Van Morrison review – transcending the pandemic with mystic soul

It is different, that’s the first thing. No matter that Van Morrison steers clear of offering his political and scientific analysis of Covid-19 and the government’s handling of it, the shadow of the pandemic hangs over the Palladium for the second of his five shows at the theatre. Social distancing is in place, and plenty of ticket holders have failed to turn up – the seats to be unoccupied are marked, but plenty of the seats designated for bubbles remain empty. And that creates its own problems: much as Morrison has spoken of his preference for smaller audiences, he means small audiences in small rooms, rather than small audiences scattered about very big rooms. And the Palladium stays distinctly chilly, the coldness and emptiness of the place offering no help to his six-piece band.

It’s a measure of Morrison’s indefatigability, then, that even in these circumstances he can touch transcendence. In the middle of the set, a long and loose version of Baby Please Don’t Go – which segues smoothly into Them’s Don’t Start Crying Now and then Got My Mojo Working – sees the band stretching out, and Morrison swapping out his mic to sing through the one for his harmonica. The sound is degraded, distorted, and as Morrison extemporises around the song – barking refrains, scatting, summoning or dispelling memories, whichever it might be – it flies, thrillingly. It’s followed by a glorious St Dominic’s Preview, Dave Keary driving it with a mandolin pattern that gorgeously restrains the song’s swelling emotion.

The less he deviates from the straightforward blues and jazz he loved many decades ago – and to which he has returned more and more often on recent albums – the less interesting things are. Hey Mr DJ has bags of charm, but it’s slight; Roll With the Punches – an absolutely straight and unremarkable 12-bar blues – does nothing to convince one that this, not all that Caledonian mystic soul, is the real deal. It’s perhaps made more of an issue than it would have been in a full room, because of the absence of atmosphere and the thrill of the communal; intensity works best when there’s nothing between the listener and the music, while levity, welcome in a crowd, seems to break the spell.

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Still, Morrison has the skills to generate that intensity, seemingly at will. After a delicious Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In Heaven When You Smile), opener Chris Farlowe is brought on to duet on Ben E King’s Stand By Me. He enters late, hits the wrong beats, perhaps distracted by Morrison barking wordlessly in the background, to the visible concern of musical director Paul Moran. Morrison ties all the ends together, turning the song into a piece of testifying that takes it straight back to church.

Gloria ends proceedings, of course, and Morrison stalks from the stage, leaving everyone – oddly – to take their instrumental spotlight slots at the very end of the show. The world will end, it seems, not with a bang, but with a drum solo.

• Van Morrison’s Save Live shows are at the Europa Hotel, Belfast, 29 -31 October.