Location: BA – CA Halle / Vienna / Austria
Concert date: 29.08.2006
Attendance: 0
Written by: Živa Viviana Doria
On Wednesday, August 30, Concert Freak and I hit the road for Vienna to see Irish troubadour Van Morrison. Thanks to my forgetfulness we left a bit late, but I have to hand it to my travel buddies for their patience, and I hope they weren’t too mad at me. Anyway, we eventually set off in good spirits and rolled into town in the afternoon. There was still some time before the show, which I put to good use running my errands around Vienna. The gig was in the Ba-Ca hall at the Gasometer, definitely one of the best concert halls around, with gorgeous architecture and excellent acoustics. It’s always a pleasure to be there and soak up the atmosphere of the shows.
At 7 p.m. Baum, a gentleman with a guitar, started warming up the crowd. His acoustic set went down pretty well.
At 8 p.m. Morrison’s sizable backing band (11 members!) took the stage. They played an opening number to kick things off, and then Mr. (I)van himself finally joined them. Hiding under his hat, he steered clear of the photographers happily “click-clacking” away below the stage. Our Jani was among them, deftly chasing him with his camera.
The already super-energetic backing band, made up mostly of gentlemen of a certain age plus two backing singers, was soon joined by a special guest – the “beauty” Candy Dulfer with her alto sax. This excellent musician has worked with Prince, among others, and toured with Madonna. While Van basically had zero contact with the crowd, she kept the mood up with her lively playing.
The concept of the show was different from what I’m used to. Van doesn’t have a setlist prepared in advance. Instead, he told the musicians on the fly which songs to tackle next, and their flawless playing only confirmed how professional everyone on that stage was.
Morrison played material from the new album “Pay The Devil”, among other things, and the hits were all there too: Moondance, Baby Please Don´t Go, Days Like This (Tadej whispered that one to me – thanks a lot). One of the highlights was the evergreen hit, the phenomenal Brown Eyed Girl, which is simply ˝my˝ song, and the great man closed the night with a majestic Gloria. In a really pleasant atmosphere we got exactly an hour and a half of his velvety voice and the acrobatics of the keyboard player. Sadly, Van left the stage practically without a word at exactly half past nine and never came back.
It’s usually really annoying when a musician has no contact with the audience, but with Van Morrison you just accept that he’s a totally unpredictable artist, and with a performance this top-notch you actually forget about it. Besides, the Austrian crowd watched the whole thing totally statically. Even during a truly superb Gloria, the stands just kept sitting calmly with looks on their faces as if Swan Lake were unfolding in front of them. Well, we’re pretty used to that by now. The 25-strong Slovenian delegation, me included, was thrilled with the show. A bit saddened by the show ending too soon, maybe, but still full of positive impressions, we headed back to Ljubljana. How ironic it is, after a night like that, to step off the Freak bus right in front of the pride of Slovenia, the “concert” hall Hala Tivoli, which sits there empty, wantonly, and will keep sitting empty for a long, long time to come, a textbook example of Slovenian concert apathy, even though Deep Purple will finally come to blow the dust off it this October after ages. But what then?
