Well, to tell you the truth, Mick, you are probably right...yet again...and you were best not to see Van. Not that he's "bland" or stinks at this point but because I'm not sure what you would get out of him. He has changed over the years and not just his voice getting deeper or his head getting balder. He has changed the way he sings and how he sings. He has become more of a stylist I think, jazzier, and is very concerned with phrasing. He's sort of more Tony Bennett like these days. I don't mean that as a shot at him either but he seems to have really concerned himself with that sort of singing and this has drastically altered the way he performs his songs. His voice, which I'll admit not everybody likes, is still in fine form but you can tell when he sings that he is giving a very specific reading of whatever song he's doing. Sort of like he's trying to be the ultimate professional and certainly much more technical than he was in younger days. It's always funny listening to people complain about his shows because either he didn't play the hits they wanted to hear or he did play some of them but changed them so drastically that it did not sound like the record. I remember one show I saw where he did a lot of jazzy covers and played his own songs in the same style. The songs he did play that he wrote were not his hits either. The crowd hated it for the most part and I'm sure that went down as another "bad" Van show for many of them. The thing was he sounded great and obviously he was enjoying himself. I thought it was great but if you came to hear him belt out Brown Eyed Girl or Into the Mystic and you only knew the records...well...I'm sure you would be sitting there thinking I can't believe I paid for this.

I love that Chieftains record too, particularly She Moved Through the Fair and Carrickfergus and he will often slip into that trad mode during his shows for a song or two or three. These days he seems to often be trying to cover a lot of ground and his shows are a melting pot of him playing country, blues, jazz, trad, folk, and his own brand of Irish soul. Often, depending on his band, everything can end up with sort of a lounge jazz sheen...which can be odd (country lounge jazz?) and lousy I'll admit. A Van show is basically a risk and I would tell anybody seeing him for the first time at this stage in the game to go into his show expecting not to hear any of the hits and not to expect him to sound anything like what he does on the records. He is not the Eagles (who while they sound great seem to be trying to play note for note exactly as you heard it on the records). When Van does a song live he always changes it, sometimes a little bit, sometimes a lot...a crazy ultra-fast jazz scat version of Brown Eyed Girl will throw people for a loop.

Basically, his records are one thing and should be enjoyed for what they are and his live shows are something different and should be enjoyed for what they are. You are up your arse if you think he's bland or boring commercial crap because he obviously cares nothing for any of that. It's probably safe to say that he could care less what you or I want to hear and I respect the hell out of that and I think it's part of what makes him great. Not everything he does is great, and frankly some of it has been pretty lousy, but when he nails something boy does he ever nail it.

Personally, I love when he's in his soul, r & b, blues mood and his live shows in the time frame of Hymns to the Silence, Too Long in Exile, A Night in San Francisco (a great live recording from this period) and Days Like This were amazing. He had a smoking band (Pee Wee Ellis and Georgie Fame among others) and multiple singers travelling with him from blues greats like Junior Wells and Jimmy Witherspoon to this guy Brian Kennedy and even his daughter Shana and every show was like a huge celebration of all this music. If you missed seeing Van in that time frame in the 90's you really missed something very special. These days, like the title of his new record, he's keeping it simple. I think how satisfying you find his show depends on you not really on him as he will deliver pretty much want he wants to deliver. It might not be what you want or expect to hear but it is often going to be pretty damn good. I will admit after seeing him several times in the 90's when he changed the way he was doing his live shows it was a disappointment to me because you remember how great those shows were. Like I said though if you carry expectations into a Van show you are likely to get burned.

I remember taking one of my friends to see Van after he insisted he had to see him after hearing songs I had played for him and listening to me blab about how great he was. So I score us a couple of tickets and off we go to the show. His expectations were through the roof and of course it turns out to be the single worst Van show I have ever seen. Sound problems, something went wrong with his sax and he looked like he was going to kill his tech that was out on stage trying to help him with it during a song. The band seemed like they may have been just some group of musicians Van found in a bar on the way to the show, sloppy and not very impressive. On top of this Van was starting and stopping songs as he pleased, calling out to the band to change to a different song mid-tune, and appeared in a generally foul mood. He ended up playing for about an hour, once and a while walking to the side of the stage to scream at someone mid-song (I assume this is what he was doing because his arms were flailing about) then he unstrapped the guitar he was playing-fiddling with and let it drop to the floor and walked off. The band noodled around still playing the song and glancing stage left where he went until they finally stopped and all stood there looking to the side of the stage like they didn't know what to do. After a few long sort of tense minutes Van reappeared now wearing his sax (which seemed like not a very good sign considering what had gone on before) strode to the mic in front of his still sort of stunned band and began to belt out a tune and they kicked in behind him. He blew a few notes on the sax then threw it to the floor, grabbed the mic from the stand and sang a few lines as walked toward the exit stage left, threw the mic to the floor and he was gone. Needless to say my buddy, also a musician, was not impressed with any aspect of this debacle.

After the show I played Summertime in England very loud in the car on the way to the bar to remind him what Van could do. He still loves Van but does not want to see him live again.