Van Morrison, Hampton Court Palace, review: a sublime show without a hint of covidiocy

Twas a marvellous night for a moondance. Sir Van Morrison has spent much of the last 18 months angrily campaigning against Covid restrictions on live music, but he could have no complaints about his return to Hampton Court Palace for a delayed festival season. A crescent moon hung over Henry VIII’s ancient turrets on a warm summer night as the notoriously grumpy troubadour found his happy spot.

“It’s great to be back with a live gig,” was pretty much all the 75-year-old Northern Irish musical legend had to say for himself. He is not always the easiest performer to read, his expression disguised by his customary hat and dark glasses, but as a seasoned Van-watcher I am going to venture that he was in one of his better moods. He didn’t bother to wait for the picnicking audience to file in from the picaresque grounds to take their seats in the courtyard before promptly starting his set at 8.30, so the crowd was bustling about for at least 20 minutes whilst Morrison and his seven-piece band played in the background.

He stood centre-stage, right arm punching and chopping the air as if to force the musical pace, bossing the band with little nods and points, singing loose and free, blowing jazzily mellifluous saxophone solos and growling blues harmonica, all the while tossing around improvised lyrical and melodic phrases to bend his songs into new and sometimes barely recognisable shapes.

To be honest, it genuinely doesn’t seem to matter to Morrison whether there is an audience paying attention or not. You could hardly call him a crowd pleaser. Morrison played for an hour and a half but only offered up a handful of his greatest hits, including a jazzy inversion of Cleaning Windows, a zesty take on Wild Night and a bubbling romp through Moondance, with Morrison stretching out words to apparently arbitrary lengths and bouncing them around like he was playing with a rubber ball. Occasionally, some fans would recognise a musical phrase and try and sing along, only to be bamboozled by Morrison’s free-flowing phrasing. Only on the encores did Morrison deign to give the audience what I suppose many had bought their tickets for, blasting through versions of Brown Eyed Girl and Gloria straight enough to join in with.

Morrison frequently complains about people only wanting to hear old favourites, yet, when push came to shove, he only performed two songs from the eight albums he released last decade (the misleadingly titled Ain’t Gonna Moan No More and stuttering polemic Broken Record). And there was nothing at all from this year’s bitterly grouchy double album Latest Record Project Volume 1, for which we should all be thankful. Nonetheless, the odd setlist was full of interesting choices for his more dedicated fanbase.

The pacing of the show moved between supper club jazz and snarling blues but became mesmerising every time Morrison drew the listener into his personal space. Digging deep into his back catalogue, he spun out a long, flowing take on Ballerina from 1968’s Astral Weeks and a loose-limbed version of 1990’s meditative Enlightenment that blended with an energetic Real Real Gone before melting into Sam Cooke’s You Send Me. Best of all was the way this strange old crooner turned into a seductive, pensive lover on a gorgeous shift through Ancient Highway and Raincheck from 1995’s Days Like This. “No, I won’t fade away, I don’t fade away unless I want to,” he sang, as if it were a defiant promise to himself.

Whatever else you think about Sir Van Morrison, he remains an incredible musician and singer whose primary purpose on stage seems to be to lose (and perhaps find) himself in the music. The audience is just along for the ride.

The Hampton Court Palace Festival continues until 24 August with Tom Jones, Bastille, Bjorn Again and Nile Rodgers and Chic hamptoncourtpalace.com