Van Morrison played an intimate gig for just 400 lucky fans in London on Thursday night (30.09.16) for the ‘BBC Radio 2 In Concert’ series.
Over 30,000 applications for tickets were received as fans scrambled for one of these priceless tickets but only one in 75 were lucky enough to secure a spot for what proved to be a magical evening.
Van, 71, was on truly magnificent form and turned the BBC Radio Theatre into what seemed to be an intimate nightclub.
The legendary musician was backed by a very small band; just four musicians and one backing singer.
But the sound he managed to achieve was passionate, powerful and mellow. It was the aural equivalent of bathing in spicy honey.
The concert was mainly a showcase for his brilliant new album ‘Keep Me Singing’, and the first single ‘Too Late’ is another Van masterpiece and with which Van opened the show.
The set lasted for 75 minutes and Van mesmerised the crowd by working through 18 songs from across his entire 50-year career.
These included early hits from his first band Them including ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’, more songs from his new album including ‘Let It Rhyme’ and well as old Van classics such as ‘Wild Night’, ‘Whenever God Shines His Light’ and ‘Brown Eyed Girl’.
The songs were a wonderful mix of pop, soul, jazz, blues, amazing musicianship and vocal gymnastics.
Those lucky 400 who saw the show for free realised it was worth the weight of the whole audience in gold and those unlucky 29,600 who missed it weren’t that unlucky – they and millions more were able to listen to it live as it was broadcast on BBC Radio 2
The concert is also available to watch at bbc.co.uk/radio2and on the BBC Red Button.
Van Morrison wows at BBC Radio 2 In Concert show
