It features the songs from his 1968 classic album, Astral Weeks. The jazz-rooted compositions of “Astral Weeks” are poetic stories of young love and the quest to find one’s place in life.November 7, November 8, 2008, at Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CaliforniaĪstral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Concert FilmĪstral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Concert Film is the second official DVD by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. Instead, longtime Morrison band member David Hayes handled the woody stand-up instrument that’s so crucial to the album’s unique sonic palette. As it turned out, that band did not include bassist Richard Davis, who’d been on the original recording sessions, because Davis had a last-minute family matter come up, Kellaway said Saturday. It was easy to see why Morrison said he’d always wanted to do “Astral Weeks” live with the kind of large and resourceful band that backed him at the Bowl. He reached forward as far as “The Healing Game” but spent most of that first portion tapping the ‘70s and ‘80s material he’s visited only sporadically in concert in recent years. The poetic imagery he crafted for “Astral Weeks” was light-years beyond the straightforward narratives of his early rock hits with Them, such as “Here Comes the Night” and “Gloria,” or even his first solo hit, “Brown Eyed Girl,” the latter two reconstructed during the show’s career-spanning first half. Fiddle player Tony Fitzgibbon paralleled him with skittering bowed runs while pianist Roger Kellaway dribbled out notes accordingly.Īnd in the climactic “Madame George,” it was the circular “the loves to love the loves to love the loves to love.” For “Cyprus Avenue,” he sputtered out words, “My Generation” style, about being tongue-tied in the presence of his beloved.
In “Beside You,” it was the phrase “you breathe in/you breathe out” looped back on itself enough to replicate the fundamental life process. When everyday language just wouldn’t do, he shifted to syllables, growls, moans, sometimes just phonemes, anything that would take him, and his audience, where he wanted to go. Morrison doesn’t preach, he seeks - an answer, or communion - and the chant becomes his method in relentless pursuit of one or both.
Every good gospel preacher knows the cumulative power of repetition. He’s long known the power of a mantra - the chanting of a word, phrase or verse has become a potent signature of his music.
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