a black suit and hat, and a saxophone in their hands.
Accompanied by a band of ten musicians, including the vocalists Katie Kisson and Karen Hamill, the Lion of Belfast began with jazz themes cutting the second of his two concerts in Spain.
The vienres had acted in Murcia with similar effect: surprise to the public for the rigorous punctuality at the beginning and a good performance, however, was far from achieving the outstanding success.
The Palacio de los Deportes had reduced its capacity to some fabrics to improve the acoustics and get an atmosphere of intimacy, with all spectators sat in their seats and some lights dark.
Morrison, who alternated the microphone with the saxophone and harmonica, was then going on to the country sounds of his last studio album, Pay the devil, that mixes original compositions and versions of the genre.
The Irish musician has just published a new collection summarizing its forty-year solo career, Still on top, but it was not until midway through the concert to hear one of his greatest successes.
It was Bright side of the road, running in a distant country version of the original and the author interpreted in a low tone.
From the back of the room a few whistles were heard during the performance, especially when the stark lighting of the stage was expanded with a focus that was directly in the public eye.
It also heard a voice that demanded greater volume, and that is the sound that would have been ideal for a jazz club, it was at times somewhat low for a larger venue as the sports.
The concert, which ran a medium gas escalated when Morrison made another of his rare forays into its most famous items, Moondance, which played jazz rhythm and pulled out shone with the help of Hammond organ Paul Moran.
During this issue addressed, at last, to the public. He was to present his vocalists-half of the subject, but there is virtually finished its communication with the audience.
True to his reputation for huraño even introduced to the rest of the band. He had to be his guitarist, Ned-John Ewards who do so later, while Morrison was lost in the background of the stage.
The concert was settled in an hour and a half. It ended with Van Morrison Brown eyed girl, her first solo success, content Blowin 'your mind, 1967, but did not excite left by nostalgia. After the public were dismissed with a terse "thank you".
There was more. The spectators, after devoting some polite applause, left their seats without asking for a bis, when all the lights are lit to indicate that the show was over.
Van Morrison left pitando road to the airport. There he hoped his plane for conducirle to his home in Belfast, where he will sleep tonight.
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ELPAIS (Translated via Google)
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An old Irish with pint of trotamundo discussed in a bar that whenever Van Morrison sings, it rains in Belfast. The waiter puts in doubt and grotesque character pulls mobile, dial a number, and without welcome question: "Its rainning?" . Look at the bartender and says firmly. "Whenever it rains."
Perhaps rain in New York during the 48 hours it took for the Lion record Astral Weeks in 1967. He was 22 years old and it was his first solo record. The same age as Dylan was when he recorded The Freewhelin, or that it had met Neruda man's attempt to write infinity.
Yesterday not raining. Nor did it is his first visit to the capital, San Isidro 1988, which included shocked the musician to the second song. He again. That cost 500 pesetas of the time. Yesterday the most expensive approach the 80 €.
Morrison presented his third Greatest Hits, Still on Top with the same hat, with the same glasses, with the same attitude. A blonde girl dressed in black dancing nonstop between an audience mostly seated and quiet, a young man fleeing security to reach the runway. People seem happy. Some little less, there were problems to remove the entries and many entered the concert started.
The band looks beautiful, drums, violins, coristas, rope, winds. Van Morrison reserves an organ, a saxophone and harmonica. And is reviewing forty years of career. Time to Sidewalks, Magic Time and There Stands the Glass (Pay the Devil), their latest creations.
His attitude, looks the same as ever. Distant, proper, professional. To paraphrase Tony Soprano: "This is not a popularity contest." What people pay and enduring, it does so by art, as bulls, as El Prado. Morrison is not looking for friends, just salutes and does not lose time between song and song in a show of ninety minutes without discount.
What makes him good, very good. It shows the power of an age that does not have, but is presented with a dignity almost commensurate to the price of the stalls.
No other of the many not known. The necessary. Brown Eyed Girl, Bright Side Of the Road, Moondance. Classic popular outside the passage of time. Jewels of an era music and distant. The others, who beat precious surprises with the taste of the first time.
Arriving at the end gets angry with a corista and repeats some verses marcándola the correct pace. It's so alien to the public like this to the reasons that led him to act accordingly. After some time whistle and get started soon after the first standing ovation, lifting the public from their armchairs.
Fire in the Belly (The Healing Game), shows the virtues of this strange character who has long argued that just liked to compose. "He would sing songs to the other." It does so because there is no other. He knows.
The end of the show, without triple on horn, without farewell. Until another. Low scene without removing the hat, drinking water in the dressing room and mounted on a car that takes you to Barajas. Flight private. Takeoff, landing headbanding and in the cold of Belfast airport. Just stop rain.