finally, Peter Wolf in concert

After a short caledonia stroll around the block, we arrive at the front door of the Port City Music Hall just after 7. It's a cozy little spot, which we're told holds 550; even at that I don't think it was a full house. It certainly wasn't when we got there, still open spaces up at the very front, so I scooted up there to hold some spots while Dennis and Dan got us drinks. Good song selection coming over the speakers - a bit of Mink de Ville and Johnny Cash, Howlin' Wolf's All Night Long, another Mink de Ville.

By the time the opening band came onstage, there might have been a hundred of us clustered around the stage. I wish I could remember the act's name - two guys, Morris? Boris? Sludge? Sledge? and Jim Haggerty, forming the Morris/Boris Sludge/Sledge duo, or something like that. Their gave us a rousing 30 minutes, and if I knew who they were, I'd highly recommend checking them out. I guess you could go to one of the remaining shows on the tour and see for yourself.

I don't think Peter played for more than 90 minutes, maybe 100. But the set was jam-packed with goodies. After the first song, Peter had the event staff remove the barrier set up two feet in front of the stage, putting us in swarming distance when he'd parade along the lip of the stage.

As you might imagine, a substantial amount of the set was taken up with material from Midnight Souvenirs, and for each of the duet songs, including The Greenfields of Summer with Neko Case, It's Too Late For Me with Merle Haggard, and Tragedy with Shelby Lynne, he had a story to tell about how he got together with them to record the songs, including one involving two bottles of bourbon with Lynne. Early in the set he did Cry One More Time, describing it as a song of his that Gram Parsons sang. Peter had some good stories, and some funny ones - including how he got John Lee Hooker's business card. He's actually got the card up on his website. (While you're at the site, click on BIO and on the second page, there are two photos of Peter and Van back in the Boston days.)

The band was introduced as mainly the same as on the album, minus Larry Campbell (that would have been a shocker). We had pedal steel, keyboards, guitar, bass and drums, with Peter on marimbas and harp when the occasion warranted. The only thing missing was the sax, which adds a huge sound in key places on the album.

Peter gets his whole body into the songs - a mix between Mick Jagger, minus the prima dona, and a gazelle. A man in motion. He gets the beat in his feet, and they get going, and the energy from the music seems to explode from his body, driving the song. Song after song, although sometimes he took a break for a sit-down on a stool, but never for more than a song, sometimes only half the song, and the music would hit his feet and he'd be off again.

It was definitely a J. Geils audience - when he pulled out Night Time midway through the set, there was a rush from the crowd; same for Must Have Got Lost and Love Stinks (where he got Boris/Morris to do the basso profondo voice in the refrain; a great touch). More of a raging guitar solo audience than a pedal steel one perhaps. They got what they came for in Looking for a Love, which closed out the first set. That song made the rest of the show seem like a Perry Como rap.

I highly recommend getting out to see Peter if he's coming to your town. The current tour goes until early June, and it's pretty much east coast, so if you get the chance, go for it! His voice sounds in good form. You know what else really impressed me - his diction. Impeccable - I could hear every word. I think he might be the only person I can say that about. Altogether a great show.

Thanks, Dan, for the photos!

breaking news: found needle in haystack

It all started in 1992, when Sleepless came out. That's when my quest to see Peter Wolf started. I hadn't been much of a J. Geils Band fan. Maybe I didn't give them enough credit, but to my "walking through meadows with Van" sensibilities, J. Geils was too short on lyrics and too long on frantic. Sleepless was a whole 'nuther thing. I liked what he was doing and wanted to see him do it live.

Chances of getting that to happen were somewhere between needle in a haystack territory and when hell freezes over, the big snag being he didn't play any shows. Every so often I'd hear a report that he'd showed up at some club somewhere, nothing announced. Enough to make my mouth water, little good that did me.

It must have been summer 2005 and Dennis heard about a concert held in conjunction with some arts and music festival going on down on Cape Cod; there were going to be a couple of good artists - James Montgomery and Marcia Ball on the bill, and I don't suppose we would have gone except for the announcement that Peter Wolf was going to join James onstage for a few songs.

So, we took the opportunity, figuring it might be the only time. It turned out to be an excellent night of music - I'd never seen James Montgomery before, so I was getting to hear his harmonica styling for the first time. It's good stuff - very intense, and I like that. He's a working man. Peter was the icing on the cake. He came out and played three songs, all three of which I've forgotten by now, and off he went. Dennis and I convinced ourselves that it was worth the three- or four-hour drive to the Cape. A legend in his own time. At least in my mind.

Flash forward to last month: Midnight Souvenirs was released, and that's pretty much all I've been listening to since. These days I don't get in a lot of music listening time, so it's pretty precious to me - as such, you're going to have ta' be a serious contendah if you're going to knock Van out of position. Wolf has taken over my listening airwaves.

Better still, Dennis found out that he was playing one night up in Portland, Maine, in support of the new album, and did I want to go? Um, yea! Peter Wolf in concert - a huge, huge item off my music bucket list.

The day of the show Dennis and I were driving up in time to grab a bite to eat and hoping to catch up for a pre-show quiet drink with Dan Hart, denizen of Portland. Haven't seen Dan since the big party at Rockwood Music Hall in in NYC last February, when we were in town for Van's shows at the WaMu.

It serves to remind me that for far too many of my friends, the only time I see them is before a show, and we've both got a drink in our hand. I'm sure there is a lesson to be learned here.

In the meantime, the three of us have a show to get to. Doors open at 7.

Note to self: I've got to learn to write shorter posts. Now I've got to put off my review of the show till the next post. I'll get right on it! Dan's sent me a bunch of photos he took at the show, so I'll have fun putting that together. Till next time!

a confluence of events

The record's stuck. The record's stuck.
On Peter Wolf's Midnight Souvenirs. It's been in constant rotation in the car since I got it a month ago, and when I'm not listening to it, I've got "Tragedy" playing ear candy. It hardly seems like eight years ago that Sleepless came out, and I used to take that one driving too. Definitely, Wolf is road music.

I'd ordered it from amazon.com, and in the same package was Tom Russell's Blood and Candle Smoke and the two new Van-related books, When Rough God Goes Riding by Greil Marcus and Hymns to the Silence by Peter Mills. Both were discounted, Marcus's heavily, if I remember rightly.

I hope so; it's not worth the suggested retail price. The most interesting parts of the book are these bits of arcane knowledge (non-Van content) that Marcus references to make a point about something in Van's music, or he'll go off on a tangential anecdote, and after each one of these, I'd go, wow, I didn't know this, I don't know that I needed to know this, but surely I am a better person for having more knowledge. The other good part is that Marcus abruptly dismisses a huge 17-year swath of Van's music; if he'd liked those years, it would have just meant having to read about more Van Morrison songs that Greil Marcus really likes. It was good that the book was short.

I used to read Greil in Rolling Stone back in the day when music was starting to get good for me, and I always enjoyed reading him - a good wordsmith and from the bit I saw of the video of a book reading he did recently in support of Rough God, well-spoken and confident, a little aristocratic. I was reading Greil before I read Lester Bangs, so you could say I was weaned on rock and roll through Greil's eyes. He really liked Van in those days. And he really liked the music I was listening to, and it was all one big happy time of it. So, despite bad press from listers, I was, in advance, disposed to liking the book, with no grievance to bear.

There's a line in the book that Greil recounts. He must have been talking up his impressions of Astral Weeks performed live and his wife turned to him and told him that's what he should be writing about - Van Morrison's music. And so he did. I don't doubt that Greil is a fan of one particular aspect of Van's music, something that speaks to him personally and he feels passionate about it, but I didn't sense any of that passion coming through on the page, and I didn't find his analysis of the music that insightful. But hey, it's not everyone who gets asked to write a book about Van's music, so good on him for getting it done. I'm sure he gave it his best shot.

I think I was embroiled in the headwinds of Greil's take on The Last Laugh, Van's duet with Mark Knopfler, when a local author's book came to my attention, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life by Steve Almond. Dennis had seen him do a book reading at the Newburyport Literary Festival and got Steve to sign the book for me. Here's what he wrote...

To the Drooling Vanatic Shannon -
Please find (if you don't have already) "Who Drove the Red Sports Car" and CRANK IT UP
xo

This guy is one seriously devoted fan of the music, there aren't enough hours in the day and night to cram it all in, and it's all good, the louder the better. Ergo, the Drooling Fanatic - it's too good to stop now! It turns out he was giving a reading up in Concord the following week, so Dennis and I went along to that. And he's just as good in person as he is on the page - he keeps you laughing, mostly at yourself, because you know exactly what he's going through when the music takes over. I love the story he tells about this hot young thing. for whom bedding is all he's got on his mind, and things are going pretty good in the foreplay to bedding part, and just when he's thinking it's time to make his move, he walks into the living room and Air Supply is playing on her stereo. While it didn't put the kibosh on his short-term plans for the weekend, he couldn't stomach the idea of a future that included her singing "I'm All Out of Love" as if she really meant it. And that was the end of Elise.

Turns out, while Dennis was at the literary festival, he spotted a poster for Midnight Souvenirs in the window of a local shop, and when he went in to buy the CD, he found out that Peter was playing a few shows in northern New England before heading off to tour the album at spots along the east coast, plus one stop in Chicago.

The closest show we could get tickets for was up in Portland, Maine, which is a bit of a hike up the road from here. It's been years since I've been wanting to see this guy live, and the way he tours, it was now or never I figured. It turned out to be a superb night of music...I'll tell you all about it next time.

sitting down

I can't believe it...

I haven't been to this blog since November? What have I been doing that I couldn't come on for ten minutes and at least said hi. And how's everyone been doing on this Van hiatus. I've mostly been listening to live Astral Weeks stuff since November. Or at least I was bent on doing just that. Lately, though, I don't even have time for music...except in the car. Which reminds me, I had a show playing in the car last week, and out of it came a little trivia question:

At what show did Van namecheck Ray Charles in three separate songs; not only that, but the three songs followed each other on the setlist? Hint: it was a show from the '90s.

But no time to listen to music makes for not much time to listen to Van. But that all changes tomorrow. April 1...I'm going to sit down and catch up on some writing. And what I mostly want to write about is that year of Astral Weeks we had.

So guess what I'll be listening to pretty much nonstop for the next while? Everyone else will be off boogying in those southern parts and I'll be crooning in my cups, deep in the throes of Madame Joy et al. Getting on that train!

But that's tomorrow. Tonight, I'm going to pop the Hollywood Bowl DVD in. I was going to watch Basquiat, but it wouldn't play. Last night I watched what I thought was a good movie, The Dancer Upstairs. With the most stunning version of Sandy Denny's Who Knows Where the Time Goes sung by Nina Simone.

I've landed in that area of my Netflix queue where Javier Bardem dwells, and The Dancer Upstairs is another of them. The night before I'd seen him in Before Night Falls, where we get to see the devil-may-care Johnny Depp in a couple of roles.

I was looking forward to another movie tonight. Hollywood Bowl was an easy choice. Take me back.

So, the video watching should work out OK, don't you think?
Here's to the same success with tomorrow's project.
I'll let you know how it goes.

Van on the Eastern Seabord (Northern Part) - part 4

At the Wamu

My ticket says An Evening With Van Morrison. Good, I am in the right place at the right time. Well almost the right time. No sooner do Sean, Donna and I get inside the WaMu than the lights start to flicker. I guess we’re late. We get Donna going in the right direction, Sean’s gone on ahead, and I’m pretty much sprinting through the foyer at this point, the lights still flickering. I like the part when I get to the usher, who says to me, “Down there, on the floor.” Compared with last night’s “Up the stairs and to your right,” it was music to my ears.

I’d come to the conclusion earlier today that the real reason I didn’t feel like I was part of the music last night in Waterbury had nothing to do with the quality of the show and everything to do with my hearing. Sitting upstairs in the balcony in Waterbury, I was feeling like the music didn’t fill the space. And basically, blaming the music for that. But when Donna turned in her seat as the lights went up on Gloria, and said wasn’t that the best show ever, it got me thinking. It’s not the music that’s the problem, it’s my hearing. I suffer from that mp3 disease – where the top and bottom ends drop off.

I don’t think sitting in the third row, directly in front of the speaker here at the WaMu is what the doctor would order, but all I could think at the time was, I’m not likely to have any trouble with the music filling up the space tonight – it’s going to come blasting out of that very large speaker right there and plow right into me. What’s a girl to do, but sit back and wait for the ride to begin.

I’m going to be a puddle by the end of this, I just know it.

We’ll worry about my hearing later.

I’ve got my buddy Sean sitting beside me, and both of us are waiting for Van to walk on and sit at the piano, which is all of about 15 feet in front of us; I could take piano lessons, I’m so close.

Turns out, all that flickering was for nothing. Or something that turned into nothing. We probably sat there for 15 minutes, when the lights went down and the band came out. Then came the announcer, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, Van Morrison!!!!! cheeeeeeer, but no Van. And still no Van, and the crowd stops cheering, the crowd gets a little uneasy, and finally he comes on, to a nice, warm welcome and takes us into Northern Muse.

I won’t stop to chat about each song, but this one deserves a special mention. The way he’s taken this song out during these eight months has been ear candy. Always a lovely song, it has grown as the band has grown and could take it on behind Van. In late September, Van was digging deep inside to get the words out, and they’d come out as this deep growl, and now that growl’s gone deeper down, like he’s digging a trough with it – Sean calls it the lion inside – deep, deep down in the heart of Down. Tonight, he leans to the left, like Ray Charles at the piano, and yells out, Turn me up! and the show is about to take off.

Brown Eyed Girl is good because I get to see Van play at the piano for one more song – this is the best view I’ve got of him all night, so I milk it for all it’s worth. And that takes us to Fair Play, which is the stunner in the set and has been since he first played it in Bristol. Tonight at the WaMu, I’ve got a bird’s eye view of Jay, the first time I’ve actually been on the left side of a venue since way back at the Hollywood Bowl. He was good then, and he’s good now. There’s this one part … after the round of solos that float around the room, those big swells of Terry and Michael’s cellos behind Tony, Ritchie on flute, Paul on piano, some soft, mellow jazz from David and Bobby, even Rick gets a turn on the bongos … where Van is singing quietly, taking a bit of a solo on his guitar and that leads into the most beautiful of Jay moments, getting Van to go Yea, right! Said with some enthusiasm, I might add. Big hand for the man for bringing this song out to test it live. It was a song worth singing, every night leading to new territory, and tonight it covered a fair bit of it.

And sure as shooting, The Mystery is next. Nothing new or startling there. But then we get It’s All in the Game. I’m all over myself pleased. It’s been a bit of a wait since the last time I heard him play it (sigh, I just don’t go to enough shows; it’s not like he hasn’t been playing it), but the wait is over, and I know I say this a lot, and I’m getting weary of myself too, but tonight he really pulls no punches and gives us one of the most spectacular Games I’ve witnessed. Long live the workshop. Paul’s fingers trip over the high notes on the piano, and it reminds me again just how great this band is … feel it in my soul, there’s a rainbow in my soul … building through the levels to the end, where Van lets loose. It lit me a smile about 10 miles wide.

I think I pay attention during Moondance, but if I did, I have no recollection of it. What I do remember is Philosopher’s Stone, where Van starts in on a lozenge and drinking hot tea. If he’s got a problem, you’d never know it – his voice is like silk in Little Village, playing on the strings let’s get it straight from the start, what you believe in your head and your heart, Jay’s guitar has all the pretty parts, and then so do the rest of the strings, and by the end of song, the whole band is playing this absolutely delightful piece of classical music. I don’t suppose something like that comes out of thin air, but they made it sound like it does, effortless, as if it’s in them. Big hand for the band. And Van; let’s not forget Van. And Ritchie – he had some pretty parts too.

And now for something completely different. Van’s sultry opening to Help Me is quite the thing. Very soft, very slow, very enticing, and David’s bass is driving it; then there’s this drum crack that takes it to the next level, with this huge violin solo that simply rocked. Way to go, Tony! And all of a sudden it turns into jazz, some very nice jazz. The Van blues. He tags on Early in the Morning, again with that softer, luring voice. Very nice. He gives us a little tease of Kansas City, a lot of jazz, and a foot-stomping harp blast to end the whole shebang. A great outing.

Have I Told You Lately? is a crowd pleaser – you can imagine the band making this all sorts of lovely for the audience, getting them ready for what comes next.

As Dan wrote so eloquently, “The final 20 minutes of the gig saw Van reaching for the stars, the ones that shine in his eyes and the ones that glitter in his memories.”

On Hyndford Street. What a thing of beauty. Paul’s organ starts it off, long notes, sweet notes from Jay, played with reverence. Then the music grows, and if it isn’t just the most calming sound. Repetitive, and each time it comes around, you drop another layer of the outside world. Van now sings all the spoken words, and boys and girls, this was the number one moment in the show – the soft plaintiveness, the poignancy, in his voice as it slides down the high notes. Where the studio version is a bit of beat, tonight it is a paean. Jay’s playing is sheer delight, and I dare say, Van, on the electric, gave an excellent run at it too. This one is definitely ready to take on the road.

Van keeps on the electric for And the Healing Has Begun and we get a pretty good rocking version of it. He closes it down in the backstreet, yelling, I’m BACK!! into the hand mike just before he starts his walk-off. Then he’s back on for Gloria and the crowd is up dancing. You can always tell how much the audience liked the show by how many people get up to dance for Gloria. I’ve seen nights where only a scattering get up; but not tonight – the whole place is up. I agree with them – this was a spectacular show.

It’s two weeks tonight, as I write this, that we were at the WaMu, and the words still echo in my head, all Van caress, can you feel the silence, on long summer nights, the voices whispered across the river, we kept on dreaming.

Van on the Eastern Seabord (Northern Part) -- Part 3

On the way to New York

So there were Sean, Donna and me Saturday night, sitting in the City Hall Cafe, downtown Waterbury. Dan and his crew had left for New York pretty much right after the show was over so that just left us and we had some deciding to do. Among the three of us, all we had was one ticket for WaMu -- Randy's, who couldn't make it at the last minute; sorry, Randy, about the ribs (ouch! ouch! ouch!) . One of us has to go and use this ticket, and are the other two in or out? That kind of decision making requires refueling and I'd had a yen for a nice little dessert since Sweet Thing, so good timing. Over some cake with lemon filling, which more than hit the spot, and a cup of coffee, we decided our fate -- we're all in, we're all going, Donna's going to take Randy's ticket and Sean and I are going to see what the scalpers are offering. Brilliant decision making.

When we got back to our hotel, we could see all sorts of tickets for WaMu out there on the Internet; surely some of these people are going to be standing outside Madison Square Garden hoping for something. That was our theory, anyway.

We weren't the first people up in the morning, but we made it and were on the road by 11, well, OK, 11:30 at least. But no rush -- the plan is to drive into Manhattan, park the car near the venue and meet up with Robbie, who works a stone's throw from MSG. and go for lunch, catch a bit of football on TV. We got to Manhattan in good time, then took a detour through the Lincoln Tunnel to go have a pee in New Jersey, before heading back into town...and wouldn't you know, as we drive by the venue, there's a spot right there, on the street. The parking gods are on our side. The car is even facing in the right direction for our quick getaway after the show, unbelievable.

Robbie's easy to find and the four of us head over to McGarry's on 9th for lunch. The Bloody Mary looks good for starters, and our day in New York is under way. It's good to be back. The Yankees and Angels are in town for Game 6 of the ALCS; the game got rained out last night, but the Yankees could clinch it tonight. A good day if you're a Yankees fan. Hey, it's a gig day, it's all good.

You know how time flies when it's all good; soon Robbie's got to get back to work, Sean's going to stay and watch the Steelers game while Donna and I head out to see what's going on in the streets of New York. The two of us head over to MSG just to see if there are any good tickets available at the box office, maybe some that got turned back. Blow me over with a feather, there are actually two good (read excellent) pairs right down at the front. We'd passed a scalper on the way in whose best were in the 200 section, but we wanted to sit down front. There was no way after feeling outside the music last night that I wanted to be sitting anywhere but down front for this one.

So we scuttled back to get Sean and the short story is we're back at the box office and getting one of those pairs. You should have seen our faces as we left, the cat that swallowed the canary is what we were. I call Pat W for directions to The Ginger Man; he's already there, having a quiet drink with Johnny G. We're on our way. By the time we get there, Dianne has joined the quiet drink group, but that's all about to change.

Great to see Linda M and her daughter, Morgan. Morgan and I go way back. She and her sister Caitlin were part of the Junior Fan Club up in Newfoundland in 1998, eating those cod tongues with the rest of us at Bum's place. Wim and Kat are here, and I don't think that's a hot dog he's eating, but it could be. Michelle and Stu from San Diego, whom we saw out in Hollywood almost a year ago, have flown in for the show, Mike and Lori show up, and Mike F (good to see you, Mike), Art, Chris, Melissa, and Bob C and Leslie, straight from the afternoon gig at the Rockwood, which sounded like another excellent time put on by Dave. Richard has made the trip from Kentucky, and you know if there's a Van show tonight, then Dan and Robert are here, too.

I think Dan and Leslie are the only two in the group going on to Baltimore for Tuesday night's gig, but for now, it's all New York and what's coming up tonight. There's never enough time at preshows, and today is no different from any other. Seven o'clock comes and we're all looking at our watches, needing to settle up the bill and head off to the show.

Van in Waterbury and MGM Grand/Foxwoods

Say Goodbye to Madame Joy

I'd been looking forward to these two Connecticut shows since I walked out of the theater in Montreal a few weeks ago...two more chances to see Astral Weeks before it's gone for good and, in some ways, lets me get on with my life. It's been a great ride this past year, pure magic, this is where I always wanted to be since I was 14 -- listening to Astral Weeks live. After a year of it, I am officially AW supersaturated. Two more coming up is simply the glutton going for the supersize.

Foxwoods

Waterbury was lovely, and Foxwoods, well, it wasn't quite so lovely. There was some discomfort up on stage at Foxwoods. With Northern Muse noticeably cut short, it seemed like tonight was going to be tough on Van's voice. His cold was obvious as he sang, and other than Fair Play, which has everything in it to soothe the savage beast any time I hear it, the first set had a "get through this as good as I can" feel to it.

I'm sure there was a collective holding of breath among some of us after In the Garden, waiting to see what was coming next. The fact that he hadn't played AW the night before in Baltimore, even though it had been announced as an AW show, had me wondering if maybe the AW songs are harder to sing.

Harder or not, there was that voice over the loudspeaker announcing AW and we were off on our final flight of the year. Towards the end of Astral Weeks, as he was taking it down lower away from the mike, he started coughing; and I think it was about that time that he turned to Hayes and Ruggiero with his arms flailing up and down meaning something. It looked like he might have been wanting something different from the guitar, maybe he wanted something that would fit better with his physical constraints, but from that point on, it was as if Jay wasn't even there. Perhaps if all that had been figured out, we would have got an interesting show, but in the end it wasn't to be. The pill would have been harder to swallow if we hadn't had ourselves such a great little show at the Palace Theater in Waterbury four nights earlier.

Waterbury

I had been rushing to get to my seat in time for the 8 o'clock curtain call, but when I got there a few minutes to 8, Donna told me the usher had indicated that Van wasn't coming on until 8:15. That came and went too, and no Van on the piano until 8:24. Maybe the rain delayed him.

He was loaded for bear on Northern Muse, in what turned out to be surely the best version of it we've heard to date. He punctuates the first line with a "Come On!" done in that growly voice he does, and the growl is there to stay for the whole song, but it gets quiet too, with him moaning/crooning in his tongues, right through Tony's violin, then back to the last verse and after the chorus, the growl gets turned up, deep down on the solid ground, deep in the heart of Down and the growl grows into that gargle thing he does in Lion when he's really into the lion inside. Brilliant version, ending softly with It's alright, it's alright now. And I wonder how he gets his voice back to a whisper like that so fast.

Fun to see Van stay at the piano for Brown Eyed Girl, turning it into something a bit different. I've forgotten more than I remember about Fair Play this night except at the end of the round of solos, David has his bit on the bass, then Bobby a turn on drums, which is unusual in and of itself that the drums would get a solo, but then David comes back in and the two of them are playing jazz, then Jay and Van are doing a lovely guitar bit together that leads into a run of no prima donna, all change and hi ho Silver, and the thing comes to a crashing end. Pretty nice stuff. The Mystery slows it down for a bit, and then we're In the Garden. A little growling here too, but then he goes awfully quiet, almost plaintively singing no guru, no method, no teacher before taking it louder and then back down to a whisper again. I'm not sure how much the audience was into it with him -- it's hard to tell up here in the parterre, where the sound is good but not half loud enough. The distance from the stage is a distraction for me -- I didn't feel close enough to the music and some of the nuances were probably lost, leaving me feeling a bit outside the music. If this had been a powerhouse, blowing-the-roof-off concert, any seat in the house would have been good, but a show like this that's quieter, more complex with Van's voice, you just want to be up close. Or you do if you is me.

The AW set sounded just as fresh as it ever did -- another opportunity to revel in how great the band is, how wonderful the music sounds, how they've put it together for Van to work with. They've got the music down and that gives Van the freedom to go playing with things; at tonight's show in the first set, it's the deeper range where the growls live that he explores. But in AW, the exploration is in the music. When the music is driven by the guitar, both Jay's and Van's, as it is throughout, all those overworked words like trancelike, ethereal, and magic creep into the story. I climb up that mountainside and that's where I stay until he's back on the corner after leaving Madame Joy back there somewhere near Connolly Station. I'll take that trip anytime.

A gentle Astral Weeks, full at the end with Jay, moves into an even softer Beside You, lulling us into Slim Slow Slider, which he introduced with "Any reference to any living person is totally fiction." With that administrative detail out of the way we got down to the nitty gritty - lipstick writing on the mirror, fur coat strewn all across the floor, a note on your pillow that tells me you don't live here no more. I went to see the German doctor at Westpoint Grove just the other day, he gave me railway carriage charm, make my worries go away, make this pain go away, he say, son, make your memory pain go away. This has been a splendid year of listening to SSS grow into a worthy successor to TB Sheets in the "how to create a pall" genre. I love how Van made this song grow, the troubadour embellishing to keep his audience rapt. We sure got a powerful version of it tonight.

At the end of Sweet Thing he brings it right down -- there was Van playing blues harp and I remember David's bass behind it, the whole thing as low as you could go and getting quieter, the harp trading licks with "champagne eyes" until it's impossible to hear his final whisper. Cyprus Avenue leaves me a little melancholy, in a nostalgic way, mentally saying a quiet goodbye to a song I hope I am not saying goodbye to for too long. He serves it up to us quietly, and with each successively quieter in all your revelation, in all your revelation, on a golden autumn day, it becomes almost reverential until it gently fades into nothing.

Young Lovers Do changes the pace, gives me a chance to come up for a drink of water and watch the band for a while; they make it look so easy. Ballerina seems all new, Jay's doing something different with the guitar, more of a flamenco feel to it, tonight's ballerina is working hard tonight, Van exhorting her to keep on pushing, keep on pushing, get moving on up.

Then it's time to say goodbye to Madame Joy, tonight with the classical music all around the room, walking away from it all, so cool, and when he gets to the backstreet, he brings it down to just guitar and viola and his humming and a whispered "Be cool." All night long I was given no reason to believe this audience would have let Van get away with the subtleties, but they must have got it, because I think I could smell the rapture.

And the Healing Has Begun is a bit of a jaunt to start out but by the time we're listening to Jimmy Witherspoon in the backstreet, take this backstreet jelly roll, we're back in an alternate ending, but it feels like the same ending to Madame George, I can almost hear the train from Dublin up to Sandy Row, the violin mingling with the guitar, hold my hand, and then he's gone, clutching has hand above the guitar neck, perhaps the most introspective moment in the show.

The return for Gloria seemed almost mistaken, but it had a few people in the audience up on their feet; my impression is that, for the most part, this was not an audience cut out for subtleties, that the quiet bits left them a bit befuddled, not knowing quite what to make of it, not finding the energy in the sublime moments, leaving them with very little to give back for Gloria.

Of course, if what they needed was energy, what they should have done was immediately get in the car, drive the 77 miles to New York City, and be in time for tomorrow night's show at the WaMu. But for now they've got the band crashing away in Gloria long enough for Van to have made his getaway and be long gone before Ruggiero's drum flourish to signal that it was all over.

At this point it would be crazy to skip New York. The only obvious smart thing to do is follow Van down the road and see what we get. It's bound to be good.