MUSIC
Van Morrison
Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow
“YOU might think it’s nostalgia, I don’t mind” Van crooned early on in his set. In Kelvingrove Park, you could almost feel his audience’s collective heart throb with joy at the Belfast singer’s careless permission to luxuriate in rose-tinted memories of a career spanning almost six decades.
On stage, styled like Elvis Costello’s older, meaner, more solid brother in a spangly pinstripe suit, fedora and sunglasses, Morrison clearly meant business, briskly segueing from one song to the next.
Therewasnobanterwiththe band, and the sold-out audience was barely acknowledged; Morrison’s long-standing rep for gruffness remains intact, as does his reputation as a maestro of whimsy. His set leaned heavily on the jazzinflected work of the most recent of his 39 albums, plus some swing out versions of the hits, including Have I Told You Lately That I Love You and Moondance.
His tight, versatile backing band responded to and sometimes anticipated Van’s scattergun vocal delivery, but while the jazzed-up revisions had novelty, the cabaret treatments also ironed out some of his gutsy intensity, and it was striking that when Morrison barked out an unaltered Days Like This, the intimacy of the 23-year-old song pierced the falling dusk.
A closing run of Jackie Wilson Said, Brown-eyed Girl and a rocked-out and raucous extended Gloria made it impossible to deny Morrison’s brilliance as an artist. He left the band to play out, and the audience yelling for more, but perhaps also hoping a bit less of that swing thing next time.
Reportedly once described by Bob Dylan as the greatest war protest song ever written, Vietnam is a prime example of a buoyant piece of music subverted by a sombre lyric. Its sadly timeless message was reinforced when Cliff made topical references to Syria and Afghanistan. The unpretentious power of him repeatedly pleading “We’ve got to stop the war now” almost brought tears to my eyes.
Poetic similes and metaphors are all very well, but sometimes a straightforward cry from the heart carries more emotional weight.
Despite the dark, furrowed clouds that occasionally crowd his work, Cliff is basically a defiant optimist. He’s a sincere beacon of hope, a radiant force for good. When Jimmy Cliff sings of a wonderful world full of beautiful people, you believe it.