Van Morris Puts On a Gre Sho

by Mike Orren

GRAND PRAIRIE — As I've made it painfully clear, I was just a wee bit psyched to scratch Van Morrison off my "must see before one of us kicks the bucket" list.

Hence, my mix of euphoria and disappointment at his show at Nokia Theatre Grand Prairie tonight. (It's 10:20, and I'm already cozy in my far East Dallas home, even after a swing past the office.)

First the good: Van the Man's voice is in as fine a timber as ever, and he arrived with the expected superlative backing band. Texan Jason Roberts particularly stood out on fiddle (doing jazz-based things that Alan can explain in the comments, I'm sure) and gave Morrison's tight blues-jazz big band the feel of Lyle Lovett's Large Band on Guinness. Anytime there's a horn section, a hammond organ, and smatterings of honky-tonk piano, I'm happy.

Van seemed energetic and into the music (pun intended) for the first part of the show. No small feat, considering that for the first half hour folks were still filing in. I've never before been to a sold-out show at Nokia when they had the upper deck open -- the show's early start time and poor traffic flow at I-30 and Beltline conspired to make a lot of people very late. We rolled in at 7:50 as Van hit the Sam Cooke riff in "Real, Real Gone."

(A simple bit of customer service: When a venue has an act with no opener who is going to go on within minutes of the time on the ticket, a warning would be nice. Of course, it's entirely possible Nokia management didn't know, as I'm sure their concessions were anemic-- but I get ahead of myself.)

The show rolled along with a nice, upbeat vibe, and for a Dallas crowd, chatter was minimal. The country songs came off nicely, far better than on the album, and the fiddle and steel guitars carried over nicely into a rollicking rendition of Stop Drinking."

An early burst of feedback on Van's mic caused my stomach to drop, as I remembered the words of a commenter on my first post about the show. But he bounced back quickly.

The first sign of real trouble came with "Brown-Eyed Girl." Alan and I both had the same assessment: As soon as the song started and the crowd started sha-la-laaing, it looked like all the energy and pleasure drained right out of Van. He left the stage as the song wound down and left the band to carry on with the mariachi club remix of the song. As the band looked back and forth between solos, Alan (a horn section vet) murmured, "They have no idea when he's coming back."

He did come back, for a perfunctory two-song encore, closing with a snippet of "The Healing Game." He took off again, and despite a long standing-o that went on well after the house lights went up, muzak came on, and take-down of the rigs began, there was to be no more.

With the show clocking in shy of ninety minutes, the crowd was disgruntled. There were scattered boos, and about a quarter of the house sat around in disbelief, until Nokia staff started ushering us out.

Alan and I had some conspiracy theories about Van being forced contractually to sing "Brown-Eyed Girl," but it turns out that it was in several recent setlists. It also turns out that fans on the Van-M YahooGroup marvel about recent shows breaking "the 90-minute limit."

This one certainly didn't. I'm still glad I went, especially for the first half of the show. He's a legend, and has the chops to back it up tenfold. Would I shell out $70 plus $12 parking for his next show (which, if he follows pace, would be in 2040)?  Probably not-- but I have scratched him off "the list."

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