Anyone seen Van recently?
Friends of ours went to Chicago this week to see him. My gf is in New Orleans to see him at JazzFest. I’ve never seen him, but I saw his daughter Shana perform, and was lucky to get to meet her and hang out that evening.
Anyone here see him at different times in his career? How do his current shows compare?
I saw him last July in Cologne at a beautiful venue, open air on Roncalliplatz, at the steps of the cathedral. Luckily, it was a beautiful mild and sunny summer evening. One thing first: the time of real, graspable magic in his shows you can witness on the “It’s Too Late To Stop Now” album from 1974 or the “Live At Montreux” DVD from 1980 is long over. That doesn’t mean his current shows are bad, not in the least, and it’s somehow natural that a man his age and with a stage history of almost 60 years cannot still reach the hights of his youth. But his voice, given the intensity he has always sung with, has held up exceptionally well. That VOICE is still magical. He also always has the best and tightest bands anyway, and it’s all very professional. He’s a professional doing that thing his whole life, still working hard to give a good show.
He played many classics of his repertoire, also the usual old Rhythm and Blues covers, and all over it was a satisfying, for me even sometimes moving show.
The other time I’ve seen him was also in Cologne, E-Werk, in 1992. I don’t remember individual songs, but that it was an equally professional show as last year, it was in the time when he had Candy Dulfer in his band, which was a plus. But he didn’t play so much classic songs back then.
To sum it up: go see him. It surely will be worth it. Hey, it’s still Van the Man! He’s one of the few really greats, and he still has it. (but don’t ever expect him to take of his hat, his sunglasses, or, shudder, to smile. Also, he almost never talks to the audience. But he’s been always that way, he loves to let his music speak.)
About 4 yrs ago, somewhat disappointed, he was riffing on his old favorites but not actually singing them so you’d hear the first bars of like Brown Eyed Girl and think YAY and then he’d go off on a tangent somewhat related to the song we know.
Heh, as a fan I’d be totally cool with that. Just having Van on stage following wherever his stream of consciousness happened to flow would actually be Van-ish and Dylan-esque.
OTOH, I once saw Stevie Nicks, only because friends had an extra ticket and I was bored. She was awful!! She had a cold/throat issues/whatever and she would [del]sing[/del]croak the first few bars of a song and then just talk for a bit. She apologized repeatedly, but her fans ate it up. The crowd consisted of 20,000 Nicks fans and me.